NEWS
By Frederick N. Rasmussen | September 18, 2009
Israel H. "Sonny" Weiner, a retired Lutherville neurosurgeon who had been president of the Maryland Board of Physician Quality Assurance, died of cancer Sept. 11 at Seasons Hospice at Northwest Hospital Center. The longtime Stevenson resident was 82. Born in Baltimore, the son of a hardware store owner and a homemaker, Dr. Weiner was raised in the city's Park Circle neighborhood. He was a 1945 graduate of City College and served in the Navy from 1945 to 1946. He earned a bachelor's degree in 1949 from the Johns Hopkins University.
NEWS
By M. William Salganik | January 16, 2008
CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield launched yesterday a new program designed to reward physicians for practices that improve patients' health - an approach it believes could ultimately lower medical costs. CareFirst, the region's largest insurer with about 3 million members, said it would pay doctors as much as 7 percent extra for meeting a variety of standards of care. Those measures are a mix of process (if women get needed mammograms), service (if there are weekend or evening hours) and outcomes (if patients lower their cholesterol)
NEWS
December 20, 2006
K Bank announced that Roger Lee joined the Owings Mills-based bank as senior vice president of commercial lending. He formerly was a vice president and loan officer with Mercantile Safe-Deposit & Trust Co. Mid-Atlantic Business Finance Co. appointed William B. Freeman Jr. as vice president of operations. He is responsible for underwriting loans for presentation to the company's board and the U.S. Small Business Administration. Education Goucher College appointed Marc M. Roy as the Towson liberal arts college's provost and chief academic officer.
NEWS
By M. William Salganik | March 29, 2005
CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield launched yesterday a program to pay doctors as much as $20,000 to install electronic patient records systems designed to reduce medical errors and allow for more precise tracking of the care patients receive. With the program, CareFirst joins a growing "pay-for-performance" movement in which insurers and employers seek to provide incentives for doctors to provide better care. A number of other participants in the recordkeeping bonus plan were also announced yesterday, potentially covering 2 million patients in 10 states.
NEWS
October 12, 2004
Repairs close Obrecht, Freter roads, Stoney Lane The Carroll County Department of Public Works has announced road projects for this week. For information about projects, contact Carroll County Bureau of Engineering at 410-386-2171: Storm drain installation: Gorsuch Road and Center Street roundabout; Penn Hill Road in Valley Hill Farms. Closed for reconstruction (local traffic only): Obrecht Road from White Rock Road to Route 97. Closed for bridge reconstruction: Stoney Lane; Freter Road (at the bridge)
NEWS
By Stephanie Desmon | April 1, 2003
Sen. Paula C. Hollinger said last night that she has reached an agreement with the state's medical lobby on a bill to change the way doctors in Maryland are licensed and disciplined. For weeks, the Baltimore County Democrat has been locked in a battle with the Maryland State Medical Society, known as MedChi, over her efforts to make it easier to punish bad doctors. Hollinger and other lawmakers say the standard of proof is too high, which leads to too few disciplinary actions. Currently, a case against a doctor must be proven through "clear and convincing evidence."
NEWS
By Stephanie Desmon | April 1, 2003
Sen. Paula C. Hollinger said last night that she has reached an agreement with the state's medical lobby on a bill to change the way doctors in Maryland are licensed and disciplined. For weeks, the Baltimore County Democrat has been locked in a battle with the Maryland State Medical Society, known as MedChi, over her efforts to make it easier to punish bad doctors. Hollinger and other lawmakers say the standard of proof is too high, which leads to too few disciplinary actions. Currently, a case against a doctor must be proven through "clear and convincing evidence."
NEWS
By Jacques Kelly | December 11, 2002
Susan Abbott, an executive at McCormick & Co. and a leader in the spice industry, died of breast cancer Friday at Brightwood Center in Lutherville. The Cockeysville resident was 54. In her 32 years with the Baltimore-area grocery products company, Ms. Abbott became the senior technical supervisor at its spice mill and headed its quality assurance program. She was most recently McCormick's vice president for regulatory and environmental affairs, and was the first female president of the American Spice Trade Association.
NEWS
By Jennifer McMenamin | September 12, 2001
When several Baltimore city school principals complained that they had too little time to do far too much, Alan E. Small could have brushed it off as a commonplace gripe that he, as an internal auditor, could do little to resolve. Instead, he sketched out a sheaf of flowcharts, documenting the schools' chain of command and the number of staffers who reported directly to each principal. After sharing his findings with school system authorities, Small drew up new flowcharts that reassigned many of the schools' business activities, from managing bookstores to equipment inventory, to new chairpersons.
NEWS
By Greg Garland | August 2, 2001
By law, Maryland essentially allows its doctors to police themselves - and that has resulted in a relatively low rate of disciplinary actions against physicians, at least one national study shows. The Medical and Chirurgical Faculty of Maryland - the state's medical society and the main lobbying arm for Maryland doctors - controls two-thirds of the seats on the state regulatory board that oversees physician discipline. MedChi members also play the determining role in investigating alleged cases of substandard care and, by virtue of their control of the Maryland Board of Physician Quality Assurance, in deciding whether disciplinary actions should be taken.