☛ TS Telemedicine helps prosecute sexual assault cases
A little Eureka facility and a group of doctors a couple of hundred miles away are making a big difference in caring for Humboldt County's sexual assault victims and locking away their assailants.
A telemedicine facility set up at St. Joseph Hospital has been operating for about six years now, letting nationally recognized experts from the University of California at Davis sit in on local sexual assault exams. A study released in the medical journal “Pediatrics” last month found that telemedicine facilities, like Eureka's, greatly improve the quality of sexual assault examinations.
Cassie Burgess, Humboldt County's Sexual Assault Response Team coordinator, explained that Eureka's telemedicine facility allows doctors from UC Davis to telephonically sit in on consultations, offering suggestions and support for local providers and an instant second opinion.
”That's amazing in and of itself,” Burgess said, adding that utilizing telemedicine is like having some of the nation's sexual assault experts in the room with her during an exam.
The recently released study, titled “Using Telemedicine to Improve the Care Delivered to Sexually Abused Children in Rural, Underserved Hospitals,” found that about half of the care providers in rural communities that used telemedicine changed their examination and evidence-collection techniques at the suggestion of a consulting expert.
”Telemedicine is not only a tool for consultation, it's also a tool for teaching rural providers how to examine children and better test for evidence,” said Kristen Rogers, one of the study's authors and a professor of pediatrics at UC Davis Medical Center.
The study looked at the effectiveness of consultations performed at two rural Northern California clinics linked via telemedicine to experts with UC Davis' Children's Hospital Child and Adolescent Abuse Resource Evaluation Center.
UC Davis provided each of the study sites with videoconferencing equipment and coloscopes -- lighted magnifying instruments used to examine the vagina and the cervix. An expert in Sacramento then uses the equipment to “sit in” on consultations, providing guidance on all aspects of the examinations by viewing the local care provider, the patient in the exam room and the images captured by the coloscope.
The study included 42 sexual assault cases, and found that 47 percent of the consultations resulted in changed interview methods and that nine, or more than 20 percent, resulted in better evidence collection.
Asked how telemedicine could make such a large difference, Rogers turned to an example. She recalled a case where a child claimed to have been raped, but went through almost an entire telemedicine exam and doctors couldn't find any physical evidence.
”It was hard to find evidence, but one of the things that she had said during the exam is that (the assailant) kept whispering in her ear throughout the rape,” Rogers recalled. “We were able to say (to the local provider), 'Why don't you swab the child's ear?' Lo and behold, they got DNA evidence off that.”
District Attorney Paul Gallegos said the use of telemedicine locally has been a great asset to his office, as it provides the examinations with immediate peer review and makes their findings carry much more weight in court.
”Peer review augments any potential challenges to the SART conclusions so they are less subject to attack,” Gallegos said. “When it's done, it improves the SART exam, which means it improves the case ... it means it has increased reliability for us, for the court and for those members of the community that serve on the jury.”
According to referral numbers from state agencies, instances of child maltreatment -- a kind of blanket category including neglect, physical and sexual abuse -- are well above the state average in Del Norte and Humboldt counties. Statewide, the instances of maltreatment are about 49 per 1,000 children. That number jumps to more than 86 per 1,000 children in Humboldt and balloons to more than 125 instances per 1,000 children in Del Norte.
Claire Knox, chair of the Child Development Department at Humboldt State University, cautioned that those types of data are always tricky and have a lot to do with nomenclature, but said several factors could contribute to the state's more rural areas seeing higher levels of child maltreatment, and specifically higher rates of child sexual assault.
Isolation, unemployment and emotional and financial stress can contribute to higher child maltreatment rates, Knox said, adding that even a lack of childcare arrangements can play a role. Limited access to resources and the fact that people are more likely to commit those types of crimes when nobody is around are big contributing factors, she said.
”When (people) are emotionally needy, they may turn to behaviors in which they might not otherwise engage,” she said. “Community systems in which there are heightened levels of abuse of alcohol and drugs also reduce barriers and constraints.”
Del Norte County District Attorney Mike Riese said his office deals with lots of child sexual assault cases, many of them without the help of telemedicine.
Rogers said UC Davis made efforts to place one of its test sites in Del Norte, but things didn't work out.
”We offered it to them and the timing wasn't right,” she said. “They weren't ready yet to have telemedicine in their county.”
Riese said emergency room doctors and nurse practitioners handle the majority of his county's examinations. He would not say how often child sexual assault cases are dropped due to a lack of evidence.
Burgess said one of the positives of Eureka's telemedicine facility is that it takes child sexual assault victims out of the emergency room, where they sometimes had to wait for hours to be seen, and into a more comfortable environment. Burgess said it also empowers the local care providers to know they have experts looking over their shoulders.
Gallegos said the results simply speak for themselves.
”About every time we've used (evidence from telemedicine examinations) we've got a conviction,” he said.
Times-Standard staff writers John Driscoll, Sean Garmire, Thadeus Greenson, Jessie Faulkner, Erin Tracy and Sharon Letts contributed to this report.
A Times-Standard Staff Report
Posted: 02/23/2009 01:30:19 AM PST
Comments on TS site:
numbers - "About every time we've ... got a conviction. Grammar aside, just how many such trials have there been? Or plea bargains? Certainly hasn't been a lot of news coverage of such successful outcomes. And why is it that the TS never seems to ask the obvious follow up question?
In the dark - Asked how telemedicine could make such a large difference, Rogers turned to an example. She recalled a case where a child claimed to have been raped, but went through almost an entire telemedicine exam and doctors couldn't find any physical evidence.
"It was hard to find evidence, but one of the things that she had said during the exam is that (the assailant) kept whispering in her ear throughout the rape," Rogers recalled. "We were able to say (to the local provider), 'Why don't you swab the child's ear?' Lo and behold, they got DNA evidence off that.
What'd I miss? Someone was arrested for sexual assault for whispering in a child's ear, based on presence of (I assume) saliva but an absence of (I assume) seminal or physical evidence below the waist?
Not to nitpick....but no clarity given that the whispered remark, "Rogers recalled", is in no way related to Kristen Rogers, quoted in the article.
I'm all for the use of any evidentiary-gathering tools when it comes to catching perps. The best solutions to much of our social ills is good parenting, loving family structure, etc, etc, etc.
Captain Crunch - I applaud the article and the subject of the article. What makes me what to vomit is the quotes from the buffoon who is our DA. Did he even know that SART had this equipment before the interview? Who explained it to him? What about how he singlehandedly dismantled the CAST operation? Cassie Burgess is a fantastic person and should get many, many awards for her work. Gallegos needs to be recalled.
cocoa puffs - Right on captain. Aside from the good news about telemedicine, the article is a puff piece for the DA. The impression is left that his office is cutting edge, but there are no facts to demonstrate that telemedicine has played any role in any Humboldt case, ever. But hey" we got convictions". Really. Name three, and tie
them in detail to telemedicine.
GOOD QUESTIONS! Note that the program set up predates Gallegos.
Showing posts with label Domestic Violence. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Domestic Violence. Show all posts
2.23.2009
12.30.2006
Gallegos "loses" Nandor Vadas
In this article about budget cuts and layoffs, Gallegos claims that he let Nandor Vadas go because he LOST the Domestic Violence Grant. Earlier he claimed he fired Gloria Albin-Sheets because he lost the Domestic Violence Grant. And Gloria was named on the Grant as THE Vertical Prosecutor for DV, as was Nandor Vadas in her wake. But the DA's Office is still receiving the Grant, and several names have been put on the application claiming they were the Vertical Prosecutor, in order to appear to be complying with the requirements of the Grant.
It's fair to say that there has been no Vertical Prosecution in the DA's Office since Nandor left.
But the Grant has not been lost.
***
Feeling the pinch
14 county workers lose jobs as supes pass 2004-05 budget
by HANK SIMS
Fourteen county employees will lose their jobs, a wide variety of services to the public will be scaled back and the salaries of many public servants will be cut in the upcoming fiscal year under the budget passed unanimously by the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday.
In addition, the county will spend nearly its entire savings nearly $2.4 million and will leave more than 200 vacant positions unfilled in order to keep the county afloat during the statewide budget crisis.
"These are essential positions that are going away, and services are going to be less for all of us," said Supervisor Jimmy Smith.
The cuts affect nearly every county department, but certain high-profile services such as those provided by the Sheriff's Office, the county library and the Public Works Department are particularly hard hit.
The Sheriff's Office will lay off eight people, including one sergeant, an evidence technician and four secretaries. In addition, the office will have to leave seven deputy and two investigator positions unfilled, and will close its main office in Eureka to walk-in business on Fridays.
The county library will reduce its open hours at each of its branches by between 10 and 20 percent and will close down entirely for one week every three months. The Public Works Department will hold off on much of its standard upkeep work on county roads, focusing its effort only on the county's "critical routes."
The District Attorney's Office laid off a senior prosecutor, Nandor Vadas, last month because a domestic violence grant ran out, DA Paul Gallegos said. Vadas got a job with the federal magistrate's office, Gallegos said.
Other departments have devised different strategies for coping with the loss of funding. Employees of several including the Assessor's Office, the County Administrative Office and the Board of Supervisors itself have accepted voluntary, across-the-board pay cuts of 5 to 10 percent. District Attorney Paul Gallegos and Assistant DA Tim Stoen each took a 10 percent cut.
In a report to the board, County Administrative Officer Loretta Nickolaus laid out the causes of the budget crisis. The cost of providing health insurance to county employees is expected to increase by 10 percent in the upcoming year, and an increased share of payments into the Public Employee Retirement System (PERS) will cost around $2.3 million.
In addition, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's proposed state budget involves taking some $2.5 million in property taxes from the county as part of a maneuver to balance the state's budget. Nickolaus told the board that Schwarzenegger was in the process of revising the proposal, which may result in the tax money being returned to the county.
After several weeks of special sessions to allow for input from heads of county departments and members of the public, the board was able to finalize the budget relatively quickly on Tuesday. Supervisors asked for only one change from Nickolaus' final recommendations to find $10,000 to support the Youth Service Bureau's teen shelter programs for at-risk youth. The $10,000 would keep the programs alive while the bureau pursues a $100,000 federal grant.
Supervisor Bonnie Neely, who has been working with the bureau and the county's Department of Health and Human Services to find other sources of funding for the programs, spoke in favor of the expenditure.
"I think it would be a mistake to lose $100,000 coming into the county because we didn't put forward the $10,000," she said.
Because of a legal technicality the board could not authorize the $10,000 grant at Tuesday's meeting, but a "straw vote" showed unanimous support for the proposal.
Supervisor Jill Geist thanked managers of the county's various departments for leading the way. Earlier in the year, each department was asked to provide a statement showing how it would cut 20 percent from its budget. Those statements formed the basis of the total countywide budget adopted on Tuesday.
"The departments have worked phenomenally to bring back budgets that they can work under and still provide basic services to the community," she said.
For many, the fact that only 14 employees had to be laid off out of a current workforce total of more than 1,650 was a tribute to the county's fiscal responsibility. The county instituted a hiring freeze more than two years ago, with the result that when the crisis hit, empty positions could be cut instead of actual employees.
After the meeting, Public Works Director Allen Campbell said that this approach led to a more painless downsizing than otherwise would have been the case.
"We quit hiring people two years ago, unless it was absolutely necessary," he said. "Through attrition, we're just kind of going down with the budget."
It's fair to say that there has been no Vertical Prosecution in the DA's Office since Nandor left.
But the Grant has not been lost.
***
Feeling the pinch
14 county workers lose jobs as supes pass 2004-05 budget
by HANK SIMS
Fourteen county employees will lose their jobs, a wide variety of services to the public will be scaled back and the salaries of many public servants will be cut in the upcoming fiscal year under the budget passed unanimously by the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday.
In addition, the county will spend nearly its entire savings nearly $2.4 million and will leave more than 200 vacant positions unfilled in order to keep the county afloat during the statewide budget crisis.
"These are essential positions that are going away, and services are going to be less for all of us," said Supervisor Jimmy Smith.
The cuts affect nearly every county department, but certain high-profile services such as those provided by the Sheriff's Office, the county library and the Public Works Department are particularly hard hit.
The Sheriff's Office will lay off eight people, including one sergeant, an evidence technician and four secretaries. In addition, the office will have to leave seven deputy and two investigator positions unfilled, and will close its main office in Eureka to walk-in business on Fridays.
The county library will reduce its open hours at each of its branches by between 10 and 20 percent and will close down entirely for one week every three months. The Public Works Department will hold off on much of its standard upkeep work on county roads, focusing its effort only on the county's "critical routes."
The District Attorney's Office laid off a senior prosecutor, Nandor Vadas, last month because a domestic violence grant ran out, DA Paul Gallegos said. Vadas got a job with the federal magistrate's office, Gallegos said.
Other departments have devised different strategies for coping with the loss of funding. Employees of several including the Assessor's Office, the County Administrative Office and the Board of Supervisors itself have accepted voluntary, across-the-board pay cuts of 5 to 10 percent. District Attorney Paul Gallegos and Assistant DA Tim Stoen each took a 10 percent cut.
In a report to the board, County Administrative Officer Loretta Nickolaus laid out the causes of the budget crisis. The cost of providing health insurance to county employees is expected to increase by 10 percent in the upcoming year, and an increased share of payments into the Public Employee Retirement System (PERS) will cost around $2.3 million.
In addition, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's proposed state budget involves taking some $2.5 million in property taxes from the county as part of a maneuver to balance the state's budget. Nickolaus told the board that Schwarzenegger was in the process of revising the proposal, which may result in the tax money being returned to the county.
After several weeks of special sessions to allow for input from heads of county departments and members of the public, the board was able to finalize the budget relatively quickly on Tuesday. Supervisors asked for only one change from Nickolaus' final recommendations to find $10,000 to support the Youth Service Bureau's teen shelter programs for at-risk youth. The $10,000 would keep the programs alive while the bureau pursues a $100,000 federal grant.
Supervisor Bonnie Neely, who has been working with the bureau and the county's Department of Health and Human Services to find other sources of funding for the programs, spoke in favor of the expenditure.
"I think it would be a mistake to lose $100,000 coming into the county because we didn't put forward the $10,000," she said.
Because of a legal technicality the board could not authorize the $10,000 grant at Tuesday's meeting, but a "straw vote" showed unanimous support for the proposal.
Supervisor Jill Geist thanked managers of the county's various departments for leading the way. Earlier in the year, each department was asked to provide a statement showing how it would cut 20 percent from its budget. Those statements formed the basis of the total countywide budget adopted on Tuesday.
"The departments have worked phenomenally to bring back budgets that they can work under and still provide basic services to the community," she said.
For many, the fact that only 14 employees had to be laid off out of a current workforce total of more than 1,650 was a tribute to the county's fiscal responsibility. The county instituted a hiring freeze more than two years ago, with the result that when the crisis hit, empty positions could be cut instead of actual employees.
After the meeting, Public Works Director Allen Campbell said that this approach led to a more painless downsizing than otherwise would have been the case.
"We quit hiring people two years ago, unless it was absolutely necessary," he said. "Through attrition, we're just kind of going down with the budget."
12.07.2006
ER - Domestic Violence gets grant
Domestic Violence gets grant
by Christine Bensen-Messinger, 10/14/2005
Since she began working as the executive director of Humboldt Domestic Violence Services in June, Sharyne Harper has secured approximately $200,000 in grants.
“I’ve been writing them since I got here and so far they’ve all been funded,” she said.
Soon Harper will find out if two more grants she applied for will come through.
One of the most recent grants the program received was $20,000 from the Mary Kay Ash Charitable Foundation.
The foundation was started by Mary Kay Ash in 1996 and focused on researching cancers that affect women. In 2000 it expanded its mission to include prevention of violence against women.
To date, the foundation has donated $13 million to these two causes, according to the foundation’s Web site (www.mkacf.org).
Harper said she is pleased that the foundation approved the shelter’s grant.
“(I’m) excited. I only applied for $15,000 and they gave me $20,000,” Harper said.
David Dunnigan, the foundation’s spokesman, said it was glad to give the shelter the extra money because the foundation “(felt) like it was a worthwhile institution.
“There were several shelters that were in the same situation, (and) we wanted to make every shelter gift equal,” he said. “I’m sure they’ll find a way to spend that extra $5,000.”
The shelter will not have a problem putting the extra money to use, Harper said.
“It will help our children’s program which is always under-funded,” she said.
The shelter is 85 percent grant funded. Approximately 15 percent of the grants come from private sources.
“The major funding comes from the office of emergency services … and the department of health,” Harper said.
The shelter provides confidential emergency services and ongoing support programs for Humboldt County residents who are or have been in abusive relationships and their children.
The shelter also has a 24-hour crisis line that can be reached by phoning (707) 443-6042 or toll-free (866) 668-6543.
Copyright (C) 2005, The Eureka Reporter. All rights reserved.
by Christine Bensen-Messinger, 10/14/2005
Since she began working as the executive director of Humboldt Domestic Violence Services in June, Sharyne Harper has secured approximately $200,000 in grants.
“I’ve been writing them since I got here and so far they’ve all been funded,” she said.
Soon Harper will find out if two more grants she applied for will come through.
One of the most recent grants the program received was $20,000 from the Mary Kay Ash Charitable Foundation.
The foundation was started by Mary Kay Ash in 1996 and focused on researching cancers that affect women. In 2000 it expanded its mission to include prevention of violence against women.
To date, the foundation has donated $13 million to these two causes, according to the foundation’s Web site (www.mkacf.org).
Harper said she is pleased that the foundation approved the shelter’s grant.
“(I’m) excited. I only applied for $15,000 and they gave me $20,000,” Harper said.
David Dunnigan, the foundation’s spokesman, said it was glad to give the shelter the extra money because the foundation “(felt) like it was a worthwhile institution.
“There were several shelters that were in the same situation, (and) we wanted to make every shelter gift equal,” he said. “I’m sure they’ll find a way to spend that extra $5,000.”
The shelter will not have a problem putting the extra money to use, Harper said.
“It will help our children’s program which is always under-funded,” she said.
The shelter is 85 percent grant funded. Approximately 15 percent of the grants come from private sources.
“The major funding comes from the office of emergency services … and the department of health,” Harper said.
The shelter provides confidential emergency services and ongoing support programs for Humboldt County residents who are or have been in abusive relationships and their children.
The shelter also has a 24-hour crisis line that can be reached by phoning (707) 443-6042 or toll-free (866) 668-6543.
Copyright (C) 2005, The Eureka Reporter. All rights reserved.