News-Record.com

If you're shopping for a Medicare Part D prescription-drug plan, or changing plans, you need to get your paperwork filed by Saturday to be sure that all the changes will be recorded with Medicare and your insurer by Jan. 1, when plan changes take effect.

That's the word from the National Senior Citizens Law Center, which has sent out a news release on the subject.

Although the official deadline for picking a new plan is Dec. 31, the center says, beneficiaries need to make changes by Saturday to ensure that changes are recorded in the Part D plan, Medicare and pharmacy computers by Jan. 1. If that doesn't happen, seniors might not be able to get the drugs they need or might have to pay out of pocket for them.

More information is available at the center's Web site.

Moses Cone Health System will be giving $333,000 over three years to endow a professorship in nursing at UNCG's nursing school.

The new position will allow the school to expand its capacity; Moses Cone hopes it will lead to a greater supply of hard-to-find nurses. From the news release:

"What's motivating Cone is the shortage of nurses," said Dr. Virginia Karb, associate dean of the nursing school. "They would like us to graduate more nurses and we would like to do that, too, but our facilities and staff are at capacity. This endowment will help us recruit a senior professor for the nursing school, which is tough because there's also a severe shortage of nursing faculty. It's a real challenge to recruit and keep faculty."

The school will apply to the state for matching funds to bring the total endowment to $500,000.

The N.C. Department of Health and Human Services has created a Web site aimed at helping North Carolinians better manage their health. The site is called Eat Smart, Move More N.C. It includes such tools as a calculator of body-mass index, nutritious recipes and other helpful tips. (My body-mass index turns out to be on the high side of normal, and that's only because I've lost a fair bit of weight since the summer.) So check it out.

The N.C. State Center for Health Statistics has just published on its Web site a list of 22 health indicators for the state. Statistics also are available on a county-by-county basis.

The indicators include such categories as various cancer death rates, childhood obesity, and incidence of low birth-weight babies.

The statistics are grouped into three five-year periods for each category to make tracking trends easier.

You can view the statistics at http://www.schs.state.nc.us/SCHS/data/trends/pdf/.