AECI board elects new officers
The Board of Directors for Arkansas Electric Cooperatives, Inc. (AECI), the statewide service organization of Arkansas’ electric co-ops and publisher of Arkansas Living, elected new officers at the AECI annual meeting on July 25. They are:
Mark Cayce, general manager of Ouachita Electric Cooperative — chairman
Rusty Pendergraft, chairman of the Southwest Arkansas Electric Cooperative Board of Directors — vice chairman.
Rob Boaz, chief executive officer and president of Carroll Electric Cooperative — secretary.
Rick Love, member of First Electric Cooperative Board of Directors — treasurer.
Keep Arkansas Beautiful’s statewide cleanup campaign launches Sept. 9
Each fall, Arkansans improve their communities by volunteering in the Great Arkansas Cleanup (GAC), the Keep Arkansas Beautiful Commission’s (KAB) annual litter pickup and community cleanup event. This year’s GAC will kick off Saturday, Sept. 9, with cleanups already scheduled around the state, and will continue through October.
Communities and organizations in two-thirds of Arkansas’ counties hosted more than 140 local cleanup events last year. More than 7,000 volunteers picked up about 210,000 pounds of litter from roughly 1,735 miles of roadway and waterway, and collected more than 900,000 pounds of bulky waste.
“That level of dedication to removing other people’s litter is inspirational, and we hope that this year we see some sort of cleanup event being hosted in every county in Arkansas,” said Liz Philpott, KAB volunteer program manager. “We know — and share — the pride Arkansans have in being an Arkansan and living in The Natural State. We know that all across this beautiful place, everyone wants Arkansas to be litter-free.”
Those who would like to organize an event in their community or volunteer for a local event can email info@keeparkansasbeautiful.com, call toll-free 888-742-8701 or visit KeepArkansasBeautiful.com. Organizers may access free promotional tools, such as a cleanup instructional video and printable publicity materials, from KAB’s website. KAB will also provide cleanup materials and supplies, such as T-shirts, trash bags, gloves and safety vests, to local events (while supplies last) and to those organizers who register their local cleanup with the KAB office.
The Keep Arkansas Beautiful Commission (KAB), consisting of a professional staff and a nine-member advisory board appointed by the governor, is a division of the Arkansas Department of Parks and Tourism. As a certified state affiliate of Keep America Beautiful, Inc., KAB inspires and educates individuals to reduce litter, recycle and keep Arkansas beautiful. KAB is funded through its 1 percent portion of the eighth-cent Conservation Tax and, by mobilizing volunteers, returns to the state a cost benefit of more than $6 in community service for each program dollar spent. For more information, visit KeepArkansasBeautiful.com.
Making house calls again
UAMS selected for national home-based primary care education program
The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) recently was chosen by the Home-Centered Care Institute as one of eight Centers of Excellence for its Home-Based Primary Care program, a first-of-its-kind program designed to make high-quality, home-based primary care a more common practice across the United States.
Jasmine Brathwaite, M.D., left, visits with a member of patient Ronald Keeling’s family at their home in North Little Rock as part of the Donald W. Reynolds Institute on Aging’s House Call Program.
The institute’s program aims to train and expand the home-based primary care workforce of physicians, nurse practitioners and physician assistants from the currently estimated 1,000 providers to 5,000 nationwide over the next five years.
Ann Riggs, M.D., a professor in the UAMS College of Medicine’s Donald W. Reynolds Department of Geriatrics, and Jasmine Brathwaite, M.D., an assistant professor in the same department, will teach the curriculum at UAMS along with two advanced practice registered nurses. In September, all four will travel to Chicago for a “training the trainers” course and plan to start teaching classes in home-based primary care by early November.
“This is a new educational component that we can use to help train future house-call physicians how to build medical teams going to the homes,” Riggs said.
In 1999, Debra Caradine, M.D., established the House Call clinical program in the UAMS College of Medicine’s Department of Geriatrics. Brathwaite now leads the program and, along with two advanced practice registered nurses, sees about 250 patients in their homes.
Home-based primary care makes possible timely and appropriate care, improves medical outcomes and patient and family experience, and reduces health care costs for older Americans with multiple chronic conditions and other medically complex patients, Brathwaite said.
The other Centers of Excellence in the program are Cleveland Clinic, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City, MedStar Health-Medical House Call Program in Washington D.C., Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, University of Arizona Center on Aging in Tucson, Arizona and University of California, San Francisco.