The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com Tuesday, November 22, 2011 - 3 The Michigan Daily - michigandailycom Tuesday, November 22, 2011 - 3 NEWS BRIEFS LANSING, Mich. Snyder wants to consider grad. rates for funding Gov. Rick Snyder says he wants part of the funding that Michi- gan gives its 15 public universities next fiscal year to depend on per- formance standards that could include graduation rates. Michigan has been cuttinguni- versity support and is expected to provide about $1.2 billion next year. The Detroit Free Press says Michigan is one of 17states imple- menting or studying performance funding. A leader of Michigan's univer- sities say it's an attempt by law- makers to take more control that the state constitution places with university governing boards. LOS ANGELES Teen pleads guilty in killing of Calif. gay student A Southern California teen- ager has pleaded guilty to second- degree murder in the killing of a gay classmate in a deal that will send him to prison for 21 years. Ventura County Chief Deputy District Attorney Mike Frawley says the plea deal was reached yesterday in the case of 17-year- old Brandon McInerney, who gunned down 15-year-old Larry King at a school in Oxnard in Feb- ruary 2008. McInerney was 14 at the time. The case had been expected to go to retrial following a Septem- ber mistrial when jurors couldn't reach a unanimous decision on the degree of guilt. The panel took a series of votes, the last one with seven in favor of voluntary manslaughter and five jurors sup- porting either first-degree or sec- ond-degree murder. MANCHESTER, N.H. Gingrich requests- private retirement accounts for youth Republican presidential con- tender Newt Gingrich yesterday proposed allowing younger work- ers still decades away from retire- ment to bypass Social Security and instead choose private investment accounts that would be subject to stock market gyrations. The former House speaker, who has risen in the polls, would allow younger workers to take their share of the payroll tax that funds Social Security and put it in a private account. Employers would still pay their share of the tax, which would be used to pay benefits for cur- rent retirees. But it would create a funding shortfall that Gingrich brushed off. "That gap is more than covered by the savings" that would come from giving states control of 185 social welfare programs, Gin- grich told reporters after a speech that laid out broad concepts but lacked key details. ZINTAN, Libya Captured Gadhafi intelligence chief in secret location Moammar Gadhafi's captured intelligence chief is being held at a highly secret location deep in Libya's southern desert because of possible threats to his life, a government spokesman said yes- terday. Abdullah al-Senoussi, who is wanted by the International Crim- inal Court in the Netherlands and by France, is being held in the city of Sabha by revolutionary fighters who captured him on Sunday, said Hmeid al-Etabi, a local spokesman for Libya's new leadership. But the prisoner's precise location must be kept secret, he said. "The revolutionaries have cre- ated a total media blackout on his whereabouts because so many people want him dead," al-Etabi told The Associated Press. Compiled from Daily wire reports From Page 1A center. Kelly Parent, patient-family coordinator at the family cen- ter, said the scattered location of resources presented a problem for offering adequate care. "The main thing I think our new hospital is going to improve (is that) our programs are going to be right in the middle of every- thing," Parent said. According to Parent, inpatient families have benefited the most from the center in the past, but the new location will allow out- patient families to use the facili- ties as well. The regrouping will also have a major impact on clinical aspects of the hospital. Dr. John Charpie, professor of pediatric cardiology, said this is the first time cardiac surgeons with the University Hospital have been located in the same area as car- diology testing areas and outpa- tient clinics. "This really allows us to func- tion as a program that can pro- vide all of the cardiac services to our patients in one location," Charpie said. Charpie said the new set up will allow for clinical, education- al and research collaboration. He added that it will solve problems the hospital has had with conti- nuity of care. "Thevastmajorityof criticism by families in the past was about the physical layout (of the hospi- tal)," Charpie said. "These issues have now been removed." IMPROVING PATIENT AND CONFERENCE ROOMS In addition to the layout of departments, staff members also gave input regarding the design of the new patient rooms. The rooms now contain features that save time in emergencies and make routine processes easier. Parent pointed to newly- installed oxygen equipment on each side of patient beds - a small addition staff members felt was important. "This way, you're going to have quick and easy access to hooking up a patient to whatev- er itisthat theyneeinonatter what side (of them) you are on," Parent said. Charpie said the staff also suggested patient rooms be located across from each other so nurses stationed outside the rooms could easily monitor mul- tiple patients simultaneously. The rooms were originally sup- posed to be identical and fac- ing the same way, according to Charpie. "The problem with that is that operationally, it does not allow a nurse to care for more than one patient at a time," Charpie said. "Unfortunately, you don't have one nurse for one patient everywhere throughout a hospi- tal - that's just not a sustainable staffing model." Charpie also pointed to new break-away doors in the inten- sive care units as additions that will allow doctors to access patients more quickly. Dan Fischer, director of the hospital's Child and Family Life Department, said the larger size of the new patient rooms makes his job easier. Whereas DIABETES From Page 1 varied in each rabbit. Diabetics seeking to use the technology would have to carefully deter- mine the correlation between their tear and blood glucose lev- els to ensure accurate measure- ments, Meyerhoff said. He added that it would take approximately10 to 15 minutes to collect the necessary amount of tears for the instrument to work as it is currently designed. "We recognize that alot more needs to be done to scale it down to a much smaller size," Meyer- hoff said. Meyerhoff and his colleagues have been working on the project for approximately one year, but it could also take up to five years before the technology is avail- able for consumer use, Meyerhoff said. Even if the technology becomes available for human use, Meyerhoff emphasized that the instrument would not replace blood glucose measurements. "It's going to be a monitor," Meyerhoff said. "It will tell you The women's clinic on the opening weekend of the new hospital on No. 6. the rooms in the former facility scratch. We have a precooked housed two or three patients at a crust, but what we can do with time, the new same-sized rooms that is unlimited. Today, I made are all singles. a stuffed potato pizza." "For us in child life, the space Some members of the staff really is tremendous," Fischer graduated from culinary school said. "We now have all kinds and were trained to work in a of patient rooms so we can do facility like the new hospital's things more comfortably." kitchen, Schifano said. The staff The new hospital it is also can now put their culinary skills intended to improve the work to use, he said, instead of just environment for staff when reheating frozen food. they're focused on other aspects "The sky is the limit," Schi- like teaching and holding confer- fano said. "With their knowl- ences. edge and experience and with Charpie said there is a great the help of the dietitians here, need for the addition of confer- we're going to be able to create ence and educational rooms for anything." staff since teaching sessions Schifano said the new kitchen sometimes happen in the middle has changed the way he feels of units such as the Cardiotho- about what he does every day. racic Intensive Care Unit. "I get up at 3:30 in the morn- "Many times, we have our ing," he said. "And these last weekly conference standing in few weeks, I've never been more the middle of the unit and speak- excited to come to work." ing with 50 people gathered Schifano added that he feels around a desk," Charpie said. the same kind of positive energy "That makes it very cumber- from his staff, who love the new some, and it disrupts the ICU." kitchen and equipment. He said the new rooms will "I walk in the door, and they be distant enough to prevent already have the stuff lit up on disruption to the hospital, but the stove. They already have close to patients so doctors will everything on and ready to go," be readily available in an emer- Schifano said. "That tells me gency. they're excited." "It's really an incredible space that offers patients, families and TAKING PRIDE IN THE caregivers so much more flex- NEW FACILITY ibility, so many more resources and so much more space than we The sense of pride in the new had in our old hospital," Charpie hospital permeates every depart- said. ment, and is an attitude that GLOBAL From Page 1 darin speaker this year to help the office direct an international program that will involve trans- lating stories into Mandarin for the global Michigan site. Rudgers also addressed the need for multimedia with an international focus. "We live in a world, as sad as it may be, with an often short atten- tion span," Rudgers said. "So the ability for us to tell a story quick- ly and with impact matters. And today, that often means with ter- rific visuals, with a great graphic presentation and with video." Rudgers stressed that there is a high demand from University faculty members and schools for the News Service to communi- cate their research to a larger audience. "It's clear the demand for us to tell our stories and for individual schools and colleges and faculty members to tell their stories is just huge," she said. Rudgers served as the Uni- versity's vice president for com- munications from 2000 to 2007. Last spring, University Presi- dent Mary Sue Coleman asked her to return to the position. Coleman wanted her to address the tremendous change in the "scale and scope and demand for communications globally" since she last worked at the Univer- sity. "In the wintertime of 2007, there were about 28 million people on Facebook. Now, last month, 850 million," Rudgers said. "The explosion of social media and our ubiquitous use of it has really changed the way people like me do our jobs." RESOLUTION PASSED TO EXPAND FACULTY VOTING Later in the meeting, the Sen- ate Assembly passed a resolution aimed at expanding the level of engagement in faculty gover- nance by allowing the Faculty Senate - a group of about 3,000 faculty members including all professors -to vote on certain issues determined by the Senate Assembly. The resolution also approved the use of an electronic voting system. Ed Rothman, a former Senate Advisory Committee on Univer- sity Affairs chair and professor of statistics, said he fully supports the resolution. "I'm very much in favor of this. I think we need to empower all of the members of the senate - 3,000 or so of us - to take part in this process," Rothman said. "It'll make our jobs more impor- tant and more visible in a very positive way." Rachel Goldman, a SACUA member and professor of engi- neering and physics, said she supports the resolution but sees the loss of control as a potential drawback. "If we adopt electronic voting for full senate issues, we would possibly lose a little bit of control in favor of democracy," Goldman said. SACUA member John Lehm- an, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology, said he believes there could be prob- lems implementing the resolu- tion because volunteers would be needed to organize the online voting process. Previously they used paper ballots. ASSEMBLY PASSES RESOLUTION CHANGING CHAIR TERMS The Senate Assembly passed a resolution adding on to the exist- ing term limits for SACUA mem- bers. The original policy stated that there is a one-year limitation for holding the SACUA chair posi- tion and a three-year term limit for SACUA and Senate Assembly members. With the resolution, the one-year limitation is extend- ed to the vice chair and the three-year limit is extended to the Senate Secretary, who could previously serve for one year. SACUA Vice Chair Kim Kear- fott, a professor in the Medical School and College of Engineer- ing, said she supports the motion even though it means she will give up her position next year. "I am the one person who is immediately affected by this, and I think it's a really good idea because it makes sure there's a turnover in people and that people don't get entrenched in -their- various :postions "'Kear- fott said. A STATE-OF-THE-ART KITCHEN Staff members' excitement about the new facility also spans down to the basement, where the food-service staff are look- ing forward to the new kitchen. According to Diane Knibbs, associate director of food ser- vices, the old hospital's cooking area was never designed to be an institutional kitchen. "We couldn't have raw food in the old kitchen," Knibbs said. "It had to already be precooked and chilled down." Executive Chef Stephen Schi- fano describes the old kitchen, which was smaller than the new building's dry store room, as crowded and boring. "There was no creativity," Schifano said. In contrast, staff in the new facility has room to make food most people wouldn't expect to see in a hospital. The kitchen staff has started to experiment with different food items. The new menu fea- tures options such as Michigan cherry salad with chicken, ques- adillas, a sandwich bar, breakfast wraps and Asian stir-fry dishes. "We used to have a microwav- able pizza," Schifano said. "Now we're making our pizzas from whether you're high or low, (and when to) check your blood glu- cose. (Do not) rely on it to give yourself insulin." Meyerhoff said he never imagined himself as a diabetes researcher. "I always swore I would never work on glucose because too many people are doing it ..." he said. "It's such a hot subject, given the status (of) how many people have diabetes." In the United States, 25.8 million people have diabetes, according to National Institutes of Health. In addition to Meyerhoff, other University researchers will be focused on diabetes research with the help of a multimillion dollar grant received last week. The Center for Geospatial Medi- cine at the University's School of Natural Resources and Environ- ment received a $6.2 million joint grant with Duke University from the Bristol-Myers Squibb Foun- dation. The grant is part of the foundation's national diabetes program, Together on Diabetes, and the project will be based in Durham County, N.C. Unlike Meyerhoff's study, the Parent said will make the new hospital an incredible experi- ence for patients. "This facility is wonderful and fantastic," Parent said. "But still, it's the people who are going to make the difference for our patients and our families." Parent explained that in the past, drab facilities made the work environment less upbeat, especially in internal staffing rooms, which received no sun- light. "They made sure that the staff rooms have external windows so people can get the sun thera- py," she said. "And they can see what's going on, and it's going to be really rejuvenating to be able to see outside." Small details like these elevate the staff's morale, Parent said. "I have to believe that when you feel happier you're going to be a happier employee, and you're going to be better," she said. Charpie added that he thinks the facility is a reflection of what goes on within its walls. "We feel that we've been prac- ticing world-class medicine at a top institution for a long time," Charpie said. "And now, we feel we have the physical place to support that contention, and I think that's a real source of pride for everyone." collaboration with Duke Univer- sity will focus on Type II dia- betes. The goal of the research is to examine the relationship between where diabetes patients live and the health care available. With the grant, the research- ers will use geospatial mapping - a technology which takes health care and disease informa- tion and shapes it to a physical map of a community-according to the press release. Marie Lynn Miranda, direc- tor of the Center for Geospatial Medicine, wrote in a University press release that she is grateful for the opportunity to investi- gate the relationship between disease, health care and location. Miranda will become the dean of SNRE on Jan. 1. Mary Riegle, director of spe- cial events and individual giving at the American Diabetes Asso- ciation office in Detroit, wrote in an e-mail interview that she strongly believes research makes a huge difference in the lives of diabetics. "We know so much more about diabetes than we did 20 years ago because of research," Riegle wrote. 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