Wright-Patterson joins health information exchange

The 88th Medical Group at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base is the first military medical center in Ohio to participate in a civilian Health Information Exchange program. This program provides real-time patient information and improves communication with civilian providers.
                                       

 
Phasing in of the HIE initiative into the 88 MDG facility began in March 2015 by gradually introducing new capabilities for the clinical staff, providing real-time patient information.

Through collaboration with the Ohio Health Information Partnership, a Health Information Exchange and non-profit organization, patient records are kept current and physicians able to review patient encounters in a real-time environment. This data exchange allows physicians to coordinate patient care with outside civilian hospitals for the 58,000 patients cared for at Wright-Patterson.

Bonita Moy, 88 MDG HIE liaison, said by utilizing the HIE, the 88 MDG eliminates duplication of efforts by improving communication with physicians and care coordination with civilian medical facilities.

The CHR is a web-based record system that provides access to patient health data created in other facilities. The information includes patient’s treatment history, hospital encounters, allergies, medications, laboratory and radiology results.

Access to the CHR system is granted to clinical personnel working at the 88 MDG, including pediatrics, admissions and dispositions, utilization management, case management, in-house supervisors and the referral management center. The CHR can be retrieved through the Joint Legacy Viewer, streamlining access to patient information with a single log-on.

In addition to the benefits of seeing real-time record information, a service called Patient Notify, a Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act certified secure messaging system, delivers a notification to the key members of the 88 MDG when a patient is either admitted or discharged from an outside facility or emergency room.

STUDENT SHARES EXCHANGE EXPERIENCE

This is a continuation of an article that was published in Issue 8.

Part II; You know the Delft University of Technology?
                                               

My university, the Delft University of Technology, is the largest and oldest Dutch public technological university. It is commonly seen as one of the top 20 universities worldwide for engineering in general, but also aerospace engineering. We have eight facilities which cover the whole range of engineering topics (including some economics) and about 19,000 students. Currently, most Bachelor degrees are still taught in Dutch, but the university is working on transitioning everything completely to English. The aerospace faculty offer Master’s programs solely in English. This is a great advantage, as it allows students from all over the world to come to Delft to enrich the faculty with their diversity.

In contrast to Embry-Riddle, we do not have any specializations in the Bachelor’s degree. We have courses in aeronautics, astronautics, and propulsion all together; we only specialize in our Master’s programs. There we have very diverse programs in Control & Simulation, Operations, Flight Performance & Propulsion, Spaceflight, Aerospace Structures & Materials, and Aerodynamics & Wind Energy. Delft University also offers further specializations for precisely the field of study you love most.

As for student life, Delft is a nice city: the university is so big, everything is very student friendly, and you can get discounts on restaurants and bars. And with Belgium and Germany as neighboring countries, there is a very good selection of tasty beers available everywhere (18+ only). For parties, you can even go to the big cities of Den Haag or Rotterdam via 10-minute train ride. We have a bar run by our student association-a great place to meet all the other Aerospace students.  Once a year we have a big party, Airbase, where the facility gets transformed into a big club with two dancefloors. It is really fun and is a great break from the usual studying in that building.

Regenstrief study to determine whether health information exchange improves emergency care

Are patients less likely to be hospitalized if emergency departments have access to their complete medical record via health information exchange?
                                             

Regenstrief Institute scientists are conducting the first study of health information exchange use over multiple years to evaluate whether it improves patient outcomes in emergency departments. The innovative work will measure actual use of health information exchange over time, across multiple institutions, to generate high-quality evidence of the value and benefit of health information exchange, or HIE, in the delivery of emergency care. The research is supported by a two-year award from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.
"Findings from our new study could serve as a report card on potential benefits of HIE and as a template for HIEs as they mature," said Regenstrief Institute investigator Brian E. Dixon, an assistant professor of epidemiology at the Indiana University Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health at IUPUI, the principal investigator of the new study.

While researchers at Regenstrief and elsewhere have previously investigated whether the availability of information from health information exchange reduces costs by decreasing duplicate testing and unneeded imaging studies, there is a dearth of knowledge about whether providers' use of health information exchange in the emergency department leads to actual improvements in patient outcomes. And there is limited existing information on which personnel in an emergency department use health information exchange and why those providers choose to do so.
The Regenstrief investigators will review usage logs from the Indiana Network for Patient Care, one of the largest interorganizational clinical data repositories in the country, to determine how frequently information from the health information exchange was used in the emergency department, for what kinds of patients, by what types of health care providers and under what conditions it was most useful. They will also determine which sections of patient medical records—for example, laboratory results, imaging studies, medication list or medical history—were accessed. In addition, they will review the outcome of the visit to determine whether the patient was admitted to the hospital.

COMPANIES NEED TO LEARN FROM SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT

Hillary Gavan/Beloit Daily News (From left): Joe Stadelman, vice president of Angus Young and Beloit 2020 member; Jason Tyszko, executive director of the Center for Education and Workforce at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation; and Greater Beloit Chamber Executive Director Aimee Thurner chat at the Business Education Connection Event held Wednesday at the Eclipse Center. Businesses and educational institutions came together to learn how to bridge the skills gap.
                                                   

BELOIT - Companies need to take lessons learned from supply chain management to build their talent pipeline.

This year's event was titled "Building the Talent Pipeline." In addition to keynote speaker Tyszko, the event featured breakout sessions on mentoring; site visits and industry knowledge; training resources; internships, externships and youth apprenticeships. Businesses as well as representatives from the Janesville, Beloit, Beloit Turner, Clinton, Milton and Parkview school districts attended the event.

It was hosted by the Greater Beloit Chamber of Commerce, Forward Janesville, Rock County 5.0, the Greater Beloit Economic Development Corporation and the Southwest Wisconsin Workforce Development Board. Sponsors were Blackhawk Technical College, Beloit College and UW-Rock County.

To close the skills gap, Tyszko said businesses need to form successful partnerships with educational institutions and other workforce partners.

He added that educational institutions need to form partnerships with employers and job networks outside their communities to give students more job options.

There also needs to be a common set of performance measures to see if employers' partnerships and strategies are working.

Tyszko shared how the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation's TPM Academy trains companies on how to use the supply chain approach to close the skills gap.

Social Amoeba Calculate To Communicate

Slime mold can ‘calculate’ the fold-change of signaling molecules, an ability that helps it behave like a multicellular organism.
                                           

Rather than relying on the absolute change in the levels of signaling molecules, the soil-dwelling social amoeba Dictyostelium responds to fold-change of cell-to-cell communication molecules. These findings, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, could be applied to other scenarios where intercellular communication is important, such as infection, immunity and embryonic development. Cell-to-cell signaling plays a pivotal role in cellular and tissue organization. A solid communications medium analogous to phone cables seems ideal for establishing the smooth transmission of information between cells.

In the present study, a research group led by Associate Professor Satoshi Sawai at the University of Tokyo set out to find out how Dictyostelium— an organism known as a social amoeba that shows conditional multicellularity—can communicate with each other even under conditions of varying cell density. Through quantitative live-cell imaging with a fluorescence microscope of single cell-level response to signaling molecules, the research group revealed that the Dictyostelium cells’ response remains identical under various background concentrations of stimulus as long as the fold change is the same. In other words, a change in the stimulation level from one to two produces the same result as that from two to four, both representing a twofold change, although the change difference varies.

Force11 Scholarly Communication Summer Institute

In science, as in Doomsday Machines, the important thing is the communication. Research, unless it is disseminated, is no different from study. It is one thing to define a good problem and develop what you think is a productive answer. But if you don’t tell others what you did and why you did it, you may as well have not bothered. Dissemination, so that others can test and respond to your work, is what makes research research.
                                             

These are truisms, of course. But if you look at how science communication is actually taught, you might wonder. It takes years of schooling to become a scientist or scholar. This schooling teaches you the basic techniques and tenets of your field. You learn how to conduct research in a responsible fashion. Your instructors test your knowledge of the core literature and ideas. Once you work in the field, you are expected to stay on top of the most recent trends and developments.

How you communicate this research, however, is something that in many fields you are expected to pick up on your own. You learn by working with your supervisors on joint papers. In others, there may be a professionalisation course (usually taught by one of the research faculty, rather than a specialist in the latest trends in Scholarly Communication) or your supervisor might suggest a journal for you to try.

The Force 11 Scholarly Communication Summer Institute (FSCI) has been developed to address this gap in how we learn the crucial art of Scholarly Communication. FSCI is modelled on the very successful Digital Humanities Summer Institute (the Digital Humanities are another domain in which networked computing has disrupted the field faster than traditional training can accommodate). In the last 16 years, DHSI has trained thousands of humanities researchers in a very supportive atmosphere in how they can make the most of the latest computation and communication techniques to improve their traditional research practice. FSCI brings the same approach to the latest developments in Scholarly Communication more generally: bring together the leaders in the field and those who want to improve their daily practice; allow the community to set the topics that are taught; emphasise hands on work whenever possible.

Famed Actor Alan Alda on the Secrets to Better Communication

The fact that he’s a famous actor is probably the least fascinating thing about Alan Alda these days. A likable and inquisitive guy, Alda spent 11 years interviewing scientists for the documentary show Scientific American Frontiers. The experience of trying to understand brilliant minds doing important work inspired him to partner with Stony Brook University to establish the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science, which teaches scientists strategies for conveying their ideas to laypeople. It also inspired him to launch a deeper investigation into how people -- scientists, teachers, businesspeople, dentists and so on -- communicate. The fruit of that research is his surprisingly useful new book, If I Understood You, Would I Have This Look on My Face? My Adventures in the Art and Science of Relating and Communicating.
                                         

Back when you were interviewing scientists, you ditched your lists of questions and proceeded with a sense of what you call “ignorance with curiosity.” You felt that having a list of questions was actually hurting your ability to communicate with people.
I think that’s true. My experience interviewing those hundreds of people was that if I asked them a question and they answered it, and then I asked the next question on my list, it was a sign to them that I wasn’t listening.

Plus, it only got you answers to the questions you thought to ask. Not necessarily the questions you should have been asking.
And the questions that are most important are the ones you think to ask in response to the other person.

I was surprised to learn you used to work in sales.
Yeah. I had to do something as a young actor to support my family. And I didn’t get it at first. I thought of selling as manipulating people, because that’s how I had been sold, and I really resented that. But I eventually figured out that focusing on the other person’s needs and not my own was the most effective way to make a sale. Later I came across this guy Daniel Goleman, who had written pretty much the same thing.

China’s Modern ‘Silk Road’ Plans Send AUD/GBP Exchange Rate Higher

The Australian Dollar saw an uptick in demand when markets opened on Monday after Chinese officials announced plans for an ambitious new ‘Silk Road’ inspired global trade system.

Last week saw the Australian Dollar to Pound exchange rate briefly plummet to a multi-month-low of 0.5667 before recovering to trend at the level of 0.5733 over the weekend.

Monday saw AUD GBP trend higher as investors reacted to the weekend’s news and the Pound remained weak following last week’s Bank of England (BoE) commentary.

Xi has championed the plan as the beginning of a new ‘golden age’ of globalisation amid concerns of rising protectionism in some major economies such as the US.

As a result of the excitement surrounding the ambitious plan, investors of commodities and risky trade-correlated currencies like the Australian Dollar have been showing increased interest in those assets.

Prices of iron ore, Australia’s most lucrative commodity, have also finally seen some gains thanks to the news after weeks or poor performance and a seven-month-low in prices.

Australia’s trade minister, Steven Ciobo, said there would be many opportunities for Australia’s businesses in China’s plan but maintained that decisions would be based on Australia’s national interest.

While the plan has received praise from many key global figures, it has also received vocal criticism. India has warned that the plan must heed international concerns on sovereignty and equality and must not be allowed to create ‘unsustainable debt burden for communities’.

The Bank of England (BoE) had left monetary policy frozen in its latest policy meeting and indicated that policy would remain loose even if UK inflation neared 3%.

This week will see the publication of highly influential ecostats from Australia and Britain which are likely to impact AUD GBP as market reaction to China’s plans and Bank of England news cools.

Learn to communicate effectively with your doctor

There is much to be gained by improving communication with health care professionals, especially physicians.  Positive outcomes include better care for the patient, less stress and illness for the caregiver, more efficient use of doctors’ time, reduced cost for the health care system and more satisfaction for all concerned.
                                                 

The public is invited to a free “Talking to Your Doctor” workshop at 10:30 a.m. April 17 at The Dale Association, 33 Ontario St. The speaker will be Jennifer Johnson, wellness educator for BlueCross BlueShield of WNY. Attendees will learn tips for communicating more successfully with their doctor and making the most of every visit. Call 433-1886 to reserve a seat.

Write questions down so you won’t forget them. Think about the main reason for your visit and what you expect from the doctor as you prepare for your visit. Making a list in advance increases the likelihood your office visit will meet your needs.

— The doctor has prescribed a specific treatment for your condition, but you aren’t feeling much better. Maybe it’s the wrong treatment for you, or maybe you’re taking the right treatment in the wrong way. Ask about alternatives for any treatment you find burdensome, such as a medication that must be taken in the middle of the night. Ask for clarification about the diagnosis and treatment plan and the reasons the doctor recommends it, what the treatment will accomplish, and restrictions on activities, food, or driving the and reasons for the restrictions. Find out about recovery and how long it will take to get back to normal, not just to feel better.

— A recommended treatment makes you uneasy.  Don’t rush into important health decisions. Usually there will be time to carefully examine your alternatives. Ask, “Why do I need this surgery?” or “Are there any alternatives to this treatment?” or “What are the risks and benefits?” Get a second opinion if necessary. Remember, there is a better chance of getting a second opinion of you ask for it than if you don’t ask.

4 Principles of Effective Communication for Business Success

Human interactions are complicated. We each have different temperaments, opinions, limitations, beliefs, worldviews, and childhood conditioning.

If you consider it, it’s amazing two or more people can communicate at all.

And the truth is we rarely do communicate well at work or home.

We can mitigate most workplace conflicts by applying a little more spirit and a little less ego.

Humans are hard-wired to be self-serving, but successful communication requires graciousness.
                                         

1.How to Be Gracious

The fastest way to achieve graciousness is to remember that the person you’re communicating with has inner tensions just like you.

They experience negative emotions like fear, anger, and guilt just like you. They have uncertainty about the future just like you.

Plato is often quoted saying, “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a difficult battle.” He didn’t say it, but it’s still a good dictum.

Life is often challenging. Most of us have inner and outer turmoil. Or, as bestselling novelist Andy Andrews says, we’re either in a crisis, coming out of a crisis, or heading for a crisis.

2.Begin in a friendly way.

Whenever possible, start your conversations with praise and honest communication. Smile. A genuine smile helps people relax. (It will elevate your mood too.)

Be inviting and open instead of serious and demanding. To accomplish this, we must first be friendly toward ourselves.

3.Give honest and sincere appreciation.

How often do you offer genuine appreciation to your colleagues versus the times you criticize and condemn them (even if you don’t say it out loud)?

It takes training to show appreciation. Research reveals that our brains have a bias towards negativity. It reacts more strongly to negative stimuli than it does to positive stimuli. We tend to look at what’s wrong with people, ideas, and situations.

4.Become genuinely interested in others.

Interest starts with curiosity. If we’re all self-interested, how can you be curious about others? Realize that everyone you meet is a reflection of yourself. We are mirrors for each other.

Patients With Locked-in Syndrome May Be Able to Communicate After All

ALS progresses, the neurons that control muscle movement begin failing, one after another. Patients lose the use of their arms and legs, and eventually, their breathing. Now they’re locked in, dependent on a medical ventilator. The last to go is the eyes, a condition called complete lock-in.
         

How do you know what someone is thinking, if you can’t communicate with him or her? For a long time, scientists thought that, at this stage, patients were incapable of directed thought. But a team of researchers at the Wyss Center for Bio and Neuroengineering, in Geneva, Switzerland, has new evidence that contradicts this, and a new way to get insight into what completely locked-in patients are thinking.

The way they did this was to apply traditional means of non-invasive brain scanning in a new application. EEG, which reads brain waves, can record a person’s awareness and vigilance. Near-infrared spectroscopy, or NIRS, measures the oxygenation of the blood in a person’s brain, which a lock-in patient can learn to control—if they are aware and vigilant.

Even just knowing the mental state of locked-in patients could have huge ramifications for the way we approach care for them. Birbaumer’s study featured just four patients, but each had chosen, while they still could, to continue to receive care and to stay alive. Using the new technique, Birbaumer asked each patient questions from the World Health Organization’s quality of life assessment, and received almost uniformly positive answers. All four people repeatedly responded “yes” to the question, “Are you happy?” But Birbaumer says only 5 percent of ALS patients choose to go on artificial respiration.

“The reason that people decide to die when they [have to] go on respiration is mainly caused by the negative attitude the environment and the family and the doctors have toward the disease and toward paralysis,” says Birbaumer. “The outside world are judging the quality of life terrible … doctors and the whole medical establishment and insurance companies and everybody reinforces that belief, and that’s why the people then die, which is a tragedy. This is an immense tragedy.”

How To Close Communication Gaps For A New Corporate Strategy

As an executive in a large Jamaican company, how do you ensure that good strategic ideas spark the right conversations between important stakeholders? Too often, these dialogues get trapped at the top or bottom of organisations so that fruitful meetings between leaders and those being led never take place. Sadly, poor corporate results ensue leaving everyone mutually mystified, annoyed and disenchanted.
           

By contrast, small companies have it easy. In a start-up in which I'm involved, a person with a bright idea is never more than one or two steps away from someone who can implement it. There's lots of opportunities to explore ideas in deep conversations, tearing suggestions apart in order to improve them. Obviously, this can't be done via email, memo or in a speech. These channels just don't get the job done.

If your company employs hundreds or thousands, quick water-cooler or coffee conversations simply don't take place. They take too much work. It's easier to let the status quo remain, along with stubborn, distant feelings. The top-down, one-way communication that remains is stilted, dry and dull. Over time, you'll also see the following three problems crop up.

The net result of these problems is that key information and strategies never make their way from the top of your organisation to the bottom, and vice versa. Left to fester, this condition makes the company vulnerable to disruption by smaller, nimble competitors. A typical example? Jamaica's Cable and Wireless in 2001 had leaders who ignored the threat of Digicel, even as many of their own employees knew better. How can your company and other large firms reduce the risk inherent in their size?

1. Offer internal strategy conferences
Conduct an internal symposium in which employees present critical trends and ideas. Demand a high standard of content and use it to shape the firm's strategy. Where necessary, teach employees the complexity lying below the surface via structured learning opportunities.

2. Create long-term brainstorming sessions
In structured workshops, give employees a chance to look 25-30 years ahead to select a preferred future.

3. Conduct research
While companies often rely on outside experts to tell them which direction an industry is heading, motivated employees can often do a great job if given the same time and resources. Their findings may have higher quality as they will be informed by their exposure to daily reality.