Wilmington, NC News

We continue our look inside some of the houses featured in this weekend’s historic home tour. When Matthew Tenhuisen and Christopher Gore bought their home in 1996, it was a dilapidated structure that had been destroyed by fire.

After years of work, it’s their labor of love. “It’s a historic house, it’s old, but its live-able. It’s not one of those houses that you go in and you feel like it’s a museum, you can’t sit in a seat or anything, our house you can just sit anywhere you want to,” Gore said.

Home tour visitors are in for a treat when they walk through this house, which was built in the 1880s. Bright colors and creative designs are everywhere you look, even high above on the 12 foot ceilings.

“It’s always funny to me to walk into a house and the ceilings always have to be white for whatever reason and I’m thinking that’s the biggest blank space you’ve got to do something and people are afraid to do anything with it,” said Matthew Tenhuisen.

Beautiful woodwork and refinished floors are found throughout the house. Tenhuisen said he’s most proud of the creative touch he and Gore have put on their home, and is excited to share it as part of the historic home tour.

The historic home tour is Saturday and Sunday. Tickets are available by clicking on the Azalea Festival link.

Transitioning from paper to electronic medical records is expensive but many argue an effective way to increase patient safety. Over the past fifteen years, New Hanover Regional Medical Center been making the transition, and they have noticed several advantages.

“It’s made that information almost immediately available so you as a patient can have a discussion with your physician about your particular situation and you can see what he’s seeing,” explained Vice President for Medical Affairs Sam Spicer.

Before medical records were electronic, the average turn around time to get radiology x-rays results was about 16 hours. However, it now takes less than an hour.

Hospital bracelets patients wear, now have a barcode doctors scan to verify they have the correct patient and medical information.

Another reason to have digital records according to Avery Cloud, CIO at NHRMC, “The medical record needs to be in more than one place at one time.”

For example, doctors in Raleigh are able to look at this same ultrasound. “When different specialists can review the same information simultaneously it improves the environment of care for the patient,” Cloud said.

The problem is, most hospitals still haven’t switched to electronic health records.

“That’s why when you go to offices a lot of times you feel like you’re repeating the same information over and over again, because a lot of systems don’t talk to each other and we’ve got to solve that. We’ve got to get to a standard where everybody in these offices can talk to each other, it’s called inter-operability and it’s one of the goals of the stimulus funding,” Dr. Spicer said.

Doctor Spicer said the hospital didn’t necessarily have the funds to make this transition, but they made it a priority. “Even though we don’t necessarily have money to do it, we’re doing it anyway because it’s the right thing to do.”

A bill moving through the state legislature would define marriage. The bill ultimately states that any marriage other than that between a man and a woman will not be recognized in the state of North Carolina.

Some people say this is discrimination. “I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who makes me feel the way he makes me feel. It’s like my cup of life was full, then it ran over when I met him.”

Woody and his partner, Jacob Lewis, met a year ago. The men say their love for each other will never be defined by the law, but some republican lawmakers want an amendment in the state constitution, that would define marriage solely as being between and man and a woman.

The bills in the house and senate are called “Defense of Marriage” bills.

Senator Julia Boseman, the state’s first openly gay legislator, wants lawmakers to focus on fixing the economy instead of reiterating something that is already written as law. “I think the laws in North Carolina are very clear. It’s very clear how marriage is defined,” Boseman said.

Representative Bonner Stiller supports the bill. “A definition of marriage is a biblical term, and it was created by god, and I’m not in charge of changing any rules that god has made, it’s just that simple for me.”

Woody and Jacob say they don’t need paperwork to define their relationship; they plan on showing their commitment to each other in front of their family and friends in July.

St. Jude’s Community Church offers holy unions between homosexual couples, although North Carolina state law still does not recognize it.

“It’s a celebration of love, and it’s to be able to stand in front of the family and friends that we have created here in Wilmington and show our love to each other and be able to celebrate and rejoice that,” said Jacob Lewis.

If the bill passes, a proposed constitutional amendment redefining marriage would be on the ballot for November’s election.