Supplemental Health Care Partners With Parkland Hospital In Meeting Staffing Needs

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DALLAS and PARK CITY, Utah, Sept. 10, 2013 /PRNewswire/ --Supplemental Health Care, a national provider of healthcare workforce solutions, is pleased to have partnered with Parkland Health & Hospital System's human resources department in recruiting and hiring full-time Parkland healthcare professionals, helping reduce the Hospital's need for contract labor.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20110728/CL43247LOGO)

The company was selected by Parkland late last year as the sole-source recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) provider. Working closely with Parkland's human resources department and hiring managers, Supplemental Health Care designed and implemented a system-wide, end-to-end RPO process in order to fill more than 500 open positions with full-time Parkland employees.

The company is now contributing to an ongoing recruitment and hiring strategy with the hospital to provide permanent healthcare professionals who are focused on quality, patient-oriented care. This program to hire full-time Parkland employees in a variety of critical positions will help decrease contract labor costs.

Supplemental Health Care's customized RPO is an efficient and cost-effective solution, providing top-quality candidates and hiring full-time employees for Parkland at an average of one-third the cost of traditional recruiting firm placements.

In the eight months that Supplemental Health Care has partnered with Parkland, the firm has interviewed more than 1,350 candidates and at this time has hired 500 full-time healthcare professionals. These have included registered nurses, patient care assistants, medical coders, physical therapists, occupational therapists, social workers, administrative and many more. The program enhances the Parkland's ability to deliver quality healthcare throughout its entire hospital system.

"We are pleased our RPO solution is helping to meet Parkland's full-time healthcare staffing needs in a cost-effective manner. Parkland has a long-standing legacy in the Dallas community through its premier teaching opportunities, community outreach programs, and state-of-the-art healthcare centers," said Janet Elkin, president and chief executive officer of Supplemental Health Care. "Our team looks forward to making continued contributions to Parkland's ongoing recruitment and hiring strategy. Our goal remains helping attract and hire qualified healthcare professionals needed to assure Parkland continues meeting the needs of the Dallas County area."

"Parkland is pleased to have found a hiring partner that possesses a comprehensive understanding of the diverse staffing and patient care needs of our organization," said James R. Johnson, senior vice president, Human Resources at Parkland. "Supplemental Health Care's capabilities in various talent acquisition functions, complemented with its well-developed workforce tools and technology, have made significant contributions in meeting Parkland's all-important hiring needs."

Supplemental Health Care's RPO business solution ensures that high-quality healthcare staffing needs are met for a variety of hospitals, clinics, urgent and acute care, rehabilitation facilities and many others.

"The demand for innovative RPO services is a growing trend in the healthcare industry," said Elkin. "As the necessity for qualified healthcare providers increases under the Affordable Care Act, organizations are looking for ways to improve upon current recruiting and hiring practices. As we have shown at Parkland, our customized RPO solutions help provide the answers they are looking for."

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Supplemental Health Care Partners With Parkland Hospital In Meeting Staffing Needs

What’s Wrong With: "Bigger Pizzas: A Capitalist Case for Health Care Reform" – Video

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What #39;s Wrong With: "Bigger Pizzas: A Capitalist Case for Health Care Reform"
This is a video response to John at vlogbrothers on his video: "Bigger Pizzas: A Capitalist Case for Health Care Reform" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7LF5...

By: Troy Fletcher

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What's Wrong With: "Bigger Pizzas: A Capitalist Case for Health Care Reform" - Video

Big Data and Health Care

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A week or two ago, I got to correspond with Danielle Brooks of Disruptive Women in Health Care about the work I do here at OReilly. The following interview is reprinted here with their kind permission.

I have mostly worked as a book editor, until just a year or two ago. I was working on books about databases, machine learning, visualization, and other relevant topics when OReilly launched its Strata conference on data science, and so I became involved in that conference. But as Strata took off, it became apparent to us that certain communities and certain types of data were special. Health care is one of those areas: the insights that data analysis can give us about ourselves and the things that ail us are enormous, but the risks of over-sharing and the resulting constraints such as HIPAA also present very real challenges.

In 2012, OReilly decided to launch a new edition of its data science conference to focus on health care, and thats how Strata Rx was born. I was asked to become its Program Chair, along with Colin Hill, CEO of GNS Health care, and so I have spent that last 18 months learning everything I can about the (very complicated!) health care industry. Colin and I are great partners because of the complimentary backgrounds we bring together Colin from the health care industry side and myself from the technology side. Ultimately, thats what Strata Rx aims to do, too: we hope that by bringing together professionals from all parts of the industry (payers, providers, researchers, analysts, advocates, developers, investors, and caregivers, just to name a few) we can begin to solve some of the large and complex problems facing us in this area.

As an Editor and Program Chair, I work primarily in the business of sharing knowledge and ideas, as well as the context for those ideas. Health care faces a number of significant challenges, from the staggering costs (about $2.6 trillion every year in the United States) to the widespread occurrence of chronic conditions such as heart disease and diabetes to the highly variable responses of different individuals to a given treatment. Im interested in helping to connect people with a deep knowledge of things like metrics, statistics, and interaction design to others with a deep knowledge of genomics, epidemiology, drug development, and patient advocacy. Data science and analytics are already making a huge difference in other fields (such as marketing, finance, and retail, just to name a few), and health care is similarly ripe for innovation and advancement.

Its not really possible to speak of the industry in monolithic terms. Just as in any discipline, there are some people doing cutting-edge work, and many others lagging behind. But there are some great examples of where progress is made. Some researchers and companies are using data and analytics to create targeted therapies for specific gene mutations. Some patient communities are sharing their own information to help each other out and identify patterns. The Quantified Self movement uses wearable devices to monitor and change their own behaviors. Doctors and hospitals are using electronic medical records to centralize information and reduce errors, and programs like the VAs Blue Button initiative and online patient portals are helping give access to those electronic records back to patients themselves.

The real advantages will come as these innovations start to cross boundaries between groups of professionals. When you can share the information from your wearable device with your doctor, who can upload that into an electronic record that works with the systems your specialists are using, and they can compare that data against the things your genome suggests you might be at elevated risk for and consider the interventions that are most likely to work for you as an individual then well really be onto something.

Despite the privacy and sharing constraints of legislation like HIPAA, it seems to me that some of the most serious challenges preventing health care professionals from making more use of data and analytics are cultural.

On the patient side, there is a generational divide between people who are used to sharing lots of personal information and people who have been trained to keep everything to themselves. On the provider side, there is an ingrained way of thinking about how to make good decisions (with an over-reliance on gut instinct and subjective experience). On the research side, the practice of publishing only successful studies some with dubious definitions of success means that failed research is never shared, and we lose a lot of available context for the studies that are published, misleading us all about the significance of various findings. In the entire system, incentives are misaligned so that the care and health of the patient isnt actually the primary concern.

The biggest difference that data and analytics can make in health care is increasing the level of granularity at which we can understand ourselves and make decisions. For example, right now most people have their blood pressure and heart rate measured once a year and thats only if they actually show up to an annual physical. Wearable devices can now measure and report those statistics multiple times per day. Thats a huge difference in how much information we can use to paint a detailed picture of our health. Another example would be genome sequencing, which is becoming faster and cheaper all the time. It can potentially tell us as individuals which conditions we may be at risk for, and which treatments were likely to respond to, and allow providers to target interventions more precisely (known asprecision/personalized medicine).

Another significant opportunity I see is to help us measure the interventions and processes that work, so we can standardize best practices. Right now, health care providers mostly rely on a combination of gut feeling and subjective experience. But by carefully tracking and assessing a much broader experience base, we can develop checklists (like the ones that already exist for airline pilots and other professionals who hold lives in their hands). These checklists and standards are already being developed around goals such as preventing the spread of sepsis in hospitals, but arent widely adhered to yet, and could be useful for so many other health care goals.

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Big Data and Health Care

Health Care REIT to Participate in BMO Capital Markets North American Real Estate Conference

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TOLEDO, Ohio--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Health Care REIT, Inc. (HCN) announced today that the company will participate in the BMO Capital Markets North American Real Estate Conference onMonday, September 16 and Tuesday, September 17, 2013 at the Trump Hotel in Chicago. Corporate materials are available on the Investor Relations section of Health Care REITs website (www.hcreit.com).

Charles J. Herman, Jr., Executive Vice President and Chief Investment Officer of Health Care REIT, will participate on a panel at the conference. The panel is scheduled for Tuesday, September 17, 2013 at 11:15 a.m. Eastern Time. The panel will be webcast live and may be accessed at: http://www.bmocm.com/conferences/north-american-real-estate-2013/webcast/. The webcast will expire on March 1, 2014.

About Health Care REIT, Inc.

Health Care REIT, Inc., an S&P 500 company with headquarters in Toledo, Ohio, is a real estate investment trust that invests across the full spectrum of seniors housing and health care real estate. The company also provides an extensive array of property management and development services. As of June 30, 2013, the companys broadly diversified portfolio consisted of 1,183 properties in 46 states, the United Kingdom, and Canada. More information is available on the companys website at http://www.hcreit.com.

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Health Care REIT to Participate in BMO Capital Markets North American Real Estate Conference

Health care reform success hinges on 'young invincibles'

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Photo: #In this 2012 file photo, Samantha Ames, 25, of Washington, plays with her French bulldog, Harvey, at her home. In April 2011, she tripped over her mini bulldog and badly injured her left ankle. Ultimately she needed surgery that cost her insurer $30,000. But she considers herself lucky. Only a few months before her accident, Ames had been able to get back on her parents' insurance, thanks to a provision of the health care law that lets young adults keep that coverage until they turn 26. Nationally an estimated 2.5 million young people have gotten insurance as a result.

In this 2012 file photo, Samantha Ames, 25, of Washington, plays with her French bulldog, Harvey, at her home. In April 2011, she tripped over her mini bulldog and badly injured her left ankle. Ultimately she needed surgery that cost her insurer $30,000. But she considers herself lucky. Only a few months before her accident, Ames had been able to get back on her parents' insurance, thanks to a provision of the health care law that lets young adults keep that coverage until they turn 26. Nationally an estimated 2.5 million young people have gotten insurance as a result. (Jacquelyn Martin/ASSOCIATED PRESS)

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As health care exchanges roll out Oct. 1, the Obama Administration is on a mission to convince young people to buy health insurance.

In a recent poll by Commonwealth Fund, a supporter of healthcare reform, young adults have already been taking advantage of one of the law's provisions that allows people to stay on their parents' health insurance until age 26.

From NBC News:

"Public opinion polls found a partisan divide ... but Republicans and Democrats both took advantage of the young adult provisions," says Commonwealth vice president Sara Collins, who led the study. "In fact, more Republicans than Democrats did."

They found that by last March, 63 percent of young adults identifying as Republicans had enrolled in a parent's health plan in the last 12 months, compared to 45 percent of those who considered themselves Democrats. About 26 percent of the 1,800 adults surveyed said they were Republicans, 28 percent said they were Democrats and the rest either said they were independent, some other party, or did not say...

Overall, 15 million 19-to-25-year-olds, or about half of all Americans this age, are on their parents' health plan, the report says.

For the Obama administration, convincing young people to enroll could be a deal breaker for the success of the law.

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Health care reform success hinges on 'young invincibles'

HEALTH CARE REFORM – What’s it all mean at MMH?

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By JANE BIGBEE

Skip Lowe, chief executive officer of Bernie Lowe and Associates, during a presentation on the hospitals health plan recently, told members of the Marengo Memorial Hospital board a lot of questions remain on health care reform.

Starting with his question to the board: When was the last time a federal law was overturned in this country? he answered: Prohibition. Health care is not likely to be overturned. It is here to stay.

He said he told his staff, in March 2010, they were there to guide clients and should not think the Supreme Court would overturn the health care reform act nor to think elections would change the act.

He continued, there are some changes coming very quickly. He pointed to an announcement in mid-July that the player pay mandate will require companies to count their employees working 30 hours.

He discussed personal medical plans and what they mean with deductibles, co-insurance and out-of-pocket maximums.

Most people dont know their health insurance coverage. How would I expect them to understand health care reform tomorrow? he asked.

Analyzing material including enrollment, contributions, pre-tax benefits, etc. provided by the hospital for its employee plan, Lowe gave trustees a broad view of the plan design for the next five years. Starting with 2012, items and provisions will impact the employer as well as the employee. He noted the Internal Revenue Service is not a fan of pre-tax benefits.

NEW FEE

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HEALTH CARE REFORM – What’s it all mean at MMH?

Futurist Jack Uldrich to Keynote Five Energy Industry Events This Fall

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Washington, DC (PRWEB) September 10, 2013

Following on the heels of successful presentations to Associated Electric Cooperative (June 25), the Southeastern Electric Exchange (June 26) and the New England Public Power Association (Aug. 26), popular keynote speaker, energy industry futurist, change management expert and best-selling author, Jack Uldrich has been selected to deliver five additional keynote presentations this fall. On September 10, Uldrich will be in Baltimore to address The Electric Power Research Institute, the Northwestern Public Power Association on September 18 in Glen Eden Beach, Oregon, BP on October 3 in Minneapolis, Atmos Energy on October 23 in Plano, TX and Eaton Corporation's World Leadership Conference in Amelia Island, FL on October 30. The topic of each his presentations will be a customized version of his talk: "The Future of the Energy Industry Will Require Unlearning."

The talks will be based on Uldrich's two latest books: "Higher Unlearning: 39 Post Requisite Lessons for Achieving a Successful Future" and "Foresight 2020: A Futurist Explores the Trends Transforming Tomorrow," will begin by discussing how continued advances in Smart Grid technologies, "Big Data," natural gas discoveries and renewable energies will radically transform the energy, utility and power industries in the years ahead. Specific technologies to be discussed will include high temperature superconducting wires, solid-state transformers, smart meters, high storage grid-capable batteries as well as continued advances in home sensors, solar cells, wind turbines and fuel cell technology. An overview of his talk can be found in these articles: 39 Things That Keep Up Every Energy Industry Executive at Night and 5 Future Trends for the Utility Industry.

Uldrich will then discuss why these trends will require unlearning as well as review the consequences of not embracing the concept of unlearning. Uldrich, who has been hailed as "America's Chief Unlearning Officer," will conclude by providing an overview of how these technological changes will also transform customer behaviors and upend long-standing business models in the energy, utility and power industries.

Throughout his talk, Uldrich will use vivid analogies and memorable stories, drawn from a wide spectrum of industries, to ensure his message of unlearning "sticks" with his audience. A sample of his ideas may be found in this chapter, Shifting Power: The Future of Electricity, from his new book.

In the past year, Uldrich has addressed dozens of energy-related associations, including delivering customized keynote presentations to San Diego Gas & Electric, the Southern California Gas Company, Southern Company, Northwestern Energy, the Wabash Valley Power Power Association, the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, Idaho Power, Northwestern Energy, the Minnesota Rural Electric Cooperative, the Western Energy Institute, Idaho Power, the American Public Power Association, the Northeast Public Power Association, the Eugene Board of Water and Electricity, the Missouri River Energy Service, the Sacramento Municipal Utility District, Wisconsin Public Power, Associated Electric Cooperative, the Southeast Electric Exchange and dozens more. Uldrich has also addressed a number of major, non-utility-related corporations on the topic of unlearning including Cisco, IBM, WiPro, PepsiCo, United Healthcare, Boston Scientific and General Electric.

Parties interested in learning more about Jack Uldrich, his books, his daily blog or his speaking availability are encouraged to visit his website. Media wishing to know more about the event or interviewing Jack Uldrich can contact him directly at 612-267-1212 or jack(at)schoolofunlearning(dot)com.

Uldrich is a renowned global energy futurist, best-selling author, editor of the monthly newsletter, The Exponential Executive, and host of the award-winning website, http://www.jumpthecurve.net. He is currently represented by a number of professional speakers' bureaus, including Leading Authorities and Executive Speakers Bureau.

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Futurist Jack Uldrich to Keynote Five Energy Industry Events This Fall

Radical Danish Imam rethinks opposition to Mohammed cartoons and backs freedom of expression – Video

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Radical Danish Imam rethinks opposition to Mohammed cartoons and backs freedom of expression
Seven and a half years after the worldwide Danish cartoons crisis, Ahmed Akkari, a former Imam, now says the drawings were justified as free expression.

By: JewishNewsOne

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Radical Danish Imam rethinks opposition to Mohammed cartoons and backs freedom of expression - Video

'Novel' phone-cam using cyborg astrobiologist could help search for life in universe

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Washington, Sept. 10 (ANI): Scientists have developed a hybrid part-human, part-machine visual system, which uses a mobile phone camera, to search for evidence of past or present life in planetary analogue sites on Earth.

Patrick McGuire from the Freie Universitat, Berlin, and other researchers from the Freie Universitat, West Virginia University, the Centro de Astrobiologia in Madrid and the University of Malta have been working for over a decade towards giving more scientific autonomy to robotic rovers in choosing the most promising sites for geological and astrobiological investigation.

In the Cyborg Astrobiologist system, initially the human astrobiologist takes images of his/her surroundings using a mobile phone camera.

These images are sent to via Bluetooth to a laptop, which processes the images to detect novel colours and textures and communicates back to the astrobiologist the degree of similarity to previous images stored in the database.

Tests of the Cyborg Astrobiologist system have been conducted at field sites with similarities to landscapes that are found on Mars, imaging gypsum cliffs, red-bed sandstones, limestones, mudstones and coal beds.

Some rocks have been partly covered with lichen, a life-form that can possibly spread to/from other planets. Matching images with similar features in images from the database has been very successful.

The results are currently under review for publication by the International Journal of Astrobiology. (ANI)

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'Novel' phone-cam using cyborg astrobiologist could help search for life in universe

Cyborg astrobiologist uses phone-cam to search for signs of life

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Sep. 10, 2013 A novel, hybrid part-human, part-machine visual system that uses a simple mobile phone camera has been developed to search for evidence of past or present life in planetary analogue sites on Earth. Patrick McGuire from the Freie Universitt, Berlin, will present results from this Cyborg Astrobiologist at the European Planetary Science Congress in London on Monday 9th September.

Members of McGuire's team, which include researchers from the Freie Universitt, West Virginia University, the Centro de Astrobiologa in Madrid and the University of Malta have been working for over a decade towards giving more scientific autonomy to robotic rovers in choosing the most promising sites for geological and astrobiological investigation. In the Cyborg Astrobiologist system, initially the human astrobiologist takes images of his/her surroundings using a mobile phone camera. These images are sent to via Bluetooth to a laptop, which processes the images to detect novel colours and textures and communicates back to the astrobiologist the degree of similarity to previous images stored in the database.

"Over the years, our system has shrunk down from a camera on a tripod and wearable computer, to a small laptop and a phone-cam," said McGuire. "We are now working to speed up the image compression analysis and put the whole system onto a Smartphone -- and eventually onto a Mars rover!"

The robotic rovers currently exploring Mars are heavily reliant on guidance from scientists back on Earth to detect areas that are most interesting for further analysis. The time delay in transmitting and receiving the commands can take between 4 and 24 minutes depending on the relative positions of Earth and Mars on their orbital paths. Exploration would be speeded up significantly if the rovers could identify autonomously unusual colours and textures created by geochemical or biological processes that may be a sign of past or present life.

Tests of the Cyborg Astrobiologist system have been conducted at field sites with similarities to landscapes that are found on Mars, imaging gypsum cliffs, red-bed sandstones, limestones, mudstones and coalbeds. Some rocks have been partly covered with lichen, a life-form that can possibly spread to/from other planets. Matching images with similar features in images from the database has been very successful.

"In our most recent tests at a former coal mine in West Virginia, the similarity-matching by the computer agreed with the judgement of our human geologists 91% of the time. The novelty detection also worked well, although there were some issues in differentiating between features that are similar in colour but different in texture, like yellow lichen and sulphur-stained coalbeds. However, for a first test of the technique, it looks very promising," said McGuire. These results of the Cyborg Astrobiologist's field-work in West Virginia are currently under review for publication by the International Journal of Astrobiology.

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Cyborg astrobiologist uses phone-cam to search for signs of life

Volunteers needed to help cleanup beaches

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A conservation group that works to restore the Great Lakes is looking for volunteers to help clean beaches in four states later this month.

(AP) -- A conservation group that works to restore the Great Lakes is looking for volunteers to help clean beaches in four states later this month.

TheAlliance for the Great Lakesis holding its annual Adopt-a-Beach event Saturday, Sept. 21. The group is asking individuals, community groups and school groups to show up at Great Lakes beaches for three hours and help pick up trash.

Thousands of people showed up last year and collected more than 17,000 pounds of garbage. Volunteers also performed water-quality tests to determine the lakes' health.

This year's event will again be held at beaches in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Wisconsin.

To find out where events are being held or to sign up and start your own beach cleanupregister online.

(Copyright 2013 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

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Volunteers needed to help cleanup beaches