My position on the negotiations between the Coliseum and USC is simple. I do not and will not support the Trojans leaving the Coliseum for the Rose Bowl or any other venue.

As a member of the Coliseum Commission, I am completely committed to getting USC’s lease with the Coliseum renewed. It will be a tremendous disappointment to fans across Southern California and to USC alumni around the globe if there is a failure to reach an agreement in the very near future. This is not the time for non-productive rhetoric. This is the time for a solution.

On a personal note, I have been a USC fan for over three decades and my family and I have been attending games at the Coliseum for years. I know what the loss of the Trojans would mean and what an unacceptable solution it would be. As a Coliseum Commissioner, I will continue to work diligently to ensure the Trojans keep their home at the Coliseum for years to come.

– Supervisor Don Knabe

County of Los Angeles, Fourth District

A high-tech system designed to curb graffiti is credited for an arrest of a local man accused of several incidents of graffiti vandalism in the Rowland Heights area, Supervisor Don Knabe announced today.

Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputies, using documentation obtained from the Graffiti Tracker program, recently arrested one of the most active graffiti vandals in Rowland Heights. The suspect was arrested and charged with multiple misdemeanor counts of vandalism, and he is currently awaiting trial. Additional suspects could be arrested as the investigation continues.

Before the ‘Graffiti Tracker’ came along, a bust like this wouldn’t have been possible because there was no way of determining which vandals were doing the most damage or how much damage they were actually responsible for, said Supervisor Knabe.

This system was originally put to use in the City of Carson several years ago and in 2006 Supervisor Knabe funded the project in South Whittier. Since then, Sheriff’s Deputies have made over 20 arrests and seen a 24% decrease in vandalism in 2007.

The Graffiti Tracker system was created to capture and store graffiti data. The system gives law enforcement personnel real-time, street-level intelligence that allows them to not only focus on the worst graffiti offenders and their damage, but also to monitor potential gang violence that is associated with the graffiti.

Los Angeles County Department of Health Services (DHS) hospitals rate average and above average in several key quality indicators and showed improvement in other areas according to the latest quarterly report card from the California Hospital Assessment and Reporting Taskforce (CHART), released recently.

The CHART project was established in 2004 by a group of hospitals, purchasers and health plans to provide consumers with comparative hospital data to make more informed health care choices, and more than 200 California public and private hospitals currently participate in this voluntary effort.

Los Angeles County was a founding member of the CHART initiative and supports efforts to continually improve quality and the patient experience in our system, said DHS Director and Chief Medical Officer Bruce Chernof, MD. CHART is an important mechanism to examine areas of performance strength and weakness.

The aggregated data includes core measures routinely provided and made available publicly on the Joint Commission website combined with mortality data from the Office of Statewide Health Planning & Development (OSHPD) and patient satisfaction data. Additional measures are expected in the future.

The report ranks performance on a 1-5 scale in areas such as heart attack care, heart failure care, pneumonia care, infection prevention, and coronary artery bypass and pneumonia mortality. Of the 16 counties in California’s public hospital system, Los Angeles County is one of seven participating in this project.

AMI (heart attack care), pneumonia, heart failure and other measures include several components. Some components measure clinical practice, such as administering aspirin or other medications upon arrival or at discharge, other components measure preventative practices such as smoking cessation counseling and providing discharge instructions. Scores may be affected by poor performance in either the clinical practice or the prevention component. Overall, DHS Hospitals score at or above the state and national averages for clinical components and there are opportunities to improve performance in the preventative components.

Olive View-UCLA Medical Center rated a score of 1, or superior and LAC+USC Medical Center rated a score of 2 or above average for the AMI, or heart attack care composite. For the Pneumonia Quality measure, Harbor-UCLA and Olive View-UCLA Medical Centers maintained their ratings of average.

Several initiatives have been implemented to improve ratings at each hospital. For example, nurse training to screen patients for vaccination eligibility and the creation of new clinical pathways to facilitate more effective patient management were implemented.

The most recent round of data covers different time periods. For heart attack care, pneumonia care, heart failure care and surgical infection prevention, the data measures performance between April, 2006 and March, 2007. Other data measures hospital performance from 2002 to 2004.

A breakdown of the time periods for each of the data elements is available on the CHART website and scores are based on data collected over a year’s time. Consequently, improvements in one quarter may not be immediately reflected in the data score. In some categories there is not enough data to make an analysis.

Consumers can access the CHART website at www.calhospitalcompare.org