According to Casey Nomenclature, spokesperson for the Healthcare Observation Naming Consortium (HONC), this designation was long overdue.

“Of course, everyone is familiar with American Heart Month in February, or National Breast Cancer Awareness Month in October, which are very important observations,” said Nomenclature. “But people really aren’t aware of the more than 178 observations recognized by U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. For example, did you know October is National Medical Librarians Month? We just thought it was important people were aware of all the monthly designations that help people become aware.”

Other important, but lesser known, designations include:

• National Folic Acid Awareness Week (January 2-8)
• Sports Eye Safety Month (April)
• Mediterranean Diet Month (May)
• National School Backpack Awareness Day (September 15)
• Fruits and Veggies – More Matters Month (September)
• National Rip Current Awareness Week (June 5 -11)

Nomenclature also notes that people need to remember all of the designations related to healthcare workers, such as National Medical Transcriptionist Week (May), National Nurses in Staff Development Week (July) and Nuclear Medicine Week (October).

“Thank goodness for Eldridge Macintosh, a founding member of HONC, who made the controversial decision in 1947 to allow for multiple observations for the same month, week or day, which opened the door to all these very important designations,” says Nomenclature. “From our perspective, the more designations we can make, the more the country will pay attention to these important issues.”

“Like the legislator in Vermont, we were flabbergasted that hospitals actually have to attract patients with marketing and advertising,” said WiseBucks editor Joe Duhh. “That’s how regular businesses operate, sure. But hospitals? That would be like saying politicians have to spend money to get elected – doesn’t it just happen?”

Last year’s award-winning study, which uncovered that hospitals are actually businesses, won WiseBucks the coveted Most Obvious Reporting On News (or MORON) award. Its findings, which caused endless congressional hearings and helped fuel the grassroots “Band-Aid Party” movement, showed that:

• despite the fact that most hospitals are “non-profit,” they still must take in more money then they spend
• revenue from many hospital patients – such as those with Medicare insurance – does not cover the cost of serving those patients
• shockingly, some hospitals have actual waterfalls and valet parking

WiseBucks has won acclaim for its past investigating reporting, including:

• “Uncovering the truth: the sun rises in the east”
• “This just in: gravity works.”
• “Money does not, in fact, grow on trees – an investigative report.”

In a tweet this weekend, Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa, the top-ranking Republican on the committee, commented: “Hosps having topless car wshs I get, but $347? That seems like a stretch #welovechuck.”

In May, the committee held hearings to explore inconsistencies in community benefit reporting related to bad debt and reimbursement gaps. Sources on the committee revealed that other issues have emerged since then, including:

• a health system in Massachusetts that listed $1,700 in community benefit related to neck rubs given randomly on the street.
• two hospitals, one in Duluth and another in Dallas, that both included the value of “wave you on through the intersection” gestures given by staff members.
• a physician-owned hospital in Utah counting $5,246 in community benefit for handing out free “National Hospital Week” tube socks at the Box Elder County Fair.
• more than a dozen hospitals across the country accounting for every time a staff member used the : ) emoticon in emails, assigning different values ranging from 1¢ to $7.99 per use.
• in perhaps the most egregious abuse, a hospital in Denver that assigned $76,400 in community benefit for all the times their staff members told someone that they had toilet paper on their shoe.

The hospitals in question could not be reached for a response by press time. A spokesperson for the American Hospital Association, Ted LeTed, said, “We believe strongly in supporting Senator Grassley and the committee in their efforts to clearly define community benefit reporting. There’s no reason hospitals can’t have topless car washes and meet the rule of law.”

“It’s our belief that you’ll get ten times the content value from posts that are one tenth the size,” says Smatter CEO Thomas Smidge.

The social media entrant will introduce a whole new vernacular as well. Instead of posting “tweets,” members will post “smatts,” forwarded posts will be called “resmatts” and group conversations will be “smatt-chats.”

Smidge says Smatter will address a different audience than Twitter, focusing on those who only have fleeting seconds to communicate with others, those who feel 140 characters is “bloated,” and those with attention deficit disorder. Smidge offered a sample conversation to illustrate the new tool:

@bigboob: hi there, I’m
@mrman: nice to mt u,
@bigboob: Smatter is awe
@mrman: you ain’t kidd
@bigboob: RS @mrman you a

The company, which is launching the new service later in the year, refused to release revenue projections, or outline a revenue model.

“If you look directly at a patient, you may come to know them, know them personally,” said Weber during his 73-minute speech on the floor of the House of Representatives last Tuesday. “Where I come from, direct eye contact is awfully forward. It’s an invasion of privacy.”

The House Committee on Healthcare Reform will take up the matter in next week’s regularly scheduled committee meetings. The issue of how eye contact will be monitored and enforced was not addressed in Representative Weber’s bill.