Sabah islands set to become marine research centre

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The Star/Asia News Network Tuesday, Jun 11, 2013

KOTA KINABALU - Three islands in Sabah - Billean, Lankayan and Tegaipil - are set to become part of a centre for international research into tropical coral reef ecosystems.

The centre, which encompasses the islands under the Sugud Islands Conservation Area, off Sabah's east coast, will also see efforts being undertaken to restock commercially important and threatened marine species in the state.

The Sugud Islands Marine Research Centre (SIMRC), covering 46,317ha in shallow reef area, was set up following a memorandum of understanding signed between the Sabah Wildlife Department, Reef Guardian Sdn Bhd and Cardiff University on Sunday.

State Assistant Tourism, Culture and Environment Minister Datuk Pang Yuk Ming, who witnessed the signing, said the centre would enhance research and conservation of the marine ecosystem and scientifically assess the success of the conservation area.

"This will definitely increase the interest of local and international scientists for coral reef ecosystem research in the region as well as boost eco-tourism in the east coast of Sabah," he said.

Cardiff University research associate Dr Benoit Goossens said the centre would provide a world-class education and research facility with the necessary structure and resources to study advanced marine ecosystem science, particularly in the field of small tropical islands and coral reef ecology.

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Sabah islands set to become marine research centre

Treasure Islands

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Features Desk

China Daily

Publication Date : 12-06-2013

A small, enchanting isle makes the perfect getaway for Dragon Boat Festival, we recommend four of the best

There's something appealing about the idea of escaping the grind of daily routine by cutting and running to a desert island. The thought of sun, sand and sea appeals to the Jack Sparrow in all of us.

Fortunately, you don't have to go far to find a place where your imagination can bring you a distant horizon and you can savour the finest fruits from the sea. For instance, Weizhou Island in the northern part of Beibu Gulf is hailed one of China's most beautiful islands. It not only features fabulous sea views, but also boasts diverse Hakka customs. While Nan'ao Island in Guangdong province is the home to hundreds of tropical and sub-tropical plants. Both Qiandao Lake and Zhoushan guarantee people fresh and tasty sea food.

Guangxi

As China's largest, youngest volcanic island, Weizhou Island to the southeast of Beihai, Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, is a showroom for nature's craftsmanship.

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Treasure Islands

SPC and Cook Islands Commence In-Country Consultations

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SPC and Cook Islands Commence In-Country Consultations For Second Joint Country Strategy (JCS)

11 June 2013, Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC), Noumea, New Caledonia-

Today the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) and the Government of Cook Islands commenced a week of in-country consultations to determine the interventions SPC will undertake in the country over the next three years and form the basis of what will be the second Cook Islands SPC joint country strategy.

The Cook Islands Secretariat of the Pacific Community Joint Country Strategy 20132015 is a partnership document mapping out SPCs planned engagement with Cook Islands across the technical sectors in which it works, which include public health, fisheries, aquaculture, marine ecosystems, statistics for development, applied geosciences, disaster risk management, water resources, agriculture, forestry, land resources, health, transport, energy, and human development (youth, culture and gender). The planned strategies in the JCS will be closely aligned to the sectoral strategies articulated in the strategic plans of the respective line ministries to support the goals and objectives espoused in the national sustainable development plan, the Cook Islands Te Kaveinga Nui 20112015.

Kicking off this week-long process is the first series of sectoral consultations with the ministries of marine resources and agriculture, and with energy sector stakeholders. In these consultations, which will continue over the week, Cook Islands and SPC will agree on key areas of support, with an emphasis on achieving development outcomes for the people of Cook Islands over the three-year period.

SPC Director-General Dr Jimmie Rodgers said, SPC is anticipating very much the outcomes from this JCS because Cook Islands is only the second SPC member country to commence with the second generation joint country strategy development. He added, SPC has set clear guidelines to ensure that the discussions over the course of the week will be based on the development priorities articulated by the Government of Cook Islands and that the mutually agreed content of the JCS will be firmly based on the Cook Islands Te Kaveinga Nui and SPCs capacities and priorities as encapsulated in the new SPC Corporate Strategic Plan 20132015.

The Acting Secretary for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Immigration, Ms Myra Patai, echoed Dr Rodgers sentiments, adding, As SPCs official contact point and on behalf of the Government, we welcome the SPC mission to the Cook Islands and will endeavour to support them in this JCS process, a process the Cook Islands has supported through SPCs governing body, the CRGA. That said, we especially look forward to receipt of the agreed, second Cook Islands JCS once finalised. Ms Patai further stated, For the Cook Islands, sectoral participation is essential so that our line ministries take advantage of the valuable assistance and resources made available by SPC, and work together with our Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Immigration and the Office of the Prime Ministers Central Planning and Policy Office so as to coordinate efforts in order to achieve our desired national targets, supported by a robust monitoring and evaluation framework.

Dr Rodgers concluded, SPCs independent external review acknowledged that from its inception, SPC has worked to ensure its programmes are appropriately tailored to address key regional constraints, and that its efforts on developing JCSs have reinforced its relevance in the region by ensuring that SPC services to members are aligned with specific country needs.

The JCS mission will conclude on Tuesday 18 June with a closing plenary, at which SPC and Cook Islands sector counterparts will present mutually agreed programme interventions and areas for potential assistance.

ENDS

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SPC and Cook Islands Commence In-Country Consultations

Health Barrier: From insurance coverage to simply finding a doctor, health care presents challenges for the …

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Three hours before Michael David Battle starts his day, he begins thinking about binding his breasts, and the questions he might face. What shirt will best conceal his chest? What if someone addresses him by the wrong pronoun?

"It's much different than I really hate my body,'" says Battle. "It's that constant fear and dysphoria that goes with you every single day of your life."

Battle, who identifies as a black man of transgender experience, binds his chest daily and has taken hormones for two years. On Aug. 29, he will have chest reconstruction surgery. He'll pay for the procedure all $6,738 of it with money from fundraising and his own savings.

That's because for Battle and many others, most insurance policies don't cover transition-related health care and in some cases even standard health care for transgender patients. And even if they did, a patient has to find a friendly doctor, something advocates and transgender residents say can be hard to do.

"It's a highly stigmatized issue," says Sandra Soloski, program director at Persad, a Garfield-based counseling center for LGBTQ and HIV-positive people. The center provides referrals for trans clients and has a trans team that coordinates resources, which can be hard to find. "Some doctors are not clinically competent because they've just never looked in that direction," Soloski says. "Some may have attitudes themselves about it."

Indeed, despite living in a city known for its "eds-and-meds" culture with health-care giants UPMC and West Penn Allegheny Health System, the transgender community often gets left out.

While the Allegheny County Health Department provides services to whomever comes through its doors, it doesn't offer specialized services for transgender patients. And while some UPMC/WPAHS physicians do work with trans patients, the lion's share of medical support is being picked up by a small group of physicians and advocates, many of whom work in community-health clinics. Among them, the best-known is Metro Family Practice in Wilkinsburg.

Trans care "[is] not part of people's consciousness," says Metro's Dr. Martin Seltman. "[Doctors] aren't conscious about it and patients have to be pretty comfortable to reveal it."

Finding a trans-friendly doctor in Pittsburgh often relies on word-of-mouth referral, with friendliness defined both by clinical competency knowledge about medial issues like hormone therapy as well as cultural competency. Do intake forms include transgender or gender-non-conforming status? Are the pamphlets and waiting-room materials sensitive to trans concerns? Protocols for providing informed, empathetic care for trans patients have been issued by a number of organizations, including the World Professional Association for Transgender Health. But that doesn't mean every doctor uses them or even knows about them.

"The way some doctors communicate about trans patients is demeaning the wording people use, there's not a respect or understanding or an acceptance," says Dr. Stacy Lane, a physician who provides primary care to transgender patients, among others, at West End Health Center. Lane recalls that in one patient's file, for example, a physician described a patient has "a 35-year-old male who wants to be called a woman."

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Altarum Institute to Create Analytical Structure Linking Prevention to Health Care Costs

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ANN ARBOR, Mich.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Altarum Institutes Center for Sustainable Health Spending has been awarded a $400,000 implementation grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) to create an analytical structure to demonstrate the value of investments in primary prevention to health outcomes and health care costs. The goal of this work is to develop an economic-analysis tool to assess the impact of nonclinical primary-prevention initiatives on reducing overall health care costs.

We are honored to receive this fifteen-month grant, and are very excited to continue our partnership with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation on what will be extremely challenging research, with an enduring impact on how we assess and communicate the value of primary prevention, said Dr. George Miller, principal investigator and Altarum Institute Fellow.

The analysis will be guided by a national advisory panel that brings together some of the nations leading experts in public health, workplace wellness, and community leaders devoted to inspiring the growth of a healthier population, e.g., David Chokshi, Marthe Gold, Michael OGrady, Steven Teutsch, and Steven Woolf.

The Center for Sustainable Health Spending has repeatedly demonstrated their capability to initiate the difficult work required to create an economic tool to help us understand the link between community level primary prevention and health care costs, said Pamela G. Russo, senior program officer for RWJF. Developing a practical analytical structure that incorporates input from a wide array of primary prevention stakeholders allows us to better understand the value of prevention investments, and is critical in assessing the role prevention efforts can play in controlling national health care spending.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation focuses on the pressing health and health care issues facing our country. As the nations largest philanthropy devoted exclusively to health and health care, the Foundation works with a diverse group of organizations and individuals to identify solutions and achieve comprehensive, measurable, and timely change. For more than 40 years the Foundation has brought experience, commitment, and a rigorous, balanced approach to the problems that affect the health and health care of those it serves. When it comes to helping Americans lead healthier lives and get the care they need, the Foundation expects to make a difference in your lifetime. For more information, visit http://www.rwjf.org. Follow the Foundation on Twitterat http://www.rwjf.org/twitter or on Facebook at http://www.rwjf.org/facebook.

Altarum Institute integrates objective research and client-centered consulting skills to deliver comprehensive, systems-based solutions that improve health and health care. Altarum employs more than 400 individuals and is headquartered in Ann Arbor, Mich., with additional offices in the Washington, D.C., area; Atlanta, Ga.; Portland, Maine; and San Antonio, Texas.

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Altarum Institute to Create Analytical Structure Linking Prevention to Health Care Costs

Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Selects Jiva, ZeOmega’s Care Management Software, for Utilization Management

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FRISCO, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

ZeOmega, Inc., the premier provider of software solutions for population healthcare management, announced today that Harvard Pilgrim Health Care is expanding its use of ZeOmegas integrated care management software, Jiva to include support for utilization management functions. As part of its expanded use of Jiva, Harvard Pilgrim will also upgrade to the latest version of Jiva, version 5.x.

Harvard Pilgrim selected Jiva in 2009 to further enable its vision for integrated health management. As a result, Harvard Pilgrim was able to enhance its member engagement by using sophisticated clinical analytics that quickly and accurately identify members with or at risk of chronic conditions. With the addition of the utilization management functionality, all of Harvard Pilgrims health management activities will be supported on a single platform.

Harvard Pilgrim is a leader in integrated health management, and choosing ZeOmega as our technology partner has been key to our success, says Anne Metzger, vice president of health management for Harvard Pilgrim Health Care. Adding utilization management to the functions supported by Jiva provides our team with additional opportunities to engage our members in managing their health.

Jiva, ZeOmegas care management platform, transforms traditional episodic-based care management into proactive and collaborative population healthcare management through EHR-enabled care plans, point-of-care tools, decision support, analytics, and user-configurable workflows. Jiva enables the integration of workflows across the care management continuum, automating intelligently based on client business rules, and providing more effective collaboration among the health plan, its providers and members.

Harvard Pilgrim is known for its innovative programs that focus on member engagement and client satisfaction, says Nandini Rangaswamy, executive vice president for ZeOmega. We are excited to expand this relationship as Harvard Pilgrim continually raises the bar for population health management.

Both companies are attending the AHIP Institute 2013 on Transforming Our Health Care System: Navigating and Succeeding in the New Marketplace, June 12-14 in Las Vegas. Attendees can learn more about ZeOmegas population health management solutions at booth 209.

About ZeOmega

ZeOmegas powerful population health management platform delivers high-value, strategic solutions enabling payers and care-delivery organizations to improve individual health and provider performance. With deep domain expertise and a comprehensive understanding of complex population health challenges, ZeOmega serves as a true-north partner for clients - offering flexible deployment and delivery models that leverage an innovative platform designed to integrate workflow, analytics, content and communication capabilities. By consistently meeting customer expectations and project benchmarks, ZeOmega has earned a sterling reputation in the industry for responsiveness and reliability. For more information, visit http://www.zeomega.com or call 214-618-9880. Follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn or Facebook.

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Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Selects Jiva, ZeOmega’s Care Management Software, for Utilization Management

Health Care Stocks: Performance Plus Value

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NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- With Obamacare set to take hold in 2014, is it any surprise health care continues to be one of the top performing sectors in the market?

Of the 60 sectors I track with my Best Stocks Now app, four of the top 10 are currently healthcare related. I rank them on short-term, intermediate-term, and long-term performance.

Data from Best Stocks Now App

I have been heavily weighted in the drug, biotech, and health care sectors for over one year and I continue to reap the benefits from them.

I have also noticed lately that as this current seven-month old uptrend in the market gets longer and longer in the tooth, the leadership in the market continues to get more narrow.

The once, red-hot building and construction sector has cooled off considerably and has fallen from its leadership perch. Although I have cashed in on most of the profits I was able to garner from this sector from earlier in the year, I still believe the housing sector is in the early innings of a multi-year rebound. In other words, this sector will eventually come back into favor once again.

Stocks, sectors and asset classes fall in and out of favor during the cycles the market goes through, and I am a big believer in rolling with those cycles as opposed to fighting them.

Just look at the huge difference in the performance of domestic stocks vs. foreign stocks so far this year. While the home-grown S&P 500 is up about 15% year-to-date, emerging markets (as seen by the Vanguard MSCI Emerging Markets ) are down over 8%, and China is down over 12%.

How important is it to be out of foreign stocks this year? By contrast, how important is it to be in the right asset classes in the market? For this reason I am not a big believer in asset allocation. Why would I want to have any exposure to a bond market that is perched on the edge of a cliff right now? Have you looked at a chart of the bond market lately?

If you haven't, here is a three-year chart of U.S. Treasuries:

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Health Care Stocks: Performance Plus Value