TMP used a four run fourth inning to take the lead for good in game one against Russell/Victoria on Tuesday afternoon at TMP Field. The Monarchs trailed 3-0 early but fought back with a run in the first and second innings before the big fourth. TMP scored an important insurance run in the sixth inning to take a four run lead.
Russell, trailing 7-3, loaded the bases with nobody out in the top of the seventh inning but were only able to plate two runs. Kameron Schmidt picked up the win for TMP and Ryan Ruder earned the say. Taylor Rome took the loss for the Broncos.
Game 2: Russell/Victoria 6, TMP 3
After taking an early two to nothing lead in game two the TMP defense faltered. The Monarchs committed seven errors in their fourth loss of the season. Russell/Victoria took advantage of those errors, scoring all six of their runs in innings where TMP committed five of the seven errors.
Liam Stults took the loss for TMP while Brandon Ridgley picked up the win for Russell/Victoria. The Monarchs are now 10-4 on the season and will host Sacred Heart in a doubleheader on Thursday. The Broncos improve to 8-4 and will host Beloit next Tuesday.
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A former police chief and three other ex-officers have now been indicted in a gun sale conspiracy at the Bel Aire Police Department.
Grand jury indictments handed up Tuesday against ex-chief John R. Daily of Bel Aire and former officer Ricky L. Swanson of Wichita are the two latest in what prosecutors say was a conspiracy to buy discounted firearms. Both were charged with wire fraud and mail fraud.
Federal prosecutors allege the officers falsely represented the weapons were police department property to take advantage of special pricing and tax exemptions.
Court records do not show whether they have an attorney, and no one returned a voice message left at Daily’s home.
Two other former officers were charged in December for their roles in the scheme.
JUNCTION CITY – Two drivers were injured in an accident just before 3 p.m. on Tuesday in Geary County.
The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 2002 Jeep driven by Tosha Marie Gill, 30, Lacey, WA., was northbound on US. 77 approaching McFarland one mile south of the Kansas 18 Junction.
A 2011 Suzuki driven by Denise Vega, 47, Junction City, was eastbound on McFarland approaching the intersection.
Both drivers claim they had green lights and continued into the intersection where they collided.
Gill and Vega were transported to Geary County Hospital.
The KHP reported both drivers were properly restrained at the time of the collision.
Jane Maier was one of a select group of patients invited in early 2012 to help Partners HealthCare, Massachusetts’ largest health system, pick its new electronic health record system – a critical investment of close to $700 million.
The system, which is now being phased in, will help coordinate services and reshape how patients and doctors find and read medical information. The fact that Partners sought the perspective of patients highlights how hospitals increasingly care about what their customers think.
“It’s such a great experience,” Maier said. “They treat us as a member – a partner – in their review process.” Patient advisory councils, like the one Maier belongs to, often serve as sounding boards for hospital leaders – offering advice on a range of issues. Members usually are patients and relatives who had bad hospital experiences and want to change how things work, or who liked their stay and want to remain involved.
For Maier, it all started in 2009 when she had surgery at Brigham and Women’s Faulkner Hospital, a Partners facility. Her husband wrote to the hospital’s CEO, praising her experience.
The couple were then invited to speak at a hospital leadership retreat, sharing with top executives both the good and the not-so-good, and Maier was recruited to serve on a new patient advisory panel. This hunt for patient perspective, which is becoming more common, is fueled in part by the health law’s quality-improvement provisions and other federal financial incentives, such as the link between Medicare payments and patient satisfaction scores.
“It’s a change in culture,” said Jayne Hart Chambers, senior vice president for quality at the Federation of American Hospitals, which represents for-profit hospitals. Data from 2013 suggested that 40 percent of hospitals had some kind of patient council, said Mary Minniti, a program and resource specialist at the Institute for Patient and Family Centered Care, a Maryland-based nonprofit organization. Though councils appear to have become more common in the past few years, experts say it’s too early to know whether they typically improve hospital practices.
“A lot of hospitals right now are very concerned because of the direction of [Medicare] payments,” said Carol Cronin, executive director of the nonprofit Informed Patient Institute, an advocacy group. “They’re very concerned about patient experience and patient satisfaction.” But it’s not just federal incentives.
Patients have greater expectations as they shoulder larger shares of health care costs, said Richard Evans, chief experience officer at Massachusetts General Hospital, another Partners facility. This, he added, leads hospitals to focus on customer service. Cronin, who has had a relative stay for an extended time in the hospital, volunteers on the patient advisory council at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore.
She was struck, she said, by the “meaty” topics the group addresses. Johns Hopkins medical researchers even have pitched their projects to the council to find out what patients and families think are worthy of scientific investigation. To have an impact, though, these groups can’t operate in isolation. Patient and family advisory councils are useful if they have the ear of hospital leaders, Minniti said.
But the groups also have to be integrated into decision making. Andy DeVries joined the first patient advisory council at Michigan’s Spectrum Health about 10 years ago, after he was hospitalized with life-threatening injuries from a motorcycle accident. “Initially, nobody knew who we were and we had to sell ourselves,” said DeVries, who now serves on one of Spectrum Health’s 13 patient groups.
Now, by contrast, his group offers input “any time there’s something new that involves patient or family care,” adding that the panel of patient advisers has tackled issues ranging from increased facility security to how the hospital should give patients billing information. He’s even worked with the human resources department on what to look for when hiring doctors and nurses.
Such feedback led to marked increases in patient satisfaction scores, said Deborah Sprague, Spectrum Health’s program manager for patient and family services. For instance, she said, a member of the orthopedics and neuroscience patient council noticed slow responses when he pushed the call button in his hospital room, a problem staff hadn’t noticed. The council worked with hospital employees to speed response times.
After the fix, positive patient assessments of the hospital jumped. Maier, from the Faulkner council, recalled a time when hospital executives asked for help with patient complaints regarding nighttime noise levels. Late-night talking by staff was keeping patients awake.
The group discussed potential nighttime “quiet times” and other strategies to minimize noise without keeping doctors from doing their jobs. Once changes were made, patient satisfaction scores went up, Maier said — and a council member noticed a definite improvement the next time he was a patient.
Meanwhile, MedStar Health, which serves the District of Columbia and Maryland, has targeted advisory panels’ efforts to improve both the quality and safety of its care. The system has emerged as a model for finding ways to incorporate patients’ opinions, which was noted in a report from the American Hospital Association. In one recent case, said David Mayer, MedStar’s vice president of quality and safety, patient advisers helped brainstorm ways to soothe the confusion and stress that often sets in when people have been in the ICU for more than a day.
When implemented, the ideas led to reduced instances of patient confusion – known as delirium – which is linked to more destructive behavior, like patients trying to leave the room or bed before they should. But even as the role of patient advisory committees grows, recruiting members continues to be a challenge.
Finding people from diverse backgrounds with both the inclination and time to serve can be tricky, Cronin said. As a result, council members are often “middle-aged and older, white and English-speaking, and a lot of women,” said Deb Wachenheim, health quality manager at the Massachusetts-based advocacy group Health Care For All. For some hospitals and health systems, though, these panels are just the beginning. Massachusetts General puts patients on various policy setting committees, and Faulkner has a non-voting patient board member. “As we continue to evolve,” Maier said, “the hospital looks to us more and more.”
FHSU President Dr. Mirta Martin takes a candid photo of the VALUE scholars.
FHSU University Relations
With a gift of $200,000 announced in a Tuesday news conference, Omer “Hap” Voss Jr. has created the Voss Advanced Leadership Undergraduate Experience at Fort Hays State University, known as the VALUE program.
Hap Voss, of San Francisco, is the son of Omer Sr. and Annabelle Voss, long-time supporters of Fort Hays State and two people who truly believed in education and the importance of providing young minds with the opportunity to succeed.
Omer G. Voss, Sr. (Photo courtesy FHSU)
Omer Sr. grew up in Phillipsburg and enrolled at FHSU in 1933 at age 16. He went on to become the vice-president of International Harvester Company (now Navistar), living and working on every continent from the 1940s through the 1970s.
His son quoted from a speech Omer Sr. made at FHSU in 2004 about the need for “get it done skills” for employees, and for life.
“He said ‘I’ve managed people with outstanding knowledge and skills but they’ve not received the training or education or coaching necessary to give them the leadership skills that they and we need badly. Too often our most talented and knowledgeable employees are lacking the necessary skills to lead others. We need to train them and prepare them to lead,'” Voss read from his notes.
Then he looked up at the audience filled with Leadership Studies students and said, “I’ll add to that. We need to learn to lead at every level, not just at the top.”
Over the years, the Voss family has made generous gifts to the FHSU Foundation. In 2003, the couple established the “Omer G. Voss Distinguished Professorship in Leadership Studies.”
Tim Chapman, president and CEO of the FHSU Foundation, said the $200,000 was an “initial” gift and he invited others to contribute to the VALUE program.
Chapman recalled visiting the couple’s home in Chicago many times. When he asked about their various educational gifts, Annabelle Voss said, “Our money seems to go further at Fort Hays State.”
Dr. Mirta M. Martin, president, pointed to today’s gift as one more example of the value of family at Fort Hays State. “The legacy lives on,” she said. “This wonderful gift to FHSU students is also a tribute from Hap to his parents. We care about each other in the Tiger family, and this gift demonstrates how that attitude of caring continues to live over the miles, the years and for many, many, many generations to come. This gift shows the importance of leading from the heart.”
Annabelle passed away in 2009, and Omer Sr. passed away three years later in 2012.
According to Chapman, the couple’s son, Hap, is a chip off the old block. “Hap’s dream is coming true to help Fort Hays State and to fulfill the hopes of his father and mother who wanted nothing more than to support students and help them to become leaders of our country and world.”
In presenting the gift, Hap Voss recalled visits to the FHSU campus over the years with his father and mother. In one of those visits, he said his father advised students that to become leaders, they must “dig down and find your skills.” Voss Sr. gave the Commencement address in 1961, and when he received an honorarium of $600, he and Annabelle decided to donate it to an FHSU scholarship fund. That was the beginning of financial support for Fort Hays State from the Voss family.
Hap Voss earned an undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan, served in Vietnam with the Navy and returned to school for a graduate degree. He retired a couple years ago as a senior vice president with the Bank of America, but he said he never learned about leadership in college. “Early on, I wasn’t the leader I could have been.”
In discussions with FHSU faculty, he discovered the Leadership Studies program could do even better by establishing the VALUE program. “Leading begins at the edge of your comfort zone,” he said, and he decided the gift of $200,000 to create the VALUE program would help FHSU’s leadership faculty and students “make it happen.”
Dr. Curt Brungardt, FHSU Omer G. Voss Distinguished Professor of Leadership Studies, and Omer Voss, Jr.
Curt Brungardt, director of FHSU’s Center for Civic Leadership, spoke about his personal connection to the Voss family and what this latest gift would mean to his students.
“Over the last decade, it has been my honor to hold the title of Omer Voss Distinguished Professor of Leadership Studies,” Brungardt said. “Omer and Annabelle Voss and their family have had a tremendous impact on this university and especially the Department of Leadership Studies, the Center for Civic Leadership, and most importantly, our students.”
Brungardt said he got to spend a lot of quality time with the couple in their home. “I would make the excuse to go to Chicago at least once or twice a year and I really grew close to both of them. We would sit and visit for hours about their life, Omer’s time at FHSU, and his advice to our leadership students,” he recalled. “On some of those trips Hap was there, and I got to meet and develop a relationship with him as well. Since his parent’s death, I now make an effort to go see Hap in San Francisco yearly.”
Dr. Jill Arensdorf, FHSU Dept. of Leadership Studies Chair
The VALUE program is “designed to develop the most promising undergraduates into powerful agents for good, following their educational experience at FHSU,” Jill Arensdorf, chair and associate professor of the Department of Leadership Studies, said during the news conference.
“The VALUE program is a year-long curricular and co-curricular experience for upper-division students, where they will be challenged to embrace and dedicate themselves to deeper individual development.”
Students in the Voss Advanced Leadership Undergraduate Experience program are able to explore their personal interests and develop a plan of study for one year related to corporate leadership, civic/non-profit leadership, or scholarship/leadership research.
These students can also take advantage of mentoring and coaching, experiential learning, advanced leadership labs, and will, at the end of the year-long program, submit an e-portfolio to present the scope of their work to Leadership Studies faculty and VALUE mentors.
Arensdorf introduced the students who were chosen to participate in the VALUE class for the 2015-16 academic year:
Stephen Anderson, a Kansas City, Kan., senior majoring in Informatics;
Ali Sedbrook, a Thornton, Colo., junior majoring in Organizational Leadership;
Lindsay Smith, a Wichita senior majoring in Organizational Leadership;
Ashley Templeton, a Wilson junior majoring in Organizational Leadership;
Chance Bulmer, a Hays junior majoring in Organizational Leadership;
Lizette Avalos, a Liberal senior majoring in Organizational Leadership;
Tera Mills, an Arkansas City senior majoring in Organizational Leadership;
Emilie Atherton, an Advance, N.C., junior majoring in Organizational Leadership;
Jade Singleton-Reich, a Denver junior majoring in Organizational Leadership; and
Kaitlyn Dinges, a Cimarron senior majoring in Organizational Leadership.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt says state officials aren’t required to publicly disclose emails sent through private accounts even if the messages involve public business.
Schmidt said in a legal opinion Tuesday that individual state employees don’t meet the legal definition of a government agency or government-funded entity under the Kansas Open Records Act.
The act requires agencies or government-funded entities to make their records available to the public, though it contains dozens of exceptions.
The Republican attorney general issued the opinion at the request of Kansas Senate Democratic Leader Anthony Hensley of Topeka.
Hensley sought the opinion following disclosures that Budget Director Shawn Sullivan used a private email account at least twice in December to circulate details about budget proposals to a group that included two lobbyists.
HUTCHINSON — A Kansas man entered a no contest plea to a single count of aggravated incident liberties with a child in Reno County District Court on Tuesday.
Judge Trish Rose then found Etric Jones II, Hutchinson, guilty of having a sexual encounter with a 15-year-old girl.
Jones, who was 18 at the time of the crime, forced the girl into inappropriate sexual relationship.
She claims that she told him no, while Jones claims she never said that.
Officials said the two left school together, parked in an alley and things escalated from there.
MCPHERSON, Kan. (AP) — A 31-year-old central Kansas man has pleaded no contest to a first-degree murder charge in connection with the November death of a former Oregon resident.
The Salina Journal reports Clinton Bascue of McPherson entered his plea Monday in McPherson County District Court in the death of 39-year-old James Avery Croft.
Croft, originally from Portland, Oregon, before moving to McPherson, was found on Nov. 15 in a car that was in a ditch near Galva, 10 miles east of McPherson.
A second person, 28-year-old Kamra Kay Farrell, also has been charged in Croft’s death. Her next court appearance also is scheduled for July 6, about four hours before Bascue is sentenced.
Farrell’s bond is set at $500,000, while Bascue’s was revoked as a result of his plea.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Bishop Robert Finn, who resigned last week as leader of the Kansas City-St. Joseph Diocese, will preside over the ordinations of seven deacons next month.
Diocese officials said Monday the ordinations on May 23 conflict with the schedule of Archbishop Joseph Naumann, who was appointed temporary leader of the diocese after Finn resigned.
The Kansas City Star reports Naumann will preside over ordinations of deacons of the Kansas City, Kansas, diocese, which he leads, at the same time the ordinations are scheduled in the Missouri diocese.
Naumann also said he wanted to respect the wishes of the seven Missouri deacons, who received their training under Finn’s guidance.
Diocese spokesman Jack Smith said ordinations are scheduled months in advance and must be performed by a bishop.
MCPHERSON COUNTY- Three people were injured in an accident just after 2 p.m. on Tuesday in McPherson County.
The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 2000 Dodge Dakota driven by David Jones, 63, McPherson, was northbound on Interstate 135 four miles north of Heston.
The truck left roadway to the left and struck guardrail.
Jones and two children in the truck were transported to Newton Medical Center.
The KHP reported a 2-year-old girl in the truck was not properly restrained at the time of the accident.
FHSU Sports Information
Fort Hays State junior Tori Beltz was named the MIAA/AstroTurf Softball Hitter of the Week on Tuesday (Apr. 28) for her efforts the week of April 21-27. Beltz helped the Tigers go 3-3 overall last week, which included a key conference doubleheader sweep of Nebraska-Kearney to help FHSU earn a spot in this week’s MIAA Tournament.
Beltz had a big week at the plate, hitting .412 with five extra-base hits (3 home runs, 2 doubles) and eight RBI. She went 7-for-17, but drew five walks and was hit by a pitch once. Adding a fielders choice into that mix, she reached base safely in 14 of her 23 plate appearances for the week and had an on-base percentage of .565 for the week.
Beltz had two, two-run home runs in the second game of a doubleheader at Northwestern Oklahoma State, the second plating the decisive runs in a 6-5 win. In the conference doubleheader sweep of Nebraska-Kearney, she had an RBI single in game one, part of a six-run rally for FHSU in the second inning of a 9-8 win, and then a solo homer and an RBI double in a 4-0 game two win. Beltz scored six runs for the week, half of them in the conference doubleheader sweep of UNK.
