National blood supplies have reached a critically low level. Most of the American Red Cross Blood Services regions are currently operating with less than on day's supply of blood.

The American Red Cross will hold a blood drive at Tanner Medical Center/Carrollton from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Friday, May 23 from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. in Classrooms 2, 4 and 5 of the Health Education and Wellness Learning Center, and at Tanner Health Source at Arbor Place Mall on Saturday, May 24 from noon to 5 p.m..

Blood donors must be at least 17 years of age, weigh at least 110 pounds, and allow at least eight weeks (56 days) to lapse since your last blood donation. More information is available online at www.givelife.org, or by calling 1.800.GIVE.LIFE.

Tanner Health Source at Arbor Place Mall will offer a number of blood screenings Saturday, May 3 and Friday, May 16 from 8 to 11 a.m.

Blood tests available include cholesterol panels $25, PSA tests for prostate cancer for $35, liver panel for $40 and hemoglobin A1C for diabetes for $25. Some tests require fasting. For more information or to make an appointment, call 770.456.3488.

A Tanner Health Source health advocate can help explain the results of these tests and recommend programs through Tanner Health Source to help manage problems such as high cholesterol or elevated blood sugar.

For more information or to make an appointment, call 770.456.3488.

The two-part program will be hosted at Tanner Health Source at Arbor Place Mall, located on the ground level across from Borders, on Saturday, May 17. The four-hour class begins at 9 a.m., and costs $10, payable to AARP. Tanner Health Source will host the second part in the same location Saturday, May 24. Participants must attend both sessions to receive a certificate of completion. Many insurance companies offer a discount for completion of this course. As part of a special offer, the program is free to 15- and 16-year-olds when accompanied by a paying parent, grandparent or guardian. Young drivers may also be eligible for a discount for completing this course. Seating is limited, so call today! For more information or to register, call 770.456.3488.

“Tanner realizes that to be west Georgia’s healthcare provider of choice, we have to be this region’s healthcare employer of choice,” said Loy Howard, president and CEO of Tanner Health System. “A patient may have as many as 75 encounters each day with hospital staff, including nurses, doctors, technologists and others. Therefore, a hospital must be a place healthcare professionals want to work in order to attract the people who are going to make those encounters positive.”

Tanner was the top-ranked healthcare employer, placing fifth among large employers with 750 or more employees in the Atlanta Business Chronicle poll. This ranking placed Tanner higher than three other metro Atlanta health systems included in the prestigious group of top 10-ranked companies. Rankings were based upon a series of online surveys completed by Tanner employees. The surveys were conducted by Quantum Market Research, Inc., which partnered with the Atlanta Business Chronicle.

Employees were asked a wide range of questions centered on job satisfaction and workplace attitudes.

“Tanner has invested heavily in making sure that patients have access to state-of-the-art equipment to aid in diagnostics and treatment, but it has been our experience that what patients remember more is how they were treated by the hospital employees they encountered,” said Howard. “Tanner must be able to recruit capable professionals, and to do that, this health system must be competitive not only in benefits, but in how its employees are treated. Being a great place to work is not only the right thing to do; it is an excellent business strategy.”

Tanner was first named to the Atlanta Business Chronicle’s list as one of Atlanta’s ‘Best Places to Work’ in 2005, and won the honor again in 2006.

To find a complete listing of jobs at Tanner and to apply online, click here.

According to data released Monday by healthcare ratings company HealthGrades, Tanner Medical Center/Carrollton ranks among the top 10 percent of hospitals for superior patient outcomes for orthopedic care, and Tanner Medical Center/Villa Rica received five-star ratings in caring for patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and pneumonia.

HealthGrades is the nation’s leading independent healthcare ratings company. Each year, HealthGrades issues its Hospital Quality in America study, which is the foundation of the hospital ratings that appear for consumers to view for free on their Web site and are used by hospitals, major employers, health plans and millions of consumers to evaluate the quality of care at the nation’s hospitals. More than 2.5 million potential patients visit HealthGrades Web site each month to research the quality of healthcare providers.

The ratings released Monday represent data from 2004 through 2006 – the most current information available on patient outcomes. This is the largest, most cumulative study of its kind, producing quality ratings based on patient outcomes from 40 million hospitalization records over three years at more than 5,000 of the nation’s hospitals.

“Tanner has put a lot of effort in recruiting highly-qualified physicians, investing in new technology and the latest treatments and emphasizing the importance of the patient’s experience,” said Loy Howard, president and CEO of Tanner Health System. “This translates into superior patient care.”

Tanner Medical Center/Carrollton received the HealthGrades Orthopedic Surgery Excellence Award™ for 2008, meaning it ranked in the top 10 percent of hospitals nationally for overall orthopedic services. Tanner Medical Center/Villa Rica also earned five-star ratings for care of patients with COPD and pneumonia.

“This distinction further establishes Tanner Medical Center/Villa Rica as a center of healthcare excellence,” said Howard. “The delivery of quality care for acutely ill patients is a priority to their team, which works diligently to assure successful clinical outcomes.”

Tanner Medical Center/Carrollton was also ranked No. 3 in all of Georgia for overall orthopedic services. Additionally, the hospital received five-star ratings for spine surgery, hip fracture repair, back and neck surgery (spinal fusion) and COPD. Among the orthopedic services provided at Tanner Medical Center/Carrollton are: total joint replacement, sports medicine, arthroscopic surgery, shoulder surgery, foot and ankle surgery and the treatment of trauma incidents and multiple fractures.

“This tremendous accomplishment and recognition is due in large part to the exceptional level of care provided by the Carrollton Orthopaedic Clinic,” said Howard. “Accomplishments such as these are only possible when physicians provide outstanding patient care. Our ability to receive such an honor is directly attributed to the excellent team of physicians at the Carrollton Orthopaedic Clinic.”

Carrollton Orthopaedic Clinic is represented by Anthony Colpini, MD, Ralph Fleck, MD, Charles Hubbard, MD, Brad Prybis, MD, Greg Slappey, MD and Jubal Watts, MD.

Howard credited Tanner’s ranking to members of the health system’s medical staff as well at its team of healthcare professionals.

“We are extremely pleased to receive this national recognition in observance of our commitment to provide high-quality healthcare services to our patients,” said Howard. “This is a testament to the efforts of our dedicated medical staff and our team of caring staff members who work together to deliver these services throughout west Georgia.”

According to representatives from HealthGrades, there remains a disparity between the nation’s best-performing hospitals and worst-performing hospitals, making it all the more important that high-performing healthcare providers be recognized for their service.

“Our research shows that, while the overall quality of hospital care in America is improving, the gap between the best-performing hospitals and the worst persists,” said Samantha Collier, MD, HealthGrades’ chief medical officer and author of the study. “This persistent gap makes it imperative that anyone planning to be admitted to a hospital do their homework and seek out highly-rated facilities.”

Established in 1949 in Carroll County, Ga., Tanner Health System serves the healthcare needs of nine counties in west Georgia and east Alabama. In its prominent role as a non-profit, regional healthcare provider based in Carrollton, Tanner Health System has a staff of more than 200 physicians representing 35 specialties and more than 2,000 employees at its three hospitals system-wide.

Tanner Medical Center/Carrollton is a 202-bed acute care hospital offering services that include cardiac and cancer treatment, 24-hour emergency care, hospice care, occupational and behavioral health services, community wellness programs, medical imaging, sleep studies, maternity and nursery care and more.

Tanner Medical Center/Villa Rica is 40-bed acute care hospital. The hospital offers inpatient and outpatient surgical services, intensive care, 24-hour emergency care, medical imaging, maternity and nursery care and more. The Tanner system also includes the recently renovated and expanded Higgins General Hospital, a critical access hospital with a maximum license capacity of 25 beds located in Bremen, Ga.

Tanner also operates the Tanner Physician Network, comprised of 18 primary care and specialty practices serving the communities of Bowdon, Bremen, Carrollton, Douglasville, Franklin, Tallapoosa and Villa Rica. Along with family medicine and primary care, the Tanner Physician Network also offers pediatrics, pulmonology and critical care, interventional cardiology, obstetrics and gynecology, gastroenterology and more.

Tanner Green, a new initiative at Tanner, will lead to innovative ways to reduce the organization’s impact on the environment and demonstrate Tanner’s commitment to environment-friendly practices, according to Tanner Health System President and CEO Loy Howard.

“Green is a very important color at Tanner,” said Howard. “It’s a very prevalent color at our facilities, and it has become a way to recognize Tanner’s services. Now, with Tanner Green, green is becoming a whole new mindset.”

As a significant step under the Tanner Green program, Tanner has drilled a well beneath Tanner Medical Center/Carrollton to provide irrigation for the hospital’s large campus.

“Tanner is tapping this resource to help us keep our campus here in Carrollton properly watered within state regulations,” said Howard. “This is the next innovative step in this effort, and it will be one step of many as Tanner moves forward.”

Howard said that since the water was not potable, it could not be used for patient care purposes in the hospital, but can be used to irrigate plants on the hospital grounds without drawing from the municipal water supply and could be used to supplement some of the hospital’s utility systems that use non-potable water, such as the cooling towers for the hospital’s air conditioning system.

Tanner has dug down more than 550 feet to access the well, which is estimated to pump up to 60 gallons per minute for irrigation use. That could result in more than 31 million gallons of water savings to the municipal water supply each year. How much of the water the hospital actually uses depends on several variables, including rainfall and how much the facility runs its air conditioning system. The well came into use in late December.

The health system is exploring other ways to conserve resources and reduce its carbon footprint, and is encouraging its team of healthcare professionals to help find new ways to reduce Tanner’s environmental impact. So far, the hospital has begun replacing incandescent bulbs in its facilities with more energy-efficient fluorescent bulbs and electronic ballasts, and is installing more energy-efficient equipment at its hospitals. Tanner is also looking into purchasing food from local farmer cooperatives closer to the hospital, reducing the distance food has to travel before being prepared and served to patients and guests at Tanner’s cafeterias.

“There are more than 2,000 team members here at Tanner, and that’s a substantial number of people who can help start making environmentally-sound decisions in their own homes as well as bring green ideas to Tanner,” said Howard. “Beyond the changes we’re making to our facilities, Tanner can have a potentially significant impact through educating and encouraging our team here to take environmental responsibility home with them.

“We’re all in this together,” Howard continued. “This is something that companies need to look at doing, because the cost of implementing energy-efficient and environment-friendly solutions often more than makes up for itself over the long term, ultimately resulting in a cleaner community and a more healthy planet. Tanner Green is about being a better corporate citizen.”