Atlantic Specialty Care received a rating of 4 out 5 in the U.S. News & World Report 2017-18 Nursing Home Finder report released last month. The report uses existing federal nursing home rating information and federally reported health care data to come up with their own rating system. Criteria such as annual state survey results, medical quality measures, staffing levels and rehabilitation outcomes are all formulated to reach the rating. More than 15,000 skilled nursing facilities in the United States were reviewed.

Administrator Kellie Jimerson says the caring environment the staff provide every day is the reason for their success. In a statement to the media, Jimerson said “We have such a great staff who take pride in what they do and how they care for our residents. Being named a top nursing home by U.S. News and World Report’s Nursing Home Finder is an achievement based on certain measurements. We don’t receive this distinction unless we meet high standards. It’s our caring staff who make the difference.”

Atlantic Specialty Care is a non-profit, 90-bed skilled nursing facility offering rehabilitation services, skilled nursing care, long term care and hospice care. Its parent organization is Care Initiatives, which serves over 3,000 Iowans through 44 skilled nursing care locations, eight assisted living locations, three senior housing apartment locations, and six hospice office locations.

Contrary to some yard signs you may have seen in Atlantic, a local realtor says he’s NOT running for Mayor of Atlantic. Dale Gross said in a statement from Chicago, where he was attending a meeting, that he’s had contact with several of his Atlantic friends about signs suggesting his name as a Write-In for Mayor of Atlantic.

Gross said he did not authorize the grassroots effort, and furthermore is “NOT running and do not wish to be Mayor. No one has permission (from him) to place [the] yard signs” saying anything to the contrary.

Atlantic Mayor Dave Jones is running for re-election, and is un-opposed in the bid for the Nov. 7th City election.

The Iowa Board of Medicine today (Thursday) issued public orders involving three separate cases to come before the Board. Locally, 42-year old Christopher F. Stubbs, M.D., an  Iowa-licensed physician who practices family medicine in Audubon, entered into a combined Statement of Charges and Settlement Agreement with the Board on October 27, 2017. The Board alleged that Dr. Stubbs engaged in unethical or unprofessional conduct in violation of the laws and rules governing the practice of medicine in Iowa when he provided false information to the Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates (ECFMG) and the Board concerning his medical school attendance history.

The Board alleged that Dr. Stubbs failed to disclose his attendance at, and termination from, Ross University School of Medicine, Dominica, on applications for the ECFMG Step 2 CK exam, the ECFMG Step 2 CS exam and his Iowa medical license. The Board also alleged that Dr. Stubbs used misleading information on his online employment biography.

Under the terms of the October 27, 2017, combined Statement of Charges and Settlement Agreement, the Board issued Dr. Stubbs a Citation and Warning, suspended his Iowa medical license for ten (10) days beginning October 28, 2017, and ordered him to pay a $5,000 civil penalty. The Board also ordered Dr. Stubbs to complete a professional ethics program and amend his current employment biography to ensure it is not misleading regarding his medical school history and ensure that all such biographies in the future are not misleading. Finally, the Board placed Dr. Stubbs on probation for a period of three years subject to Board monitoring and a practice mentor.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — An Iowa official says the state will spend an additional $60 million this budget year for private insurance companies to keep running the Medicaid program. Iowa Department of Human Services spokesman Matt Highland said Thursday that additional costs announced this week as part of new state contracts with two companies will total $140.4 million. The state will pay $60.8 million of that. The federal government will pay about $80 million.

The agency announced a 3.3 percent increase in costs at a Tuesday press conference but didn’t specify a dollar amount. It was on the same day that AmeriHealth Caritas, one of three private insurance companies overseeing Medicaid in Iowa since 2016, announced it would pull out after failed negotiations over a new contract.

The nonpartisan Legislative Services Agency says DHS has surplus money from a previous budget year that’s expected to help cover the costs.

The group charged with finding ways to expand the use of computer science in schools has turned its recommendations over to the Iowa Department of Education. Department director, Ryan Wise, says the legislature passed a bill creating the group last year and then Governor Terry Branstad signed it into law. “They set a vision that by July first 2019 every elementary student in Iowa would have access to exploratory computer science coursework. Every middle school student would have a unit in computer science technology, and every high school student would have access to a high-quality computer science course,” Wise says.

Today’s students have been exposed to the use of computers from birth, and Wise says the idea is to expand on that general knowledge and teach them to go beyond. “It’s even more than just coding or programming, it’s really about understanding how computer technology works. And then being able to apply that to the creation of new technology,” according to Wise.”So, this takes our digital natives — our students of today — and really helps them understand computer technology in more detail and then apply it to their lives.”  Wise says many of today’s professions and jobs require a more advanced knowledge of computer science. The legislation also included a fund to boost the training for those who will teach computer science. He says it would create more opportunities for teachers to go back to school to take computer science coursework or to have professional development to enhance their skills.

One of the recommendations from the group is to allow students to use computer science to meet math credit requirements after they’ve taken courses covering required math standards. “They were looking for ways to build upon the existing math standards and to not compromise those,” Wise says. “So, what they’ve recommended is that districts be allowed to innovate and create plans locally that allows for the expansion of both math and computer science.” Now that the Computer Science Education Work Group has submitted its recommendations, Wise says there are a couple of tasks ahead do to implement them.
“The first is convening a group of folks to write computer science standards — laying out what students should be able to know and do when they take computer science courses,” Wise says.

He says the second task is to ensure there is enough funding to train enough computer science teachers to teach all the classes. The legislature already set aside 250-thousand dollars for the training. “I’m hoping that that will actually be funded at 500-thousand dollars. Once those funds are in place, the department will be able to develop a competitive application process that will allow districts to put together a plan for how they intend to expand computer science offerings in their school,” Wise says.

(Radio Iowa)