Medical blog » Opening

Gulf Coast Medical Center opening draws crowd

admin — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 09:44:00 +0000

Lines leading from the new Gulf Coast Medical Center in south Fort Myers looked more like the line for a ride at Disney World than for a hospital tour.
But, crowds came to take in all the new facility, walking around the 436,000 square feet of new construction in groups of 20.
Rose Digiorgio, 69, said she came to see it for peace of mind.
Nobody wants to go to the hospital, but its great to know its here if you need it, she said. Plus the building is beautiful.
The groups tours began in radiology and weaved around wide hallways offering glimpses of new technology and equipment in each area.
Denise Krause-Larsen, 53, a registered nurse of 28 years, was thrilled by the pre-operating rooms.
One of 10 that work in the recovery unit at Southwest Florida Regional Medical center, she will be transferred to Gulf Coast when the facility opens in March.
Its so big, and well be able to be right next to the patients, which is really good, she said.
Theyve really thought about what we need as a staff.

Medical center's opening put off

admin — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 20:41:59 +0000

The Brunswick County medical center is one of three hospitals the corporation is now building in North Carolina, and the economic situation has caused Novant to decide not to outsource information technology installations in the new facilities.
Since all the work will now be done by corporate employees, said Amy Myers, spokeswoman at Brunswick Community Hospital, the timetable for the work has been prioritized based on the stage of construction of each new facility.
Novant officials had originally hoped the hospital would open in 2010, but Myers said it now could take place in the first quarter of 2011.
The economy has also caused other changes at the hospital, Myers said, although none that should affect patient care.
Senior staff at the director level and above at Brunswick Community Hospital and other Novant facilities will not get pay raises this calendar year, and each job opening is being scrutinized by a top hospital administrator before it is filled.
The pay raise freeze won’t affect staff below the director level, Myers said. Novant determines staff pay raises based on the prevailing job market in health care each spring, and pay adjustments are made as a result.
The more thorough review of job openings doesn’t mean the hospital and corporation will not be hiring anyone, Myers said.
The corporation, with about 24,800 employees systemwide, has an average of 300 to 400 openings a month.
Decisions may be made to delay filling some of the open positions.
The corporation said in a news release announcing the year-end loss that it will continue its community outreach programs and expects its level of charity care to rise as the economy worsens.

At Home Fitness Announces Grand Opening Of Gilbert, Arizona Store

admin — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 03:27:33 +0000

At Home Fitness Announces Grand Opening Of Gilbert, Arizona Store
Highly anticipated grand opening of At Home Fitness store took place on beginning 2009 in Gilbert Arizona.
Gilbert, AZ (
) February 18, 2009 — To ring in the new year of 2009, At Home Fitness officially opened the doors to its Gilbert, Arizona store. Located on the corner of San Tan Village Parkway and Market Street right next door to Creative Leather, the new store offers a variety of home gym products manufactured by some of the top brands in the industry.
“We are really excited about the opening of this new store,” said owner Bryan Dorksen. “A growing number of consumers are trying to find ways to stay fit without having to spend the time or money it takes to go to the gym. With the current economic troubles, purchasing a piece of home gym equipment is really the best way to stay save money while still sticking to a solid exercise routine.”
Located just a few blocks south of the San Tan Village Mall, which is an area many consider to be a “Shopping Mecca” in the world of retail, the new store is also in a convenient location for consumers who are interested in purchasing home gym equipment.
Home gym equipment available at the store includes treadmills, elliptical trainers, rowing machines, exercise bikes, stair climbers, vibration plates, free weights and kettle bells. Brands available at the store include Landice, Life Core, LeMond Fitness, BodyCraft, AFG Fitness, Power Plate, H20 Fitness, GoFit, Cardio Gym, Horizon Fitness, LifeSpan Fitness, Body Solid, Daimondback, Quantum, Perfect Pushup, Fitnex, ProForm, Sole Fitness, Schwinn, Nautilus, Bowflex, Healthrider and Dr. Hoys.
To learn more about At Home Fitness, visit AtHomeFitness.net
.

Roosevelt Plaza grand opening introduces new fitness center

admin — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 15:16:28 +0000

Marvin Matejka is achieving his goal of keeping Roosevelt Plaza — a one-time creamery turned pizza factory turned business center in Black River Falls — filled with a variety of businesses.
Most recently, a 4,000-square-foot, 24-hour fitness center was added to the list of businesses that call Roosevelt Plaza home.
Roosevelt Plaza, located along Highway 12/27 in Black River Falls, held its grand opening this past weekend, a week after the opening of Plaza 24/7 Fitness. The gym joins VPS Photography, The Sport Locker and BRF Studio 107 LLC, all of whom settled into three separate units at the plaza late last year.
Two businesses have since moved in: Speedcash Loans in January and the Ho-Chunk Nation Election Board offices in June.
Matejka said he still has room for more.
“Not all units are filled up,” he said. “There is space for two to five more tenants, depending on how much space they want.”
Roosevelt Plaza was remodeled to accommodate the needs of small retail businesses and those seeking office space. Matejka purchased the property almost six years ago with a vision to renovate the structure to house offices and retail space. Renovations began in April 2007 with the help of Simmons Construction LLC of Holmen.
As well as Roosevelt Plaza, Matejka and his wife, Sheila, own Cobblestone Cottage in Hixton and commercial properties in Ettrick.
Matejka owns and operates the gym, located on the upper level of Roosevelt Plaza.
“I thought it would be a good place for a fitness center,” he said. “I didn’t get any response so I just went ahead and did it.”
The fitness center is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Only members are allowed access to the facility by electronic key card. An attendant is on duty only part time throughout the week.
The gym offers cardiovascular equipment and weight machines. It also boasts a big screen television, a toddler area, showers and lockers. The entire facility is monitored by cameras.
“It’s a very low-cost labor way of doing it,” Matejka said. He said any store in Roosevelt Plaza can answer questions about the fitness center, due to a contractual agreement between Matejka and other business owners and the lack of a full-time attendant in the facility.
Matejka said 24/7 Fitness offers convenience to customers in the Black River Falls area by allowing them to use the facility whenever it is most convenient for them.
Connie Crandall, owner of BRF Studio 107, said moving to the new building is something she has never regretted. The move has made her business more visible and increased the number of customers her salon serves.
“We have the highway that goes right by and also the parking lot which was a big issue,” she said. “People had to walk four blocks to get to the old salon, but now there’s a parking lot and it’s handicap accessible.”
Crandall moved her business from downtown Black River Falls to Roosevelt Plaza because she needed more room. The new location has allowed Crandall to expand from four hairdressing stations to six. Since moving in, Crandall has remodeled the space.
“We figured out we didn’t like how the traffic flowed so we made it more spacious,” she said.
In the meantime, Matejka said he is ready to work with other businesses to fill up the remaining spaces. “I’ve always made new things out of old things,” he said. “I’ve always been a person who likes to see things develop.”

A posh new fitness center for women is opening in Dorchester.

admin — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 09:42:26 +0000

A posh new fitness center for women is opening in Dorchester.
A building near Dorchester District Court that once housed prisoners has been transformed into a fitness center for women called Healthworks at Codman. The grand opening is scheduled for Jan. 27.
The gym at 450 Washington St. is a partnership between the nonprofit Codman Square Health Center, which owns the building, and Healthworks, a locally owned chain of upscale women’s health clubs.
Monthly memberships cost between $0 and $30, and patients at the Codman Square Health Center and Dorchester House Multi-Service Center can get prescriptions to work out at the facility for free.
“Many people in middle-class areas use gyms for regular exercise, but gyms are rare in low-income communities,” said
Codman Square Health Center’s CEO, Bill Walczak. “People don’t have access to them, or they’re too costly.”
Healthworks at Codman “is a response to that,” he said.
Codman Square Health Center officials hope the new fitness center will become a hub of physical activity in the neighborhood.
And so far, so good:
Since the gym’s “soft opening” in mid-October, membership has grown to 500 people, according to Mark Harrington, president of Healthworks Fitness Centers for Women, Inc., which operates gyms in the Back Bay, Brookline, Cambridge, Chestnut Hill and Salem.
“We feel that fitness is empowerment for women,” said Harrington. “We wanted to create a place where they can feel at home, a safe environment where they feel comfortable.”
The 9,000-square-foot fitness facility is located inside a single-story building at the intersection of Washington and Park streets, in the heart of Codman Square. The building which dates back to the 1920s, once housed a car dealership and an auto garage. In the ’80s it became an annex building for Dorchester District Court.
The building recently got a $600,000 makeover and was turned into a state-of-the-art fitness center.
Today, the interior walls of the place are painted in subdued shades of yellow, orange, and green. Treadmills and elliptical machines are arranged in neat rows in the spacious, sun-filled main exercise area. Using gleaming new Life Fitness strength machines that line the perimeter of the room, women can do circuit exercises like leg extensions and seated leg curls.
Music pumps out of Bose speakers in the group exercise studio, where members can take classes in yoga, African dance, tai chi, and cardio kickboxing.
A huge window fills the space where a garage door once stood, and sunlight pours into the 2,500-square-foot co-ed youth gymnasium that is outfitted with cutting-edge interactive games. There’s a wall at each end of the gym where kids can throw basketballs at targets that light up, and XerDance pads that children use to practice their dance moves on, while watching images of themselves projected on a wall.
A teaching kitchen is slated to open in the fitness center this spring. The plan is to hold cooking classes there, according to Walczak. (Fund-raising for the kitchen is still going on.
Healthworks at Codman is open to all women and children, and its membership dues are much lower than the monthly fees at other Healthworks locations, which average around $90. Discounts are also available, on a sliding scale, based on the individual’s income. Kids can join for free.
Dr. Ethan Brackett, the health center’s medical liaison to the gym, said physicians at the Codman Square Health Center write exercise “prescriptions” for patients suffering from diabetes, obesity, hypertension, and other conditions, and they get to work out for free.
Brackett said the gym helps medical professionals “reach beyond the health center” and fills a void in this low-income neighborhood where “there aren’t enough supermarkets, just convenience stores on every corner and fast food.”
The new gym is staffed by Healthworks employees and is a project of the Codman Square Health Center and the Healthworks Foundation, a charitable organization created by the health club company in 1998.
Healthworks at Codman is the Healthworks Foundation’s second foray into Dorchester. In January 2002 the Healthworks Foundation opened a 3,500-square-foot fitness center in Uphams Corner to serve homeless and low-income women and teenage mothers from St. Mary’s Women and Children’s Center.
“We wanted to be part of the community. We wanted to give back,” said Harrington. “Dorchester is a great community. There are people of means here, and there are people who aren’t of means. When you bring them all together in one place, where everyone is in gym shorts and T-shirts, it doesn’t matter who you are.”
Healthworks at Codman is open Monday through Thursday from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Friday from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.; and Saturday from 8 a.m. to noon. For more information, visit
or call 617-825-2800.
.

A posh new fitness center for women is opening in Dorchester.

admin — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 11:00:01 +0000

Full-Time Fighter: Sean Salmon on opening SS Combat & Fitness

admin — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 15:08:46 +0000

I am going to do my best with this column to describe what the last year and half has been like working to open SS Combat and Fitness, as well as address some of the questions or comments posted after MMAjunkie.com’s
about the gym.
I had my first fight in November 2005 in my hometown of Columbus, Ohio. I started my first MMA training about one month before the fight. Actually, that was my first kind of training in any sort of combat sport outside of wrestling. I was doing most all my training in The Ohio State University wrestling room with just a small handful of guys. None of us were particularly well versed in anything besides wrestling.
In fact, shortly after that first fight, I signed to be represented by Gary Marino (a great guy and still a good friend) who flew me out to Boston for open auditions for season two of “The Ultimate Fighter.” They did the wrestling/jiu-jitsu part first, and I was moved on to the stand-up portion at which time they said we were going to “hit mitts.” The first thought to cross my mind was, “What the hell are mitts?”
Obviously, that was where my audition ended. I can’t even imagine how ridiculous I must have looked to everyone hitting mitts for the first time. I find it humorous now.
Anyway, I was flying back from Boston and knew that my training needed an adjustment. I tried seeking out the best coaching in Columbus, but there was none. That’s when I found my way to Cincinnati and Jorge Gurgel’s MMA school. I made the 100-mile (one way) drive three times a week for almost a year. It was a very time- and money-consuming process, but my game was getting measurably better every day.
It was during those drives back and forth that I started thinking that I should open my own gym. I had a couple years of college, none of which were in business, but how hard could it be, right? Wow, I had no idea. Just finding a reasonably priced, reasonably located building proved difficult.
Fast forward about a year and half through many close calls and nearly complete plans that only fell through at the last moment and now, through the help of family and friends, I have a building.
This has all been done with no corporate sponsorship or even any investors. You can imagine how tight money has been. Everything we got for this gym has been done through hard work, negotiating and even owing favors down the road. So, that leads me to my shameless request for sponsors. If you would like to sponsor the gym, we offer many different advertising packages from hanging a banner, logo on the mats, website or emails, as well as selling your product in our pro shop. You can contact me directly at salmonsean [AT] yahoo.com or MMAAgents.com’s sponsor guy, Danny, at danny [AT] mmaagents.com.
Right now I am in the process of putting together the coaches. This is not going to be a gym where I teach everything. I am not that foolish or arrogant. We are going to have coaches for every discipline: Muay Thai, boxing, BJJ, wrestling and MMA. We will be offering those classes in youth to adult as well as beginner to professional. We will also be reaching out to the rest of Columbus by offering fitness-kickboxing and self-defense classes. My goal is to make this a place for anyone and everyone to come enjoy themselves and get into shape.
A quick update on my fighting. I have taken some time off since my Oct. 11 fight with Josh Haynes to continue to improve my stand up, as well as my mindset going into each fight. That being said, I am still improving every day and feel that I am bringing a completely different look to every fight, though still making what proves to be costly mistakes. Those are slowly but surely being eliminated.
I rarely address my critics, but it was tough not to notice all the comments on the last story from people that did not feel I was fit to own a gym because they did not believe I was a good enough fighter. You are all entitled to your opinions. I do wish some of you would keep them to yourself, but that is part of why MMAjunkie.com is such a great website: everyone can speak up.
Let me ask how many of you thought that Frank Mir would still be fighting right now a year and a half ago? How many more of you thought that he would be wearing UFC gold right now? Probably not many of you. Even I had pretty much written him off as a fighter. His head did not seem to be there, and he was not performing well. Mir’s past two fights have epitomized the best part of being an athlete in combat sports: You can always redefine yourself. If you work hard enough, there is going to come a time when everything just clicks for you. All the hard work will fall into place, and you will become unbeatable. Just because success has not struck like lightning for me does not make it any less inevitable. As they say, “Judge not the play before the play is done.”
Up next, I will be fighting on March 14 in Helsinki, Finland, against a Brazilian fighter with the goal of earning a rematch against Mikko Rupponen (who I beat in September 2007).
I did make my first good decision (with a lot of help) to turn down a possible fight on Feb. 6. I have such a hard time saying no to fights that I actually had to give my super-agent Ken Pavia the power to turn down fights before he even told me about them. He has always brought the fights to me and would then let me know his opinion on whether we should take it or not. There have been a few that he has strongly urged me to turn down only to have me fight with him and take it anyway.
As a fighter, it is hard to turn over control to someone else — especially when you love to compete as much as I do. However 2009 is ready to become the turning point of my career, even if the only change I make is following the advice of those that I trust. This is the year I pull a Frank Mir.
Sean Salmon (15-6 MMA) is an MMAjunkie.com columnist who occasionally pens his Full-Time Fighter column for the site. The column is designed to give readers a behind-the-scenes look at a professional fighter’s career and the ups and downs of the profession. If you have a question for Salmon, leave it in the comments section of the post. He answers all respectful queries.

Smyrna park opening on site of old psychiatric hospital

admin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 05:24:18 +0000

Smyrna’s first new park in a decade opens next month on the campus of a former psychiatric hospital on Atlanta Road.
The $9.2 million Taylor-Brawner Park, on the site of Brawner Hospital, is funded by a $22 million parks bond approved by voters in 2005. The city is also building four other new parks and improving 10 older parks.
“This park will be our flagship,” parks and recreation director Steve Ciaccio said. “We are adding green space and also recycling history.”
Although Smyrna has revitalized its downtown and added Village Green for public gatherings, new parks will help Smyrna catch up with the city’s growth and demand for green space. Before the bond vote, the city had 21 parks on about 291 acres.
The population of nearly 50,000 is twice what it was 30 years ago when the 26-acre Tolleson Park — the last park constructed, a 16-acre baseball complex off South Cobb Drive — opened in 1998.
Taylor-Brawner Park is the most expensive of the bond projects, but not the largest. The city is also redeveloping two former landfills into recreation areas. A 12-acre youth soccer park, River Line Park on Oakdale Road, is scheduled to open this summer. The first phase on about 15 acres of a 50-acre site on North Cooper Lake Road will open in the summer of 2009. The park will have open meadows and trails.
City officials, though, consider the Brawner property, a half-mile south of downtown Smyrna, its crown jewel. The 12-acre park on Atlanta Road will have walking trails around a large lawn, a gazebo, a playground and a picnic area.
The city also renovated the 100-year-old main hospital building for city offices, a reception and classroom. A citizens group, the Taylor-Brawner Foundation, raised $427,000 to restore a house built in 1890 on the property. The home of hospital founder Dr. James Brawner, a pioneer in the mental health field, will be rented for meetings and parties.
Dee Leonhardi, who lives near the park, looks forward to walking on trails and having a safe place for her children, ages 7 and 12, to play and ride bikes. She said the park is a better alternative than a Cobb/Douglas Community Service Board plan to use the property for psychiatric and drug- and alcohol-treatment programs.
The agency bought the property in 2000, a year after Brawner Hospital closed. After residents in neighboring subdivisions complained about the plan, Smyrna bought the property a year later for $2.8 million.
“We have waited a long time for this park,” Leonhardi said. “We are close-knit in Smyrna and this park will add to our sense of community.”

Take Care Health Systems Celebrates Grand Opening of Franklin …

admin — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 21:25:09 +0000

“This is a very exciting day for our company.
We are proud to relocate key functions of Take Care Health Systems,
including the legacy CHD Meridian business, to Franklin to support the
future growth of Walgreens Health and Wellness division,”
said Peter Hotz, divisional vice president of Walgreens and president of
Take Care Health Employer Solutions. “Further,
we are excited that our workplace health and pharmacy services and
in-store health clinics are expanding in the Nashville-area and beyond.
We look forward to becoming part of the Franklin community and
continuing to give back to the Metro Nashville-area through good
corporate citizenship and job creation.”

Economic Crisis Could Give Obama Opening for Broad Agenda

admin — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 21:50:40 +0000

Barack Obama is about to see a whole lot of wish lists.
The president-elect ran on a promise of change, and
when he takes the oath of office Jan. 20, he’ll run into a host of colleagues, interest groups and voters clamoring for that
change. And fast.
But despite the seemingly conflicting challenges of pushing new spending while easing the tax
burden on the middle class, Obama and his aides are hinting that they intend to fill their plates with Democratic agenda items
come 2009.
The rationale? Obama, with his landslide victory over John McCain last week, earned a “mandate” to
begin reversing Bush administration policies.
Also, the economic crisis, ironically, provides Obama a window to
push through policies that have sat on the backburner for years.
“The best thing for a president is to come in
under crisis. You can’t ask for anything better,” said James Ceaser, professor of politics at the University of Virginia,
adding that the turmoil gives Obama a “license” to push through policy. “The only way is up … It’s an ideal situation for
him.”
So far, Obama and his team, and his colleagues on Capitol Hill, have indicated middle-class relief will
constitute priority No. 1 under the Obama administration, and even before.
“The economy is not doing well, and
that’s going to be the president’s focus,” House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer told FOX News Monday. “It’s going to be our focus
as we start the next Congress.”
Hoyer, raising the possibility of calling a “lame duck session,” said congressional
Democrats would push immediately for a new economic stimulus plan and an extension of unemployment insurance benefits — two
items Obama said he supports in his first press conference as president-elect Friday.
Obama’s chief-of-staff-to-be,
Illinois Rep. Rahm Emanuel, also told ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday that Obama’s middle-class tax cuts will be a top order of
business in the months ahead.
“Those issues that are usually referred to as long-term are immediate, and this
opportunity in crisis provides, as the president-elect has said repeatedly, the opportunity to do things that Americans have
pushed off for years,” Emanuel said.
But that list expands well beyond middle-class tax relief. And Obama is already
starting to hear requests.
Obama said Friday that sending assistance to the ailing auto industry would take “high
priority.” Just three days later, the Michigan delegation sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson asking for emergency
assistance to the auto industry, specifically citing Obama’s comments.
Both Hoyer and Emanuel have ticked off education, global
warming and health care as other top priorities.
Hopes are high that the Obama administration might be able to
pick up where the Clinton administration left off in expanding access to health care.
“I think the Obama victory
sets a different tenor for health care policy in Washington, D.C.,” said Kathleen Stoll, deputy executive director for the
non-profit health care group Families USA. She said Families USA expects the Obama administration to act swiftly to pass the
expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program that Bush vetoed, as well as propose new legislation for expanding
access to health care.
“There’s a tremendous opportunity to move health care reform forward in early 2009,” she
said.
California Rep. Joe Baca, chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, said in a written statement to
FOXNews.com that his group wants to work with the new administration on a range of issues.
“Our constant goal
of being the voice of the Hispanic community in Congress — on issues from immigration to the current economic crisis, especially
jobs and foreclosures, from civil rights to health care, and the war — is certain to continue,” he said.
Obama
will also likely face some lower-profile requests in his first year in office.
Jaline Quinto, spokesman for DC
Vote, said her group, for instance, would “absolutely” press for “some kind of a DC voting rights victory in 2009.”
John
Podesta, who is helping head the Obama-Biden transition effort, told “FOX News Sunday” that Obama can use executive powers
to tackle multiple issues at once.
“There’s a lot that the president can do using his executive authority without
waiting for congressional action, and I think we’ll see the president do that,” he said.
This could lead Obama
to potentially reverse Bush administration policies on topics like stem cell research and domestic oil drilling at the outset.
“I
think that he feels like he has a real mandate for change,” Podesta said. “We need to get off the course that the Bush administration
has set.”
But Podesta warned of the danger that Obama could “clutter the agenda.”
And even Obama is
tempering expectations, warning on Friday that digging out of the country’s economic rut will not be “quick” or “easy.”
His
transition Web site has also replaced a lengthy set of agenda items on its campaign page with a broad one-paragraph statement
listing Obama’s priorities:fixing health care, reviving the economy, achieving energy independence, ending the war in
Iraq and “finishing our mission in Afghanistan,”among other items. An Obama spokesman told The Washington Times they
were “retooling”the Web site.
Despite the fact that both chambers of Congress and soon the White House will
be controlled by Democrats, Obama will face his checks.
The fiscally conservative Blue Dog Democrats are in a
position to set up roadblocks for Obama and his plans for increased federal spending.
And congressional Republicans,
despite their diminishing numbers, say they plan to make their voices heard in the next session, and prevent Democrats from
taxing and spending.
“At the end of the day, I think you will see a Republican Party in Congress serving as a
check and a balance against Mr. Obama’s power and Speaker Pelosi’s power,” Virginia Rep. Eric Cantor, who is running for be
the House Republican whip, told “FOX News Sunday.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.