Dashboard Technology Simplifies Reporting and Improves Efficiency

By: Melissa Rieman

Title: Healthcare Market Leader,TRANE

Imagine pressing a single button to gather historical data that can guide future healthcare engineering decision-making … or getting instant notification when a system goes down … or monitoring all mechanical systems in your hospital from a single screen.

New “dashboard” technology — available today — can make these scenarios a reality in your healthcare facility. Similar to the at-a-glance look at vehicle performance delivered by a car’s dashboard, this technology allows engineers to track and create reports on a variety of environmental conditions — including temperature, humidity, energy, and relative pressure — from a single location.

If you were asked to describe the Health Industry Council to someone outside the organization, what would you say? How would you inspire them to be involved?

As the end of the year quickly approaches, member recruitment becomes a priority for 2010 and hopefully this article will help you articulate a value proposition and bring understanding to the importance and impact of the council.

Our mission statement is: a member-driven, non-profit corporation established to unite the North Texas health industry and advance the market as a center of excellence.

This year's Forum will feature nationally recognized experts in value-based benefits and wellness design strategies including behavioral economics, effective incentive strategies and motivational tools, health reform and regulatory compliance, an employer reactor panel, and much more.

BY KYM SOSOLIK

Director, Leadership and Organization Development

SMU Cox School of Business, Executive Education

The advancement of women to senior ranks of corporations really hasn’t changed much in the last 20 years. Today women are faced with the same two challenges: making it to the corner office and commanding equal pay. According to a study conducted by Catalyst, a New York City-based nonprofit research group, in 2008 only three percent of U.S. Fortune 500 companies had women CEOs. Also according to Catalyst, at the current rate of change, it will take women 47 years to reach parity with men as corporate officers of Fortune 500 companies. How can this be when universities are graduating women equal to or higher than men in scholastic achievement, and women make up the majority of employees in most corporations? Some believe women are treated differently from men when it comes to leadership selection, and they cite historical organizational behaviors as evidence of this bias.  Others– especially those in power positions – believe their leadership choices are based solely on performance, not gender. 

Senate bill offers workers incentive

By Michael Kranish, Boston Globe |  July 15, 2009

Workers who quit smoking, lose weight, and eat right could have their health insurance premiums cut by as much as half, possibly saving them thousands of dollars per year, under a measure inserted with little notice this week into the Senate healthcare overhaul bill.  The move represents a potential breakthrough on one of the most controversial elements of healthcare overhaul: how to get Americans to improve their well-being without turning government into a medical version of Big Brother.  Under the plan, individuals would have a strong financial incentive for jumping on a treadmill or signing up for smoking cessation classes, moves that would not only prolong their lives but also reduce the financial burdens of behavior-related disease on the healthcare system.  “Money talks,’’ Senator Judd Gregg, the New Hampshire Republican who helped broker the deal reached Monday night, said in an interview. “People react to incentives that involve cash.’’  The supermarket chain Safeway and some other companies - including, in Massachusetts, EMC Corp. - have developed these programs on their own. But such plans have not become widespread nationally.  The bipartisan agreement by members of the Senate health committee could still unravel as the bill makes it way through other committees in the Senate and House. But after months of focus on how to provide coverage to the uninsured, it represents a stark acknowledgment by senators that overhauling the nation’s healthcare system must include measures to make Americans more health-conscious.