Tag Archives: employees

Winners of DHEC’s top employee award recognized

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Fifteen S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control employees were honored March 23 for embodying the agency’s core values. The Director’s Award, established in 2015, is DHEC’s most prestigious employee award and is presented annually.

This year’s award winners are:

  • Louis Eubank, Certificate of Need program director
  • Jessica Boynton and Matt Slagel, Ocean & Coastal Resource Management
  • Hurricane Matthew GIS Team: Wesley Askew, John Boulware, Seth Church, Elzbieta Covington, Jeannie Eidson, and Emily Watson
  • Agency Rebrand Team from Communications: Mary-Kathryn Craft, Anthony Doyle, Cristi Horne, Joshua Laney, and Sheree Muse
  • Carol Hodges, Marion County nurse site supervisor

Meet the award winners in this video:

The winners were selected from a pool of 45 nominations submitted by colleagues from throughout the agency. The Director’s Award Selection Committee had the difficult task of closely reviewing all of the nominations and choosing the final award winners from the competitive group of nominees.

Read more about the winners and their work here.

Please join the agency in congratulating the winners on their outstanding achievement!

This Week at DHEC

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National Wear Red Day

 

 

A roundup of some of the ways we’re working for Healthy People and Healthy Communities.

Plantation Pipe Line Lewis Drive Release

In partnership with Anderson County, we held a public meeting on January 31 to hear comments and answer questions about the Plantation Pipe Line Lewis Drive Release.

Anderson County residents packed into a school cafeteria Tuesday to complain about Kinder Morgan’s cleanup efforts at its Belton gas spill site.

Representatives of the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control spent more than two hours at Cedar Grove Elementary School near Williamston. The officials gave updates, answered questions and heard complaints from Cheddar and Broadway Lake residents at the first such public meeting since the December 2014 spill.

We post regular updates about this issue here.

National Birth Defects Prevention Month

Maternal and Child Health Planning and Evaluation Program Manager Vinita Oberoi Leedom share ways to improve your chances of a healthy baby.

 

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Monarch Elementary School 5th Grade Students

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Health Regulation Team Honored for Outstanding Effort in Patient Safety Work

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By Jim Beasley
photo above: Shelly B. Kelly, Yolanda Holloman, Tamara Grant, Barbara Brague and MaryJo Rooue

Sometimes, regulating leads to the need for swift action.

Emergency actions taken by DHEC Health Regulations staff following an unannounced complaint investigation at an ambulatory surgery center have earned recognition from the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). Their efforts also exemplified the agency’s core value of promoting teamwork.

It was April 2015 when registered nurses Tamara Grant and Yolanda Holloman from DHEC’s Bureau of Certification visited a site and found that the facility was placing its patients in “Immediate Jeopardy,” the formal term for a crisis situation in which the health and safety of individuals are at risk. Serious violations were found, including practices covering infection control and surgical services.

The team collaborated with the Bureau of Health Facilities Licensing and the Division of Acute Disease Epidemiology, finding several areas at the facility requiring an urgent plan of correction. Bureau of Health Facilities Licensing staff referred the center’s medical director for review by another state agency, while Division of Acute Disease Epidemiology staff conducted a contact investigation of patients and collaborated with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for additional guidance.

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Eva Johnson, Lorie Sanders, Tamara Grant, Sandra Johnson, Barbara Brague and Yolanda Holloman

Barbara Brague, a registered nurse with the Bureau of Certification, helped guide the inspectors in the field during a situation that proved a challenging experience for all. She interacted with the other DHEC bureaus and worked closely with the CMS regional office to determine whether the facility’s correction plan was acceptable.

DHEC surveyors conducted follow-up inspections in May and June 2015 to verify that corrections were made and to ensure the facility complied with federal regulations and conditions.

This shining example of cooperation and collaboration among bureaus demonstrates the importance of communication across the agency and with our partners.

Congratulations to all staff involved in this extraordinary effort for helping to protect the health and safety of patients. The award is well-deserved.