Saturday, March 21, 2009
not sallowed to be sick
Its true I filed a late report last election time, as I was sick as a dog with the flu- fever, chills, nausea. All of this was verified by the City Clerk, but they fined me anyway. I guess in big campaigns you have somebody to do it for you. I had only me at the time. I guess you are not allowed to be sick while you are campaigning for office. I have other witnesses too, to verify my condition at the time. It was due on a Friday and I filed it on the following Monday, still sick, but a little better than the previous Friday. I filed an appeal with Tallahassee but it wasnt allowed, without an explanation by them. Dr. Mel P. Johnson
commentary
You should vote for the candidate that best represents your views and values and has a record of doing that, in spite of various influences and pressures brought upon them. If elected, and a majority of my fellow Council members want a vote of confidence to be taken the next day, I am prepared to do that. After all the fiascoes, screw ups, money disappearing, forgotten hookups, and errors in judgement over the past couple years, it would be very difficult to give him a vote of confidence at this point. Dr. Mel P. Johnson
commentary
Yes, I believe that everyone on the Council voted fot LINK. Of all the ones making a presentation, there's was far and away the best. They would have gotten my vote too, if I had been on the Council. I also believe that Pistorino should have been able to make a presentation too, but his report was deep-sixed long before that because it didnt come to their foregone conclusions. Dr. Mel P. Johnson
Friday, March 20, 2009
clarification
Is Mr. Stiff saying he has NO PLANS to submit a bid on the new gym in the future? Or is he just waiting until after the election? The 280k from the bathrooms is STILL missing on the City Managers watch. The Giglio fiasco was botched from the start and his responsibility. The CC disaster and missing money there is still on record as occurring on the City Managers watch. The handshake deals at the pool are still in place, and Gyms responsibility. Etc etc. To say that I have SERIOUS doubts about the City Managers performance, or lack of same, is an understatement of gargantuan proportions. I say AGAIN- if elected, and my other Council members want to give the City Manager another six months to redeem himself from his dismal performance for the past five years, I could probably live with that. A re-evaluation would be made at that point and a vote of confidence held at that point. Dr. Mel P. Johnson
ideas, not slogans
We have run the gamut from Vote For Me- Im Latin, to Vote For Me, Im Female, and Vote For Me, Im Billy's Buddy And Will Do Whatever He Tells Me To Do - that is a big improvement? I am not so sure. What about new ideas, being a proponent for accountability, transparency, reasonable construction fees,and due diligence as a process for doing City business as a platform for consideration by the people? Those are the ideas my campaign is built on. The people will decide if those things make sense to them and are what they want in a representative, or not. Dr. Mel P. Johnson
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Electronic Medical records
6 Ways Electronic Medical Records Could Make Your Life Safer and Easier
Here's one: E-mail and Web access to doctors means fewer office visits needed
By Nancy Shute
Posted March 10, 2009
We'll all soon have electronic medical records, given the $19 billion tagged for a big rollout of the long-touted paperless systems in the economic stimulus plan. Healthcare experts say EMRs will make medicine safer, more efficient, and more cost effective, and three quarters of the public say they're all for it. But will the electronic records really be better than the chaotic paper-based system we've got now? Here's the latest, gleaned from research on health IT in the current edition of the policy journal Health Affairs and a meeting of EMR superstars in Washington, D.C. The bottom line: Electronic medical records are essential, but they're far from simple. "As a software guy, I'm really optimistic about what technology can do to improve healthcare around the world," said Peter Neupert, a Microsoft vice president. "And as a software guy, I think: Holy crap, this is really going to be hard to do." Here's what they can do now:
People Who Read This Also Read
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Electronic Communication May Be Boon to Doctors' Time 22875180
Electronic Medical Records: Will Your Privacy Be Safe? 22065102
1. Skip trips to the doctor. It's a pain in the buns to have to trek to a primary-care doctor every time you need a question answered or a prescription reordered. Primary-care office visits in Kaiser Permanente's Hawaii region dropped 25 percent from 2004 to 2007, after the healthcare organization started offering people the option of E-mailing doctors as part of the 8.7 million-member organization's Web-based electronic health record. No need to take time off work, and no miles driven; this even helps fight global warming! But since most doctors outside of a group program like Kaiser don't get paid for E-mail consults, this might be a tough sell.
2. Track Mom's medical chart even if you're in Albuquerque or Altoona. Online personal health records like Microsoft's HealthVault and GoogleHealth make it much easier to share medical records among family members, which could be great for managing aging parents' healthcare. The downside: Very few doctors and hospitals are set up to let you download your records onto these third-party sites, so for now you might have to type it all in yourself. "A personal health record is really an electronic notebook," says Alfred Spector, a vice president at Google Inc. "It's under the patient's control."
3. Get lab test results without having to play phone tag with the doctor's office. Some clinics and labs, including Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston and Quest Diagnostics, let customers download lab results the moment they're reported. Kaiser Permanente patients viewed 16,773,273 lab tests online in 2008. That's faster access, for sure, but many test results read like gibberish. Will insurers or labs help with interpretation, or will we still have to ask the doctor?
4. Never again drag X-rays to a specialist. X-rays and other diagnostics are going digital, and big IT companies such as Cisco are designing systems that would make it possible to store and retrieve a lifetime's worth of X-rays and MRIs. Doctors might start incorporating digital photos as part of a patient's record, like dermatologists already do to screen for skin cancers.
5. Find out if your prescriptions could have dangerous interactions, before you start taking them. This year, Medicare starts giving physicians a 2 percent bonus if they use an electronic prescription system, which automatically checks for correct dosage and potential drug interactions. That could finally give E-prescribing the boost it needs; most docs still write scrips by hand. Health plans that have switched to E-prescribing report that it's saved them millions of dollars by helping them shift patients to cheaper generic drugs. Safety advocates add that E-prescribing reduces dangerous errors by doctors and pharmacists.
6. Use your cellphone to tap into your health record from the mall—or from Mali. Cloud computing is the next big thing on the Web: Your data live somewhere up in the ether, and you access them via phone or laptop. Web-based personal health records like Google's are in the vanguard, but more traditional health record providers like Kaiser will probably follow. The big plus: You or a doctor can access your health records anywhere in the world. The obvious big minus: Cloud computing may be less secure than your sock drawer. Last April, health insurer WellPoint disclosed that the health records of about 130,000 customers had become publicly available over the Internet.
My colleague Bernadine Healy discusses the many privacy problems surrounding electronic medical records, and my fellow senior writer Michelle Andrews explains how EMRs can increase the risk of medical identity theft. Dave LaGesse reports on how half of people say they'd use a personal medical record from a third party like Microsoft or Google.
Here's one: E-mail and Web access to doctors means fewer office visits needed
By Nancy Shute
Posted March 10, 2009
We'll all soon have electronic medical records, given the $19 billion tagged for a big rollout of the long-touted paperless systems in the economic stimulus plan. Healthcare experts say EMRs will make medicine safer, more efficient, and more cost effective, and three quarters of the public say they're all for it. But will the electronic records really be better than the chaotic paper-based system we've got now? Here's the latest, gleaned from research on health IT in the current edition of the policy journal Health Affairs and a meeting of EMR superstars in Washington, D.C. The bottom line: Electronic medical records are essential, but they're far from simple. "As a software guy, I'm really optimistic about what technology can do to improve healthcare around the world," said Peter Neupert, a Microsoft vice president. "And as a software guy, I think: Holy crap, this is really going to be hard to do." Here's what they can do now:
People Who Read This Also Read
Rice Gets Rude Welcome Home at Stanford 22855400
How an Electronic Medical Record Can Help Keep Your Family Healthy 23083146
Michael Barone 22291002
Electronic Communication May Be Boon to Doctors' Time 22875180
Electronic Medical Records: Will Your Privacy Be Safe? 22065102
1. Skip trips to the doctor. It's a pain in the buns to have to trek to a primary-care doctor every time you need a question answered or a prescription reordered. Primary-care office visits in Kaiser Permanente's Hawaii region dropped 25 percent from 2004 to 2007, after the healthcare organization started offering people the option of E-mailing doctors as part of the 8.7 million-member organization's Web-based electronic health record. No need to take time off work, and no miles driven; this even helps fight global warming! But since most doctors outside of a group program like Kaiser don't get paid for E-mail consults, this might be a tough sell.
2. Track Mom's medical chart even if you're in Albuquerque or Altoona. Online personal health records like Microsoft's HealthVault and GoogleHealth make it much easier to share medical records among family members, which could be great for managing aging parents' healthcare. The downside: Very few doctors and hospitals are set up to let you download your records onto these third-party sites, so for now you might have to type it all in yourself. "A personal health record is really an electronic notebook," says Alfred Spector, a vice president at Google Inc. "It's under the patient's control."
3. Get lab test results without having to play phone tag with the doctor's office. Some clinics and labs, including Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston and Quest Diagnostics, let customers download lab results the moment they're reported. Kaiser Permanente patients viewed 16,773,273 lab tests online in 2008. That's faster access, for sure, but many test results read like gibberish. Will insurers or labs help with interpretation, or will we still have to ask the doctor?
4. Never again drag X-rays to a specialist. X-rays and other diagnostics are going digital, and big IT companies such as Cisco are designing systems that would make it possible to store and retrieve a lifetime's worth of X-rays and MRIs. Doctors might start incorporating digital photos as part of a patient's record, like dermatologists already do to screen for skin cancers.
5. Find out if your prescriptions could have dangerous interactions, before you start taking them. This year, Medicare starts giving physicians a 2 percent bonus if they use an electronic prescription system, which automatically checks for correct dosage and potential drug interactions. That could finally give E-prescribing the boost it needs; most docs still write scrips by hand. Health plans that have switched to E-prescribing report that it's saved them millions of dollars by helping them shift patients to cheaper generic drugs. Safety advocates add that E-prescribing reduces dangerous errors by doctors and pharmacists.
6. Use your cellphone to tap into your health record from the mall—or from Mali. Cloud computing is the next big thing on the Web: Your data live somewhere up in the ether, and you access them via phone or laptop. Web-based personal health records like Google's are in the vanguard, but more traditional health record providers like Kaiser will probably follow. The big plus: You or a doctor can access your health records anywhere in the world. The obvious big minus: Cloud computing may be less secure than your sock drawer. Last April, health insurer WellPoint disclosed that the health records of about 130,000 customers had become publicly available over the Internet.
My colleague Bernadine Healy discusses the many privacy problems surrounding electronic medical records, and my fellow senior writer Michelle Andrews explains how EMRs can increase the risk of medical identity theft. Dave LaGesse reports on how half of people say they'd use a personal medical record from a third party like Microsoft or Google.
LED lights costly
Money-Saving LED Lighting Is a Tough Sell
May 23, 2008 05:36 PM ET | David LaGesse
A tiny fan in its base helps cool the LED light.The latest wrinkle in LED lighting is a three-way bulb, much like might be used in a living room lamp. The EarthLED EvoLux R gets successively brighter as you hit the switch.
It's not cheap, though, at $100 for a version that's as bright as a 100-watt incandescent bulb.
Of course, maker Advanced Lumonics says the bulb lasts 11 years and touts the money you'd save by not replacing power-hungry incandescents. I'm all for energy savings that equate to dollar savings, but LED bulbs seem a tough sell.
For one, lighting aesthetics (color, for one) make all the difference. Consumers want to try one of these bulbs before committing to a houseful. But a $100 trial is expensive. (Advanced Lumonics does offer a 30-day money-back guarantee.)
Cheaper versions include a 100-watt equivalent that doesn't dim at $80 and 60-watt versions at $40. Even the last one is a stiff entry fee. Plus, let's face it, most of us can't think in terms of decade-long savings when the initial cost is so high.
Something like geothermal heat, which also takes years to get payback, costs only about twice as much as a conventional system. And unlike geothermal heat, light bulbs get broken. Fatally. Especially in living room lamps.
May 23, 2008 05:36 PM ET | David LaGesse
A tiny fan in its base helps cool the LED light.The latest wrinkle in LED lighting is a three-way bulb, much like might be used in a living room lamp. The EarthLED EvoLux R gets successively brighter as you hit the switch.
It's not cheap, though, at $100 for a version that's as bright as a 100-watt incandescent bulb.
Of course, maker Advanced Lumonics says the bulb lasts 11 years and touts the money you'd save by not replacing power-hungry incandescents. I'm all for energy savings that equate to dollar savings, but LED bulbs seem a tough sell.
For one, lighting aesthetics (color, for one) make all the difference. Consumers want to try one of these bulbs before committing to a houseful. But a $100 trial is expensive. (Advanced Lumonics does offer a 30-day money-back guarantee.)
Cheaper versions include a 100-watt equivalent that doesn't dim at $80 and 60-watt versions at $40. Even the last one is a stiff entry fee. Plus, let's face it, most of us can't think in terms of decade-long savings when the initial cost is so high.
Something like geothermal heat, which also takes years to get payback, costs only about twice as much as a conventional system. And unlike geothermal heat, light bulbs get broken. Fatally. Especially in living room lamps.
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