Liberty 9-year-old battling cancer competes for national title
Atticus was diagnosed with B-cell lymphoma in September of last year. Despite his battle with cancer, he wanted to compete for the title of National Jr. Ranger and has excelled to the semi-finals.
'It really motivated him. It boosted his confidence. He wasn't thinking about the cancer treatments that he had to go through every week. He was thinking about this contest and how he could get more votes. He was going out to businesses, taking fliers, asking for votes,' his mom, Veronica Salas, said.
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The competition is for kids who love to explore and spend time in nature.
'I was just born in it since my dad explored, and my dad's dad explored, and my dad's dad's dad explored,' Atticus said when asked what led to his love for nature and exploring.
Atticus loves rock climbing and fishing. He's also fascinated by ecosystems.
'I like the quietness. I enjoy searching for cool crystals and other interesting items. So, like axolotls,' he said.
His mom, Veronica, says the community support has been overwhelming.
'From family to friends, the Liberty Community, his school, and the staff at Children's Mercy. I work at Liberty Hospital, so the staff there as well. Just all around local businesses helping him,' Salas said.
Salas says that the same support has been shown since he was diagnosed with cancer.
'Neighbors, friends, and family reaching out, how can I help? Can I give him a ride, or bring you a meal, or how can we support you? Just being there has made this journey very bearable,' Salas explained.
The winner of the competition will meet and learn from wildlife expert Jeff Corwin and be featured in the Ranger Rick magazine.
They'll also take home $20,000.
'I'll put $3,000 into a cancer charity, especially for my kind of lymphoma. Stage two blood cancer,' Atticus said when asked what he would do if he won.
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Voting in the semi-finals will end on Thursday, July 17th. Atticus needs to be in first place to move on to the final round.
You can vote for Atticus here.
'You can vote for free every 24 hours. So I encourage everyone to vote every 24 hours for free or make a donation. A $10 donation would give him more votes, and the proceeds help Junior Rangers and the National Wildlife Federation,' Salas explained.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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Yahoo
6 days ago
- Yahoo
Liberty 9-year-old battling cancer competes for national title
LIBERTY, Mo. — 9-year-old Atticus Anderson from Liberty landed a spot in the semi-finals of the National Junior Ranger competition. The competition celebrates kids who love wildlife and nature. Atticus was diagnosed with B-cell lymphoma in September of last year. Despite his battle with cancer, he wanted to compete for the title of National Jr. Ranger and has excelled to the semi-finals. 'It really motivated him. It boosted his confidence. He wasn't thinking about the cancer treatments that he had to go through every week. He was thinking about this contest and how he could get more votes. He was going out to businesses, taking fliers, asking for votes,' his mom, Veronica Salas, said. Metro school districts react to new Missouri cell phone policy The competition is for kids who love to explore and spend time in nature. 'I was just born in it since my dad explored, and my dad's dad explored, and my dad's dad's dad explored,' Atticus said when asked what led to his love for nature and exploring. Atticus loves rock climbing and fishing. He's also fascinated by ecosystems. 'I like the quietness. I enjoy searching for cool crystals and other interesting items. So, like axolotls,' he said. His mom, Veronica, says the community support has been overwhelming. 'From family to friends, the Liberty Community, his school, and the staff at Children's Mercy. I work at Liberty Hospital, so the staff there as well. Just all around local businesses helping him,' Salas said. Salas says that the same support has been shown since he was diagnosed with cancer. 'Neighbors, friends, and family reaching out, how can I help? Can I give him a ride, or bring you a meal, or how can we support you? Just being there has made this journey very bearable,' Salas explained. The winner of the competition will meet and learn from wildlife expert Jeff Corwin and be featured in the Ranger Rick magazine. They'll also take home $20,000. 'I'll put $3,000 into a cancer charity, especially for my kind of lymphoma. Stage two blood cancer,' Atticus said when asked what he would do if he won. Donors sought for Newton employee facing leukemia Voting in the semi-finals will end on Thursday, July 17th. Atticus needs to be in first place to move on to the final round. You can vote for Atticus here. 'You can vote for free every 24 hours. So I encourage everyone to vote every 24 hours for free or make a donation. A $10 donation would give him more votes, and the proceeds help Junior Rangers and the National Wildlife Federation,' Salas explained. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Newsweek
11-06-2025
- Newsweek
Inside Hospitals' Digital Command Centers
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. During the winter of 2023, staff at Children's Mercy Kansas City were waiting for the "surge": a dreaded period when viral illnesses like influenza and RSV abound, leading to an increase in hospital admissions. But as the winter bled into 2024, it became clear that something had changed. Children were still getting sick and requiring advanced medical care. However, staff at Children's Mercy weren't "feeling the angst" like they had in years past, according to Dr. Jennifer Watts, the hospital's associate chief medical officer of acute care and inpatient operations. The difference, Watts said, came from technology. That was the hospital's first year using GE HealthCare's Command Center software, a product that allows it to digitally monitor care delivery and track patients' progress throughout their stay. It's like the "NASA" control hub for the health system, Watts told Newsweek. During the first winter partnering with GE, Children's Mercy staff began asking, "Is the surge here?" "They just didn't feel it," Watts said. "We were able to prepare. We were able to have [sufficient] staff present. We got rid of the scramble that typically occurs when you don't prepare for things." Hospital staff inside Children's Mercy Kansas City's Patient Progression Hub, which uses GE Healthcare Command Center technology to paint a real-time picture of hospital happenings. Hospital staff inside Children's Mercy Kansas City's Patient Progression Hub, which uses GE Healthcare Command Center technology to paint a real-time picture of hospital happenings. Children's Mercy Kansas City Patient Progression Hub Children's Mercy is one of 300 hospitals around the world that use GE's Command Center technology. As hospitals across the U.S. face rising demand for their services—driven, in part, by sicker patients and an aging population—many are turning to these digital "command centers" to improve operational efficiency and polish the patient experience. Before developing a Patient Progression Hub, driven by GE's tech, Children's Mercy was still dealing with inefficient and outdated processes, according to Watts. Different departments were playing "phone tag" with one another to move patients through the hospital. Information was not centralized, and it was common to see staff with packets of papers in front of them, pinning memos on bulletin boards and communicating with fax machines. Within seven months of implementing the Command Center technology, the hospital saw an 86 percent reduction in admission delays and cut avoidable bed days by 24 percent—creating capacity for 300 more medical-surgical patients without expanding its facility. The tech sits atop hospitals' preexisting systems, like staffing platforms and electronic health records (EHRs), to generate a comprehensive, real-time picture of the hospital's caseload and available resources. "The software really helps connect the strategy to the day-to-day operations," Bree Bush, general manager of GE's Command Center, told Newsweek. Kristie Barazsu is the president and COO of Duke Health Lake Norman Hospital in Mooresville, North Carolina, and oversees patient flow for Duke Health, which stood up Command Center in 2019. During COVID-19, the health system could use the technology to understand where positive patients were located and deploy personal protective equipment (PPE) from its logistics center. Command Center also utilizes predictive analytics to help hospitals plan for the future. Duke uses it to forecast the area's census, analyzing overall demand by unit, patient population and information has informed the health system's staffing plan, allowing it to reduce reliance on costly, temporary travel labor—and reducing labor expenses by approximately $40 million to date, according to Barazsu. Rather than viewing the hospitals within Duke's system as independent entities, a tech Command Center has enabled leadership to get the full picture, she added. The system can now move patients from one hospital to another more quickly, allowing it to free up bed space and accept more transfers from other health systems. "We're not relying on word of mouth or pagers or systems that don't work well," Barazsu told Newsweek. "There's one source of truth." Staff coordinate care inside UMass Memorial Health's new Digital Hub. Staff coordinate care inside UMass Memorial Health's new Digital Hub. 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The system stood up its own 60,000-square-foot Virtual Care Center in November, funded by a $350 million gift from its namesake Denny Sanford. In April, Newsweek followed up on the initiative with Dr. Dave Newman, Sanford's chief medical officer of virtual care. "One of the biggest things that the Virtual Care Center has done for Sanford is it emphasized the validity of virtual care and digital health," Newman told Newsweek. "The investment in the center and the space has shown that it's permanent, that this is what we're doing to help our patients, not just today or tomorrow but also 20 years from now." For Watts at Children's Mercy Kansas City, one incident stands out as a testament to the tech Command Center's importance. Anytime there is a mass casualty event, nearby hospitals need to prepare 20 percent of their beds to accept new patients. That's a challenge for most hospitals, given their daily capacity constraints—but when a shooter opened fire on the Kansas City Chiefs' Super Bowl parade in February 2024, Children's Mercy was able to respond. "This occurred a mile from our children's hospital, and we had no idea up front how many victims we would be receiving," Watts said, "but we were able to use the results of [Command Center predictive] modeling to get us to a point where, yes, we could take 20 percent of our beds and treat all of the victims that may be coming through our doors." She's excited to see hospitals' virtual command centers and digital services grow, saying, "I think we have opened the Pandora's box here."
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Adair County: Driver more than triple the legal limit arrested
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