Kathleen Kerr | Newsday

The Nassau County Breast and Cervical Cancer Screening Partnership will welcome the new year by offering free medical screenings - mammograms for uninsured women 40 and older and cervical exams for uninsured women 18 and older at the Nassau University Medical Center.

The cancer screenings will take place Saturday, Jan. 12, at the medical center at 2201 Hempstead Tpke. in East Meadow from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.

A number of community organizations, like Planned Parenthood, and hospitals, such as South Nassau Communities Hospital in Oceanside, belong to the breast and cervical cancer partnership.

Although Long Island breast cancer rates have fallen recently, the disease remains a threat. The American Cancer Society estimates that by the end of 2007, 1,164 Nassau County women will have been diagnosed with the disease this year alone. Between 2000 and 2004, Suffolk averaged 239 breast cancer deaths annually and in Nassau the yearly average was 248.

"We value this type of program as it is vital for the NHCC [Nassau Health Care Corp.] to reach out to our underserved communities in order to fulfill our mission," said corporation spokeswoman Shelly Lotenberg. "Thanks to this grant, we have screened over 3,000 women in 2006 ... and have instituted a once-a-month Saturday screening where we have provided this lifesaving service to an additional 400 women for both breast and cervical cancer."

Partnership director Christine Mancuso said annual state grants provide funding for the screening program. The current grant - for $626,784 - expires in March.

Mancuso said on the second Saturday of each month the partnership screens women who can't afford mammograms; more screening is offered at other times.

"We made these [screenings] Saturdays because it made it easier for women who were working," Mancuso said.

Health care savings

John Boyko, president of the Long Island chapter of the international Association for Operations Management, wants Nassau and Suffolk health care executives to put efficient management and spending on their list of New Year's resolutions.

The management association plans a 2008 campaign to sign up local health care companies for a series of seminars that will teach how to cut costs by efficiently managing product inventories.

Boyko said the idea is based on a cost-savings technique established by Toyota and copied widely across the country. It is also referred to as "lean manufacturing."

"We provide education for companies that have to buy and sell products," said Boyko, who has a Westbury consulting firm called Summit Business Solutions. "We typically focus on how you can improve your cash flow by minimizing the amount of inventory you have to hold."

For example, Boyko said, hospitals must keep a certain amount of medication available for patients. But if they buy too much at one time, they might have to rent storage space outside the hospital - a costly expense.

Boyko said the workshops the association - also known as APICS - is planning will begin Jan. 29 and cost $400 to $900. More information is available at li-apics.org.

New pathology head

South Nassau Communities Hospital has appointed Dr. Ann Anderson chairwoman of pathology and clinical laboratories.

Anderson, formerly chief of the divisions of gynecologic pathology and genitourinary pathology at Long Island Jewish Medical Center, has almost 20 years' experience in anatomic pathology.

A 1982 graduate of New York Medical College in Valhalla, Anderson is a diplomate of the American Board of Pathology and Anatomic Pathology and also works as an assistant professor of pathology at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University in the Bronx.

She is a fellow of the College of American Pathologists.