PBS NOVA Next is NOVA’s award-winning digital publication that provides answers from the cutting edge of science and technology. Dr. Farsh Guilak was featured in October for his project ‘3D Woven Synthetic Cartilage Could Help Your Knees Replace Themselves’.  “Cartilage degeneration often results in arthritis, which can reduce mobility and cause chronic pain. It cannot be repaired, but research on replacement tissues may soon offer a viable alternative.  If you have arthritis in your hip or knee, we don’t just have to fix a little pothole, we can resurface the entire joint,” said Dr. Farshid Guilak, a Duke University researcher whose team is working on a technique to replace large swaths of existing cartilage with new tissue grown from your own stem cells. The team is currently testing their approach on large animals, and Dr. Guilak expects to begin human testing within four to five years, if not sooner. ”

Read the full article at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/next/body/3d-woven-synthetic-cartilage-could-help-your-knees-replace-themselves/

From: Kyle Cavanaugh, Duke Vice President for Administration

The enrollment period for 2016 Benefits will be from Oct. 26 to Nov. 6. This annual period is the only time faculty and staff can enroll or make changes to these benefits outside of a qualifying life event such as marriage or the birth of a child.

Health care remains one of our most popular and valued benefits at Duke. More than 90 percent of eligible employees choose health coverage through one of our medical plans.

Providing a competitive health plan and navigating the employer requirements under the Affordable Care Act continues to be a challenge, but we are pleased to continue to offer four health plans to meet the diverse needs of our faculty, staff and family members, with very few changes from last year. Through diligent management of our plans, we have kept premium increases for medical insurance well below the national average, and Duke continues to pay most of the premium cost for individual coverage and about half of the premium for family coverage.

Individual coverage will only increase from $1 to $5 per month, and family coverage will increase from $6 to $24 per month in 2016. There will be slight adjustments to the specialist co-pay for all plans and the deductibles for Duke Options and Duke Basic. There are no changes in cost next year for two of the three dental plans and the vision plan.

This year, we are also asking employees to verify the eligibility of dependents covered by any of Duke’s medical plans. This is part of our efforts to manage the rising cost of health care by ensuring compliance with plan provisions and the appropriate payment of legitimate health claims.

[Open Enrollment Presentation]: http://www.slideshare.net/workingatduke/open-enrollment-for-2016-benefits-53375537

Today, we upload the final content to our new web site in preparation for our 1 week testing and content review Nov 2 – 6.  The new web site will go-live, Monday, Nov. 16th.  The faculty will receive an overview during the upcoming November faculty meeting.

The project team would like thank everyone involved in driving content and images for the new web site.  We look forward to your feedback and ongoing updates to make this a dynamic web site for the department.

On October 21, Dr. James DeOrio, M.D. was the guest speaker for the Danish Foot and Ankle Society. As coauthor for several papers on the subject, Dr. DeOrio presented on the ‘Adult Acquired Flatfoot Deformity’. 

For more information on the Danish Foot and Ankle Society and pictures of the event, visit http://ortopaedi.dk/index.php?id=20

From Kyle Cavanaugh, Duke Vice President for Administration

The 2016 holiday schedule has been approved and is now available at the link below.

2016 Holiday Schedule: http://www.hr.duke.edu/benefits/time_away/university/holidays/2016.php

Duke University provides 13 paid holidays as part of its comprehensive benefits package to support staff working 20 or more hours a week in their effort to balance work and family responsibilities.

These holidays include both designated and discretionary holidays. The holiday schedules included on the website are different depending on which part of the institution staff work.

If you have questions, please contact Staff and Labor Relations 919-684-2808 or 919-684-6557

For staff required to be vaccinated, compliance is a condition of employment.  Those who are not in compliance with the policy by November 3, 2015, may be terminated.  For faculty required to be vaccinated, non-compliance could result in denied access to Duke Medicine EMR and clinical facilities, and/or an impact on performance evaluations.

Take time today to be vaccinated!  Faculty and staff can visit Employee Occupational Health & Wellness – No appointment is necessary.

Individuals may receive the vaccine at locations other than those provided through the DUHS Healthcare Worker Flu Vaccination Program. If vaccinated elsewhere, SoM faculty and staff must provide the required documentation evidencing such to Employee Occupational Health by scanning and emailing to EOHWflu@duke.edu or via Fax to 919-681-0555. Employees should keep their original documentation until verifying that vaccination status has been updated in OESO’s database. Acceptable proof of vaccination is a document signed and dated by the professional who administered the vaccine. A form for reporting external vaccination can be found on the School of Medicine website at https://medschool.duke.edu/about-us/leadership-and-administration/office-human-resources/policies-and-forms/fluvaccinepolicy.

To read the School of Medicine’s flu vaccination policy or to access a Frequently Asked Questions document and flu vaccination exemption forms, visit medschool.duke.edu/fluvaccinepolicy.

As a follow up to last weeks blog, we continued this week with updates to the new website.  In parallel, the project team has completed the draft of all content for go-live with faculty leads and staff reviewing before updating in the new content management system.  The focus continues to be content and after all updates have been made on the site, the web developer will work on images and styling for a professional look and feel.

The new website has incorporated features not integrated on our current site:

• Ability to ‘Make a Gift’ to Orthopaedic Surgery
• Quick links to Research, Education & Training, Patient Care and Doctor of Physical Therapy
• Latest News & Articles that is integrated with our departmental blog
• Upcoming Events that we can update as appropriate specific for Orthopaedic faculty and staff

We are still on target to go-live 11/16 with a two week preview starting 11/2 where the project team, faculty leads and content providers will test the new site as well as provide a final view of the pages for accuracy.  As a reminder, you can click on the image below to view the new home page.

From the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s RN:

Obesity and knee arthritis

“Too much weight on the knee joints has long been assumed to be the cause of the increased prevalence of knee osteoarthritis in obese people.  But studies from obese mice have shown that weight – by itself – isn’t a very good predictor of osteoarthritis.  So what’s going on? Farshid Guilak, from Duke University’s Medical Centre, explains.”

Listen to the full radio interview at https://radio.abc.net.au/programitem/pgYO72PlO6?play=true

From Peter Pavlis:

Orthopaedic Surgery Faculty-DUHS Effort Only

On Friday October 16^th you received an automated email from ECRT-Support requesting that you confirm your Q1 Effort Supporting Duke University Hospital System (ES-DUHS) hours. The hours have been pre-filled for you based on your current Total Professional Effort (TPE) on file and relates to your University hours spent on Hospital Administration, In-Service Education, Supervision of Ancillary Services and Resident Training and Supervision.

To access your card, please use the link provided in the email from ECRT-Support.

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Click link and enter your net id and password
2. Review hours and scroll to the bottom of the card and click “Confirm Reporting Period”

• If you receive an error message stating that your work week falls above the “level of reasonableness”, click “Confirm Reporting Period” and then you will be complete.  The  School of Medicine put in place a threshold of 75 hours per week, however they know that our department will have faculty that could exceed that number. 

While the response deadline is October 30th, it would be helpful to confirm as soon as possible.  Peter will start following up with faculty that have not confirmed their ES-DUHS effort card on Monday, October 26th to ensure that we meet the School of Medicine deadline.  If you have any questions about your hours or the confirmation process, please contact Peter at 919-681-3360 or email-id: peter.pavlis@duke.edu.

Thanks for your cooperation.

Peter

All content for the web site is coming together as we draw closer to go-live. As a reminder, the 5 main categories of content include:

• Research (completed – pending review)
• Education (under review)
• Patient Care (completed)
• Faculty (completed)
• About Us and Links (completed)

The project team expects a number of content additions once we go-live. Again, the infrastructure of the web site is such that it is easy to maintain. However, we will implement a change management process to ensure that new and updated content follows standards to keep consistent with the overall theme of the web site.

Additionally, this week we partnered with our developer, PivotPoint Media, to build a library of pictures that will be updated on the web site. We have a number of Ortho clinical, OR, GME and DPT photos from Duke Photography. As the compiled content is updated to the new site, the designer will work with our library of pictures to strategically place throughout the site.

Lastly, our original go-live was targeted for 11/2. After much discussion from the project team and Ortho management, we have decided to unveil the new site on 11/16. This will allow 2/weeks of testing and content preview from our faculty leads and content providers.