BIRMINGHAM, Ala.?? Authorities investigating a robbery at a house in Birmingham found five people dead in the home on Sunday.
Sgt. Johnny Williams says officers arrived at the house around 3:30 a.m. Sunday after getting a call that a robbery was in progress.
The officers soon discovered the five victims inside.
The victims were not identified.
Police have launched a homicide investigation, but there have been no arrests or charges filed in the case.
Brenda Houston, who lives across the street from the west Birmingham house where the bodies were found, said the house had been rented for about a year and a half by a woman in her late 40s and her son and brothers.
"They would speak to us, and that's all we knew," she said. "We didn't know their names but they were always friendly."
Houston, 64, said her street was a quiet one filled with older residents who were friendly with each other. She said there was a constant stream of visitors coming in and out of the home, but that the residents never seemed to cause any disturbances.
"Most people are in a state of shock. They never had any trouble over there," Houston said. "I never seen the police over there. This was really strange that this happened. It wasn't like they were real rowdy."
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Very good experiences don't just happen for patientsPublic release date: 28-Jan-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Nancy Jean njean@lifespan.org Lifespan
Rhode Island Hospital's new simulation-based customer service training program for emergency department staff makes it CLEAR
PROVIDENCE, R.I. A new training program for emergency department staff at Rhode Island Hospital (www.rhodeislandhospital.org) teaches communication skills by having staff take part in simulations of real patient experiences. The goal is to improve the patient experience by standardizing both team and patient communication in an emergency department (ED) setting. The program will be presented at the 12th Annual International Meeting on Simulation in Healthcare (IMSH) in San Diego, Calif.
Principal investigator and lead author Lynn Sweeney, M.D., an emergency medicine physician at Rhode Island Hospital, is a member of the hospital's Simulation Center. Sweeney and her colleagues developed Project CLEAR! (Communication Leading to Excellence and Ameliorating Risk) to give structure and consistency to the manner in which staff communicate with each other and with patients. "This is the first program that we know of its kind to combine traditional teamwork training with simulation-based customer service training," Sweeney says.
"Excellence in health care is no longer defined merely by the quality of clinical care offered, but also by the superiority of service provided to those who seek care. The importance of patient satisfaction has grown over the past decade," she adds. "To be recognized as a top-quality organization, we have to not only provide exceptional care, but our patients and their families have to truly feel how much we care about them."
Project CLEAR! has provided training for a staff of nearly 400, including nurses, physicians, medical assistants and secretaries in one of the busiest emergency departments in the country. The CLEAR! training day includes a 7-hour interactive experience that features three medical simulation scenarios using both standardized patients and high-fidelity manikans, to teach both Crew Resource Management concepts and customer-service. The simulation scenarios are used to elicit specific teaching points that will impact quality of care, safety and service.
The CLEAR! team formed a unique collaboration with the Texas Tech University College of Mass Communications aimed at sustainment of the lessons taught during the training day. The TTU team assisted in designing a logo to give a brand identity to the project, and on creating a variety of visual messaging instruments placed throughout the ED to reinforce the lessons learned during the training. "The goal of the collaboration, in essence, was to create an internal public relations campaign promoting the program's message," Sweeney says.
Sweeney concludes, "We believe Project CLEAR! will have a dramatic impact on the way our ED staff works with patients to provide not only the best possible care, but also an exceptional patient experience as well."
Sweeney's principal affiliation is the Alpert School of Medicine at Brown University, where she serves as assistant professor of emergency medicine. The project is funded by a grant from Lifespan's Department of Risk Management and supported by the University Emergency Medicine Foundation, which staffs the emergency departments at Rhode Island, The Miriam and Hasbro Children's hospitals.
###
Other researchers involved in Project CLEAR with Sweeney include Leo Kobayashi, M.D., David Lindquist, M.D., Adam Rojek, R.N., and Linda Dykstra, R.N., all of Rhode Island Hospital and Alpert Medical School, and Coy Callison, Ph.D., of Texas Tech University College of Mass Communications.
About Rhode Island Hospital:
Founded in 1863, Rhode Island Hospital in Providence, R.I., is a private, not-for-profit hospital and is the principal teaching hospital of The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University. A major trauma center for southeastern New England, the hospital is dedicated to being on the cutting edge of medicine and research. Last year, Rhode Island Hospital received more than $55 million in external research funding. It is also home to Hasbro Children's Hospital, the state's only facility dedicated to pediatric care. For more information on Rhode Island Hospital, visit www.rhodeislandhospital.org, follow us on Twitter @RIHospital or like us on Facebook www.facebook.com/rhodeislandhospitalpage.
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Very good experiences don't just happen for patientsPublic release date: 28-Jan-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Nancy Jean njean@lifespan.org Lifespan
Rhode Island Hospital's new simulation-based customer service training program for emergency department staff makes it CLEAR
PROVIDENCE, R.I. A new training program for emergency department staff at Rhode Island Hospital (www.rhodeislandhospital.org) teaches communication skills by having staff take part in simulations of real patient experiences. The goal is to improve the patient experience by standardizing both team and patient communication in an emergency department (ED) setting. The program will be presented at the 12th Annual International Meeting on Simulation in Healthcare (IMSH) in San Diego, Calif.
Principal investigator and lead author Lynn Sweeney, M.D., an emergency medicine physician at Rhode Island Hospital, is a member of the hospital's Simulation Center. Sweeney and her colleagues developed Project CLEAR! (Communication Leading to Excellence and Ameliorating Risk) to give structure and consistency to the manner in which staff communicate with each other and with patients. "This is the first program that we know of its kind to combine traditional teamwork training with simulation-based customer service training," Sweeney says.
"Excellence in health care is no longer defined merely by the quality of clinical care offered, but also by the superiority of service provided to those who seek care. The importance of patient satisfaction has grown over the past decade," she adds. "To be recognized as a top-quality organization, we have to not only provide exceptional care, but our patients and their families have to truly feel how much we care about them."
Project CLEAR! has provided training for a staff of nearly 400, including nurses, physicians, medical assistants and secretaries in one of the busiest emergency departments in the country. The CLEAR! training day includes a 7-hour interactive experience that features three medical simulation scenarios using both standardized patients and high-fidelity manikans, to teach both Crew Resource Management concepts and customer-service. The simulation scenarios are used to elicit specific teaching points that will impact quality of care, safety and service.
The CLEAR! team formed a unique collaboration with the Texas Tech University College of Mass Communications aimed at sustainment of the lessons taught during the training day. The TTU team assisted in designing a logo to give a brand identity to the project, and on creating a variety of visual messaging instruments placed throughout the ED to reinforce the lessons learned during the training. "The goal of the collaboration, in essence, was to create an internal public relations campaign promoting the program's message," Sweeney says.
Sweeney concludes, "We believe Project CLEAR! will have a dramatic impact on the way our ED staff works with patients to provide not only the best possible care, but also an exceptional patient experience as well."
Sweeney's principal affiliation is the Alpert School of Medicine at Brown University, where she serves as assistant professor of emergency medicine. The project is funded by a grant from Lifespan's Department of Risk Management and supported by the University Emergency Medicine Foundation, which staffs the emergency departments at Rhode Island, The Miriam and Hasbro Children's hospitals.
###
Other researchers involved in Project CLEAR with Sweeney include Leo Kobayashi, M.D., David Lindquist, M.D., Adam Rojek, R.N., and Linda Dykstra, R.N., all of Rhode Island Hospital and Alpert Medical School, and Coy Callison, Ph.D., of Texas Tech University College of Mass Communications.
About Rhode Island Hospital:
Founded in 1863, Rhode Island Hospital in Providence, R.I., is a private, not-for-profit hospital and is the principal teaching hospital of The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University. A major trauma center for southeastern New England, the hospital is dedicated to being on the cutting edge of medicine and research. Last year, Rhode Island Hospital received more than $55 million in external research funding. It is also home to Hasbro Children's Hospital, the state's only facility dedicated to pediatric care. For more information on Rhode Island Hospital, visit www.rhodeislandhospital.org, follow us on Twitter @RIHospital or like us on Facebook www.facebook.com/rhodeislandhospitalpage.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Twenty-seven? Yikes, you're actually older than me, but you're not the oldest member of the site, if that makes you feel any better. We have a few people in their thirties, namely AzricanRepublic and Entity of Sin, and Skallagrim is old enough to have kids that are on here. (He doesn't, but he's in his forties, so it's still true.)
I'm sure your life experience means you have a dozen stories waiting for people to help you tell them, so you've come to the right place.
The only people that extol the virtues of war are those that calculate its cost in material things.
'Dateline NBC,' the signature broadcast for NBC News in primetime, premiered in 1992. Since then, it has been pioneering a new approach to primetime news programming. The multi-night franchise, supplemented by frequent specials, allows NBC to consistently and comprehensively present the highest-quality reporting, investigative features, breaking news coverage and newsmaker profiles.
People gather at the scene of a car bomb attack in Zafaraniyah, Baghdad, on Friday.
By msnbc.com staff and news services
Updated at 4:46 a.m.: The blast outside a hospital struck a funeral procession for Mohammed al-Maliki, a real estate agent who was killed with his wife and son on Thursday, a doctor and interior ministry official tells AFP news agency. Both speak on condition of anonymity.
Published at 4:17 a.m.: BAGHDAD -- Twenty-six people were killed on Friday when a suicide bomber detonated an explosives-packed car in southeastern Baghdad, Iraqi officials said.
The attack occurred at 11:00 a.m. (3:00 a.m. ET) in the Iraqi capital's predominantly Shiite neighborhood of Zafaraniyah, police said. They said 53 people were wounded in the attack.
Hospital officials confirmed the death toll to The Associated Press.
All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information.
Insurgents have stepped up violence in Iraq since the U.S. military withdrawal last month. More than 200 people have been killed since the beginning of the year.
Msnbc.com staff and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
State of the Union coverage in the world's newspapers says as much about the specific concerns of other countries as it does about what President Obama actually said.
When journalists from around the world report on a speech by a sitting US president ? such as President Obama?s state of the union speech last night ? they do so with their own particular reading public in mind. The effect, for a global reader, can be confusing. Did Mr. Obama really say all of this in one speech?
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For Chinese readers, Obama is reported to have boasted that the US is not, repeat not, declining.
For Indian readers, Obama promised to take on China and other nations that were engaged in theft of US intellectual property.
For Israelis, Obama promised an ?ironclad? commitment to the state of Israel, as well as promises to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.
For South Africans, Obama gave a feisty speech, but was largely ignored by a Republican Congress who headed for the exits.
For the French, Obama was announcing his roadmap for reelection, while for the British he gave a populist speech promising a fairer America.
From a closer reading of his one hour and six minute speech, Mr. Obama does appear to have said all of these things, and a few more. But the fact that the press in each country has its own idea of what is newsworthy in a state of the union should not be surprising. It speaks volumes about how US foreign and economic policy affects that country, for better or worse.
China?s interest in America?s future makes sense. China is the US?s second-largest trading partner, and America?s ability to kickstart its economy is crucial for China?s own prosperity. US economic weakness is bad for Chinese business.
Small wonder, then, that the China Daily ? Beijing?s main English-language newspaper ? focused its attention on Obama?s confident statement, ?The renewal of American leadership can be felt across the globe."
"Anyone who tells you otherwise, anyone who tells you that America is in decline or that our influence has waned, doesn't know what they're talking about," he said in his prime-time address.
Indian papers, meanwhile, saw in Obama?s tough words against intellectual piracy a reflection of its own rivalry with China. Both India and China have emerged as new economic and manufacturing bases, as more established economic powers in Europe and the America?s have slowed down. Both India and China have been competing for business and for resources in Africa, and both see themselves as the voice of the world?s impoverished, symbolized in their membership in the BRICS group of new economic powers (including Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa).
But for India and China, power is a zero-sum game, and India revels in any sign of trouble for China.
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Public release date: 28-Jan-2012
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