Although a comprehensive insurance plan is part of every good estate plan, there are 2 very serious reasons why insurance is not full asset protection.
Coverage Limits
Coverage Exclusions
Insurance Coverage Limits
You only have as much insurance as you purchase and it is impossible to buy enough insurance to cover some of the huge verdicts that are returned (i.e., $11.8 million, stemming from a car accident.)
But, get good advice from your estate planning attorney and your insurance professional and with their help develop the best comprehensive insurance plan for your situation.
Be sure that plan includes umbrella liability insurance, which raises the limits on your homeowners and auto policies to whatever limit you purchase such as $1 million or $5 million dollars.
Umbrella liability insurance also known as personal catastrophic insurance is an inexpensive and excellent investment.? If you own a business, you need business umbrella liability as well.
Insurance Coverage Exclusions
You?ve likely heard of claims being denied because the insurance policy has an exclusion such as a homeowner?s policy doesn?t cover either flooding or ?acts of God? such as an earthquake.
But, there are many more exclusions.? For example, some umbrella liability insurance policies exclude claims arising from dogs, lawn mowers, business activities, guns, intentional acts, dangerous sports, and dangerous equipment.
Bottom Line Insurance Advice
Understand what your insurance policies cover and exclude.? Consult with a qualified estate planning attorney to make sure you have a comprehensive insurance plan in place as well as additional asset protection measures.? Insurance alone is not enough.
Duffy Law Office is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.
Sound waves that rang out in the early universe sculpted its structure. The best measurement yet of their imprint on galaxies is a boon to dark-energy studies.
About 30,000 years after the big bang, matter collapsed around dense seeds of dark matter. Outward pressure from photons caused the collapsing matter to rebound, creating acoustic waves, like ripples in a pond. These ripples expanded until the universe cooled to a certain temperature, stalling the waves. More matter existed at the centres and edges of these ripples, and therefore should have led to more galaxies there.
This is exactly what the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) sees in a study of 265,000 galaxies. When the BOSS team measured the distance between pairs of galaxies between 4.5?billion and 6.3?billion light years from Earth, they found an excess of galaxy pairs separated by 500 million light years (arxiv.org/abs/1203.6594).
That is the expected radius of the sound waves?? if the universe's expansion has been accelerated in line with the leading model of dark energy. Called the cosmological constant, the model suggests that the amount of energy in a given volume of space does not vary with time.
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The steady emission from decaying stars could one day help astronauts navigate through space
Navigating through the stars is a pain. There's no?Google Maps, and?GPS is worthless once you've left the Earth's atmosphere. But some clever scientists may have found a solution to allow a spacecraft to pinpoint its location with stunning accuracy... by using dead stars.
These dead stars aren't totally inactive ? they give off steady?X-ray pulses (hence their name,?pulsars). The pulses are so steady, in fact, that they're as reliable as an?atomic clock. By comparing the pulses received by a detector at a given position, a spacecraft could easily determine its location in space with pinpoint accuracy, possibly down to just 5 km.
The idea uses a similar principle as GPS positioning on Earth, but in this case, the dead stars would act as the satellites. Simple though the idea is, it's unlikely to find immediate use ? scientists believe that miniaturizing the mirrors required for detecting the X-rays could be 15 or 20 years off. Still, the innovation would be invaluable: Current location estimates for NASA's?Voyager satellites, gleaned from current tech, could be off by as much as 100,000 km.
University of Manchester via?BBC
[Image credit:?NASA]
This article was written by Fox Van Allen and originally appeared on Tecca
The HTC One series launches in Europe next week, and HTC's pulling out all the stops in the marketing effort for its new smartphones -- the One X, One S and One V. The new marketing strategy, dubbed "As Recommended By", sees HTC bringing fans and enthusiasts on-board to showcase leading features of their new phones.
The first commercial for the One X features amateur photographers Nick Jojola and Tony Mac, and challenges them to shoot what HTC describes as the "world's first freefall fashion shoot" using the phone. The results will be unveiled when the ad launches next Wednesday, April 4, but for the moment HTC's released a few photos showing how the whole thing went down.
As you'll recall from MWC, the One X's 8MP ImageSense camera is a widely-hyped feature, which aims to deliver much-improved image quality and faster capture speeds thanks to a dedicated image chip and RAW format support.
We've got a couple more pictures of HTC's skydiving antics, along with today's presser, after the break.
[unable to retrieve full-text content]A good mobile packages review is usually the starting point in lessening corporate mobile communication costs, which all have become a big line item on a large number of company spending budgets. Looking at packages regularly leads to a typical primary cost ... A technology firm that focuses on mobile communication managing can help by doing an examination of one's cellular phone and data packages. The results is going to pinpoint which wireless carrier or ...
TORONTO (Reuters) - Research In Motion posted a net loss and its first slump in BlackBerry shipments for its holiday quarter since 2006, as its new CEO announced the initial steps in a strategic overhaul and would not rule out an eventual sale of the company.
RIM's shares dropped as much as 9 percent on Thursday after the company said it would no longer issue financial forecasts and was reviewing "strategic opportunities" such as partnerships and joint-venture licensing, and other ways to leverage its assets. A handful of senior executives, including former co-CEO and current director Jim Balsillie, will depart.
Chief Executive Thorsten Heins, who took over from Balsillie and co-CEO Mike Lazaridis in January, said he was still focusing on a turnaround of the company, which has been hammered by competition from Apple and Google's Android in recent years.
Even so, if the review pointed in the direction of a possible sale, he said, "We would consider it, but it is not the main direction we are pursuing right now."
"I did my own reality check on where the entire company really is," he said during a conference call with analysts. "It is now very clear to me that substantial change is what RIM needs."
After Heins spoke, RIM's shares settled about 2.4 percent lower, in part because he left open the option of partnerships that analysts said could allow the company to exit some aspects of its business, such as making hardware, while focusing on software and services.
"If you look at this quarter alone ... things are certainly incrementally worse. But on the flip side, he's raised some possibilities of strategy change, which a lot of people think is called for," Avian Securities analyst Matthew Thornton said.
Investors may also have been encouraged by signs that Heins was putting his stamp on the company. RIM said Balsillie, who long served as RIM's public face, was stepping down as a board director a few weeks after he gave up his role as co-CEO.
Dan Dodge, former head of QNX Software, will replace David Yach as RIM's top software architect. RIM bought QNX in 2010 and is counting on the operating system to power its PlayBook tablet and redesigned BlackBerry 10 smartphones that will be launched later this year.
In addition, Jim Rowan also left as chief operating officer and RIM is looking for his replacement. It is still searching for a chief marketing officer to lead its promotional efforts.
BLACKBERRY SHIPMENTS SLUMP
The Waterloo, Ontario-based company shipped 11.1 million BlackBerry smartphones in the fiscal fourth quarter ended March 3, down 21 percent from the third quarter, but slightly ahead of analysts' pessimistic expectations.
It was the first decline in the quarter covering Christmas since 2006 and only the second time RIM has reported the metric dropping for that crucial period.
RIM sold more than 500,000 PlayBooks in the fourth quarter, a number inflated by deep discounts offered to boost sales of the product.
The decline in BlackBerry shipments suggests that RIM, at best, is treading water until it releases its next-generation of BlackBerry smartphones. Most analysts consider that a do-or-die launch for the company as it falls further behind Apple Inc's iPhone and iPad and devices powered by Google's Android.
"PAYING THE PRICE"
The company is now paying the price for failing to heed calls to move quickly to license its operating system and consider other strategies to compete with industry titan Apple, said Peter Misek, managing director of Jefferies & Co.
"It's going to be absolute gong show for the next few quarters," he said. "They're going to scramble around now for the next three to six months, and every poor shareholder that had faith in them is going to be potentially impoverished. I'm so angry as a Canadian - every Canadian investor should be angry."
While analysts generally approved of the more candid tone by Heins compared with that of his predecessors, most questioned if the new CEO would have enough time to pull off his plans.
"RIM has to orchestrate this turnaround within a shrinking window of opportunity. The market will determine how long that window stays open," said CCS Insight analyst John Jackson.
"Ultimately, RIM is taking half measures, baby-stepping their way to a reorganization and they're not moving fast enough," said Ed Snyder, an analyst with Charter Equity Research. "They need a wholesale change in the culture and the management of the company."
GUIDANCE WITHHELD
RIM said its decision to no longer provide specific financial guidance reflected an inability to forecast accurately given the weakness of its U.S. business and competitive pressure in global markets as it increasingly relies on sales of more low-end devices.
RIM, which has historically provided a forecast for BlackBerry shipments, earnings per share and revenue, has faced scathing criticism in the past year for missing its targets. Last year it stopped reporting average selling prices and subscriber additions.
For its fourth quarter, RIM reported a net loss of $125 million, or 24 cents a share, after booking writedowns on its legacy BlackBerry 7 phones and goodwill.
RIM last recorded a loss under generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2005, when it booked tax expenses and paid to resolve a patent infringement case that had threatened to shut down its U.S. operations.
On an adjusted basis excluding the writedowns, profit in the latest quarter more than halved to $418 million, or 80 cents a share, from $934 million, or $1.78, a year earlier. Revenue slumped to $4.19 billion from $5.56 billion.
Analysts, on average, had expected RIM to earn 81 cents a share on revenue of $4.54 million, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
Excluding several major writedowns, RIM had adjusted earnings of $4.20 per share in the full fiscal year, after forecasting a year ago it would earn more than $7.50 a share.
That target was cut several times before RIM abandoned it altogether after a spate of product delays, a global service outage and disappointing shipment numbers.
"They clearly have no fix on when this process will bottom, and until it really does, it's going to be very difficult for a lot of investors to come back in," said Eric Jackson, a hedge fund manager at Ironfire Capital in New York.
Shares of RIM were trading down 2.4 percent at $13.40 after the bell. Soon after the company released its results, the stock fell as much as 9 percent. The shares have fallen 80 percent since February 2011.
(Additional reporting by Susan Taylor, Allison Martell in Toronto, and Sinead Carew in New York; Writing by Cameron French; Editing by Frank McGurty)
The path to personalized cancer treatment Public release date: 28-Mar-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Aileen Sheehy press.office@sanger.ac.uk 44-012-234-92368 Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute
Researchers identify genetic markers of drug sensitivity in cancer cells
In the largest study of its kind, researchers have profiled genetic changes in cancer with drug sensitivity in order to develop a personalised approach to cancer treatments. The study is published in Nature on Thursday 29 March 2012.
The team uncovered hundreds of associations between mutations in cancer genes and sensitivity to anticancer drugs. One of the key responses the team found was that cells from a childhood bone cancer, Ewing's sarcoma, respond to a drug that is currently used in the treatment of breast and ovarian cancers. The lowered toxicity of this treatment may mean it is a safer alternative therapy for children and young adults with this aggressive cancer.
There is an intimate relationship between the way a drug works and the genetic changes present in cancers. This study found that sensitivity to most anti-cancer drugs is influenced by mutations in cancer genes and establishes the utility of using large-scale studies to identify these associations and build them into improved patient treatment.
"Our key focus is to find how to use cancer therapeutics in the most effective way by correctly targeting patients that are most likely to respond to a specific therapy," explains Dr Mathew Garnett, first author from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute. "We studied how genetic changes in a panel of >600 cancer cell lines effects responses to 130 anti-cancer drugs, making it the largest study of this type to date."
The team identified biological markers of drug sensitivity to a broad range of cancer drugs. Most of the cancer genes analysed, including those that are not known directs targets of the drugs tested, were associated with either sensitivity or resistance to at least one of the drugs analysed.
"Our research has taken us down unknown paths to find associations that are completely novel," says Dr Cyril Benes, senior author from Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Centre. "We have identified hundreds of associations, many of which we still don't fully understand. We identified a novel indication for the use of PARP inhibitors, anti-cancer drugs currently used to treat breast and ovarian cancers, for the treatment of Ewing's sarcoma."
Ewing's sarcoma is a cancer of children and young adults with a 15% five-year survival rate in patients where the cancer has spread or they have relapsed after chemotherapy. The use of PARP inhibitors could represent a new treatment option for Ewing's sarcoma patients and these compounds will now be tested in clinical trials to assess their therapeutic benefit.
"Advances in next-generation sequencing technologies are already being translated into the large-scale detection of cancer gene mutations in the clinic," says Dr Ultan McDermott, senior author from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute. "There is a compelling need to identify, in a systematic fashion, whether observed mutations affect the likelihood of a patient's response to a given drug treatment.
We have therefore developed a unique online open-access resource for the research and medical community that can be used to optimize the clinical application of cancer drugs as well as the design of clinical trials of investigational compounds being developed as treatments."
The team hopes their open-access database will be an important resource for the cancer research community and which will ultimately lead to improved treatments for patients. This research program is a unique Wellcome Trust funded 5-year collaboration between The Cancer Genome Project at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and the Center for Molecular Therapeutics, Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center.
"Our work is helping to move cancer therapeutics away from the conventional tissue-based treatment to a more molecular-based treatment," says Professor Daniel Haber, senior author from Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Centre. "The next steps for this collaborative project are to evaluate some of the key findings using tumour samples and test new candidate therapeutic strategies in clinical trials so we can hopefully improve the way we treat cancer patients. We are continuing our screening effort, in particular using drug combinations to discover innovative and better therapeutic options."
###
Notes to Editors
Publication Details
Garnett et al 'Systematic identification of genomicmarkers of drug sensitivity in cancer cells'
Published in Nature doi:10.1038/nature11005
Funding
This work was supported by a grant from the WellcomeTrust and by grants from the National Institutes of Health. S.R. is supported by a Physician-Scientist Early Career Award from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. U.M. is supported by a Cancer Research UK Clinician Scientist Fellowship.
Participating Centres
A list of participating centres can be found in the paper
Selected Websites
Massachusetts General Hospital founded in 1811, is the original and largest teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School. The MGH conducts the largest hospital-based research program in the United States, with an annual research budget of more than $750 million and major research centers in AIDS, cardiovascular research, cancer, computational and integrative biology, cutaneous biology, human genetics, medical imaging, neurodegenerative disorders, regenerative medicine, reproductive biology, systems biology, transplantation biology and photomedicine.
http://www.massgeneral.org
The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute is one of the world's leading genome centres. Through its ability to conduct research at scale, it is able to engage in bold and long-term exploratory projects that are designed to influence and empower medical science globally.
Institute research findings, generated through its own research programmes and through its leading role in international consortia, are being used to develop new diagnostics and treatments for human disease.
http://www.sanger.ac.uk
The Wellcome Trust is a global charitable foundation dedicated to achieving extraordinary improvements in human and animal health. We support the brightest minds in biomedical research and the medical humanities. Our breadth of support includes public engagement, education and the application of research to improve health. We are independent of both political and commercial interests.
http://www.wellcome.ac.uk
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
The path to personalized cancer treatment Public release date: 28-Mar-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Aileen Sheehy press.office@sanger.ac.uk 44-012-234-92368 Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute
Researchers identify genetic markers of drug sensitivity in cancer cells
In the largest study of its kind, researchers have profiled genetic changes in cancer with drug sensitivity in order to develop a personalised approach to cancer treatments. The study is published in Nature on Thursday 29 March 2012.
The team uncovered hundreds of associations between mutations in cancer genes and sensitivity to anticancer drugs. One of the key responses the team found was that cells from a childhood bone cancer, Ewing's sarcoma, respond to a drug that is currently used in the treatment of breast and ovarian cancers. The lowered toxicity of this treatment may mean it is a safer alternative therapy for children and young adults with this aggressive cancer.
There is an intimate relationship between the way a drug works and the genetic changes present in cancers. This study found that sensitivity to most anti-cancer drugs is influenced by mutations in cancer genes and establishes the utility of using large-scale studies to identify these associations and build them into improved patient treatment.
"Our key focus is to find how to use cancer therapeutics in the most effective way by correctly targeting patients that are most likely to respond to a specific therapy," explains Dr Mathew Garnett, first author from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute. "We studied how genetic changes in a panel of >600 cancer cell lines effects responses to 130 anti-cancer drugs, making it the largest study of this type to date."
The team identified biological markers of drug sensitivity to a broad range of cancer drugs. Most of the cancer genes analysed, including those that are not known directs targets of the drugs tested, were associated with either sensitivity or resistance to at least one of the drugs analysed.
"Our research has taken us down unknown paths to find associations that are completely novel," says Dr Cyril Benes, senior author from Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Centre. "We have identified hundreds of associations, many of which we still don't fully understand. We identified a novel indication for the use of PARP inhibitors, anti-cancer drugs currently used to treat breast and ovarian cancers, for the treatment of Ewing's sarcoma."
Ewing's sarcoma is a cancer of children and young adults with a 15% five-year survival rate in patients where the cancer has spread or they have relapsed after chemotherapy. The use of PARP inhibitors could represent a new treatment option for Ewing's sarcoma patients and these compounds will now be tested in clinical trials to assess their therapeutic benefit.
"Advances in next-generation sequencing technologies are already being translated into the large-scale detection of cancer gene mutations in the clinic," says Dr Ultan McDermott, senior author from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute. "There is a compelling need to identify, in a systematic fashion, whether observed mutations affect the likelihood of a patient's response to a given drug treatment.
We have therefore developed a unique online open-access resource for the research and medical community that can be used to optimize the clinical application of cancer drugs as well as the design of clinical trials of investigational compounds being developed as treatments."
The team hopes their open-access database will be an important resource for the cancer research community and which will ultimately lead to improved treatments for patients. This research program is a unique Wellcome Trust funded 5-year collaboration between The Cancer Genome Project at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and the Center for Molecular Therapeutics, Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center.
"Our work is helping to move cancer therapeutics away from the conventional tissue-based treatment to a more molecular-based treatment," says Professor Daniel Haber, senior author from Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Centre. "The next steps for this collaborative project are to evaluate some of the key findings using tumour samples and test new candidate therapeutic strategies in clinical trials so we can hopefully improve the way we treat cancer patients. We are continuing our screening effort, in particular using drug combinations to discover innovative and better therapeutic options."
###
Notes to Editors
Publication Details
Garnett et al 'Systematic identification of genomicmarkers of drug sensitivity in cancer cells'
Published in Nature doi:10.1038/nature11005
Funding
This work was supported by a grant from the WellcomeTrust and by grants from the National Institutes of Health. S.R. is supported by a Physician-Scientist Early Career Award from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. U.M. is supported by a Cancer Research UK Clinician Scientist Fellowship.
Participating Centres
A list of participating centres can be found in the paper
Selected Websites
Massachusetts General Hospital founded in 1811, is the original and largest teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School. The MGH conducts the largest hospital-based research program in the United States, with an annual research budget of more than $750 million and major research centers in AIDS, cardiovascular research, cancer, computational and integrative biology, cutaneous biology, human genetics, medical imaging, neurodegenerative disorders, regenerative medicine, reproductive biology, systems biology, transplantation biology and photomedicine.
http://www.massgeneral.org
The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute is one of the world's leading genome centres. Through its ability to conduct research at scale, it is able to engage in bold and long-term exploratory projects that are designed to influence and empower medical science globally.
Institute research findings, generated through its own research programmes and through its leading role in international consortia, are being used to develop new diagnostics and treatments for human disease.
http://www.sanger.ac.uk
The Wellcome Trust is a global charitable foundation dedicated to achieving extraordinary improvements in human and animal health. We support the brightest minds in biomedical research and the medical humanities. Our breadth of support includes public engagement, education and the application of research to improve health. We are independent of both political and commercial interests.
http://www.wellcome.ac.uk
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Acute in health-related terminology means of immediate onset. Usually ailments which appear over a short time period are also really vigorous in their activity; they also might be severe in characteristics.
Acute eczema would likely and consequently be an area of skin flare-up, which fairly recently flared up, and rapidly progressing, it might possibly be red as well as rashy, inflamed, quite possibly also have blisters and maybe some oozing or swollen skin locations. The skin surface will most likely sting, burn, or may itch intensely.
Sub-Acute
The sub-acute phase associated with eczema comprises of symptoms affiliated with skin redness and crusting. People in the sub-acute phase usually complain more regarding the characteristic of itching, even more than the pain. The itching in the sub-acute stage is usually slight to moderate with conceivable stinging in addition to burning
Chronic
Chronic eczema properly suggests long-standing. When the initial phase of activity has died down, some skin which has been eczematous for a while is dried out, scaly, thickened as well as cracked. Chronic eczema (or dermatitis) identifies a longstanding irritable area. It?s often darker than the surrounding skin, thickened (lichenified) and extremely much more difficult to avoid scratching, as itching is usually a predominant symptom in this phase.
Symptoms could be persistent or even intermittent, but the affected individual usually has the situation for life.
Your first line of defense to protect against chronic eczema is to ensure that your skin remains moisturized. Take care to do the uncomplicated items, such as taking the time to moisturize often, and particularly after washing parts of your body, or perhaps your child?s body, if you or yours suffer from eczema.
Undertake quick bathing or perhaps showers utilizing warm water. Hot water could make you itch a lot more. Ask your medical professional with regards to the use of oatmeal soaking products in your bath to help you manage the itching.
Right after washing, don?t rub your sensitive skin dry with a rough towel. That merely irritates your skin a lot more. Carefully pat it dry to get the water off. Then simply put on some moisturizing cream to help keep your skin from becoming too dry. You can spread the cream on several times every day.
Astringent soaps and any astringent agents which shrink the skin pores for example witch hazel, alum, very cold water, as well as rubbing alcohol ought to be avoided, because they are more drying to the skin.
Infected
With just about any stage of eczema, it may become infected. This won?t always be so obviously different from acute eczema, except when there are pus-filled blisters.
Together with working experience, anybody can generally determine the golden crust of infection and pick up other signs that suggest infection.
A few other signs could be failure to respond to normal treatment solution, in addition to rapidly deteriorating eczema. If the infection becomes more severe you can even develop a fever (temperature) and generally feel ill.
See your doctor in case a flare-up of eczema is getting worse or otherwise not clearing inspite of the usual treatment options.
The number one priority for hospitals is to provide continuous, superior care to patients, regardless of circumstance. This principle results in the need to invest time and resources in preparing for disruptive events. In addition, a number of external parties require hospitals to invest in preparedness measures:
?
The Joint Commission (and other accreditation bodies) requires hospitals to have an emergency preparedness (HICS) program; and
Government regulations (such as HIPAA) require hospitals to protect all medical information, including electronic medical records (EMRs), which requires a robust information security program.
Further, since hospitals are becoming more reliant on IT applications to store patients? EMRs, robust IT disaster recovery programs are needed to ensure application uptime.
Until recently, the focus of many hospitals has solely been on establishing and maintaining robust HICS and IT disaster recovery programs.?However, many hospitals have not involved clinical departments in preparing for a business interruption (e.g. loss of a facility, loss of personnel, loss of key supplier). In addition, many hospitals have not focused on preparing support departments (e.g., payroll, accounts receivable, call centers) for business or technology interruptions. These gaps can cause significant issues during a business interruption, including financial hardship for the hospital, inconsistencies between clinical and IT expectations, and a fundamental failure to continue providing quality care.
The solution to these challenges is integrating HICS and IT disaster recovery into a hospital-wide business continuity program that addresses all preparedness activities and prepares all hospital departments (clinical and support) for business and technology interruptions.
DEFINITIONS
To ensure everyone has a common understanding of the terminology used throughout this article, I?ve provided definitions here:
Emergency Management / Hospital Incident Command System (HICS)? responsible for the overall, hospital-wide management of an event, including decision making and objective/priority setting.At its best, emergency management and HICS programs incorporate IT disaster recovery and business continuity as defined below (HICS has predefined roles for business continuity coordinators). However, most organizations have implemented HICS with a focus on dealing with external disasters and mass casualty events, thus investing little time into planning for disasters that could affect the organization?s facility, people or technology.
IT Disaster Recovery (IT DR) ? responsible for developing and implementing infrastructure and application-specific recovery strategies and plans in order to successfully respond to and recover from an interruption to the hospital?s data center.
Business Continuity (BC) ? responsible for developing and implementing department-specific recovery requirements, strategies and plans in order to successfully respond to and recover from a disruptive event that impacts department-level staff, patients, and deliverables.
HOW TO CREATE AN INTEGRATED APPROACH TO PREPAREDNESS ? HOSPITAL PREPAREDNESS LIFECYCLE
When creating your hospital?s business continuity program, ensure that it is properly integrated with existing HICS and IT DR planning processes by following the 6-step model below:
Create a Cross Functional Steering Committee The first key to successfully implementing an integrated preparedness program is to create an integrated, cross functional group of management (i.e. steering committee) to oversee the preparedness effort of the hospital. Typically, the emergency management program will already have a group of management that it reports program status to, so it may make sense to first look at this group to oversee the overall preparedness program.?However, it is important to keep in mind that this group should truly be cross functional, meaning it should have representation from emergency management, business continuity (clinical and support areas), and IT disaster recovery.
Set Program Scope and Objectives After the cross functional steering committee is created, this group should set hospital-wide program objectives and priorities.?These priorities may include: - Protect employees and patients (emergency management) - Continue operations for facilities with ?patients in residence? (e.g. hospitals, rehab, long-term care) - Continue centralized patient facing activities Execute critical back-office activities - Deliver outpatient services Note: the priorities established by the Emergency Management steering committee can easily serve as the scoping mechanism for the Business Continuity team?s BIA (see #3).
Execute Business Impact Analysis After the Emergency Management Committee determines the program?s scope and objectives, the Business Continuity team should perform a business impact analysis (BIA) and risk assessment for in-scope departments throughout the hospital (see Achieving Meaningful Results: Establishing the Context for Your BIA for more information on how to properly scope your BIA).A BIA and risk assessment determines the department?s critical activities and the impact of a disruption on them.?In addition, the BIA identifies all dependencies relevant to critical activities, including technology, personnel, suppliers, equipment, and facilities.?For all dependencies, the BIA/risk assessment identifies likely sources of risk, current-state controls to mitigate risk, and risk treatment options. The key outcome of the BIA is to set recovery time objectives for the resumption of critical activities to ensure the hospital?s capabilities align to requirements.
Develop Response and Recovery Strategies Following the BIA and risk assessment, all teams should determine/review capabilities and strategies that enable the hospital to recover its critical activities and resources (including technology) within the recovery time objectives identified in the BIA.
Develop/Update Plans Following the identification and implementation of strategies, all teams should use analysis outputs to develop/update emergency response, business continuity, and IT disaster recovery plans.?Together, these plans should ensure the hospital can respond and recover to the following scenarios: - Facility Inaccessibility - Personnel Unavailability - Technology Outage Equipment Outage - Patient Surge - Supplier/Vendor Loss
Test/Exercise Plans After all plans have been developed/updated, an integrated method should be used to test the plans.?Since there is likely already a testing cycle in place for the emergency management team/plan, a key success factor for breaking down the silos between the preparedness programs is to integrate the business continuity exercises into the existing emergency management exercises.?If possible, the hospital should also consider including IT disaster recovery tests within the scope of the emergency management test.
CONCLUSION
Implementing this integrated approach will allow your organization to establish common terminology and planning approaches, realize efficiencies caused by business-wide collaboration, and ensure that the hospital is prepared to provide care to patients, regardless of circumstance. For more information on how to incorporate business continuity into your existing emergency management program, see our perspective The Four Missing Keys to Business Continuity Management in Healthcare.
??????????
Jacque Rupert, Senior Consultant Avalution Consulting: Business Continuity Consulting
When you decide to travel outside the country whether for business or for pleasure, one of the first things you need to investigate is how to purchase world travel insurance. Of course, you should never travel without insurance but when you are leaving your home country having travel insurance that will cover you while you are overseas is critical. World travel insurance will cover all the standard situations that may disrupt your trip?lost or stolen baggage, delays and cancellations, and other inconveniences. As important as these are, the most important element of world wide travel insurance is medical coverage.
Even if you have your own personal health policy, you may not be covered while you are overseas. That means that should the unthinkable happen and you fall ill or have an accident, what ever expenses you incur will have to come out of your own pocket. For minor emergencies this may not be a big deal but should you need to be evacuated back to your own country, the cost can be in the tens of thousands or more. World travel insurance can remove this worry by covering you while you are away. Many policies will not only cover your in-hospital expenses but pay to have you brought back home. The most comprehensive policies will also cover the cost to have a companion travel back with you.
Needless to say, when you begin to compare the different world wide travel insurance policies available to you, you need to take a very long look at the medical coverage. True, not all problems are big problems when it comes to health situations. While you may be able to cover the cost of small problems it can still set you back financially. Even the smallest problem can make the small investment made in world travel insurance well worth it.
As you begin your search for actual policies, think about what type of insurance makes the most sense for you. Will you be taking just one trip or would it make more sense to buy a policy that covers all trips for an annual period? The type of travel you do can make a big difference to the cost of your world travel insurance. If you travel frequently, you can save a considerable amount of both time and money by purchasing a policy that is good for a specified time period rather than buying individual policies for each of your trips.
So now you know what you need and you are ready to shop. You have two options. You can turn to an insurance broker or you can go online and search for global travel insurance. Most people prefer the convenience of in-home shopping and the Internet will give you a good comprehensive set of policies to choose from. You will find individual travel insurance companies with websites that allow you to gather price quotes as well as portal sites that will provide you with quotes from a variety of companies. You can then compare the actual policies in order to select the one that presents you with the best value. When it is all said and done, you will have a good global travel insurance policy and you can set off on your travel worry free.
Forum rules This forum is for OOC discussion about existing roleplays.
Please post all "Players Wanted" threads in the Roleplayers Wanted forum!
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Forum for completely Out of Character (OOC) discussion, based around whatever is happening In Character (IC). Discuss plans, storylines, and events; Recruit for your roleplaying game, or find a GM for your playergroup. This is the Dorm OOC thread, for your country's dorm in Hetalia Academy. I will pair up the countries (the same gender will be in the same dorm) once we get more. 2 people to a dorm.
Dorm 1: Dorm 2: Dorm 3: Dorm 4: Dorm 5:
(will add more when gathered more countries.)
KuruLesperance
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For the growing number of automobile owners participating in do-it-yourself repairs, Auto Repair For Dummies now includes even more ways to cut costs on fuel, general maintenance and minor repairs, as well as important advice on reducing a vehicle's impact on the environment and understanding safety systems that protect passengers on the road.
Auto Repair For Dummies, 2nd Edition (Wiley Publishing, Inc., 978-0-7645-9902-6, $21.99) by acclaimed auto repair expert Deanna Sclar, teaches readers how to understand, care for, and troubleshoot a vehicle or choose a new, more efficient, and safer one. It covers basics like how to open the hood, use a jack and change a tire safely, as well as new information on alternative fuels and alternatively fueled vehicles that reduce dependence on fossil fuel.
The book features a Dictionary of Acronyms and a Practical Glossary that provides explanations of automotive terms and advice about them, a Maintenance Record for a history of maintenance and repair that's useful to mechanics and to prospective buyers when it's time to sell or trade in a vehicle, and more. In addition, an Eco-Logic icon found throughout the book alerts readers to tips on saving fuel, cutting air pollution, recycling parts, and safely disposing of toxic substances.
With increased attention to fuel economy, it's easy to forget that one of the most important issues is safety. Those driving older vehicles that lack many vital safety features should consider purchasing newer, safer, models. Auto Repair For Dummies, 2nd Edition, describes the most important safety features that are currently available or will be in the near future?from proper seating to avoid air-bag injuries, to side impact protection, navigation and tracking systems, backup cameras and sensors, and traction, stability, and rollover control systems.
The book also includes instructions for the always important Monthly Under-the-Hood Check, because spending 15 minutes a month checking under the hood can prevent 70 percent of the problems that lead to highway breakdowns and extend the life of a vehicle.
About the Author Deanna Sclar is an acclaimed auto repair expert and consumer advocate. She has appeared on hundreds of radio and TV shows including NBC's Today Show and the NBC Nightly News. Sclar lectures on the ecological impact of vehicles and is active in promoting residential solar energy programs. She is also the author of Buying a Car For Dummies.
Auto Repair For Dummies, 2nd Edition By Deanna Sclar ISBN: 978-0-7645-9902-6 / $21.99 U.S. / November 2008
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About For Dummies With near universal name recognition, more than 200 million copies printed, and over 1000 topics, For Dummies is the world's bestselling reference series. With loyal customers around the globe, For Dummies enriches people's lives by making knowledge accessible in a fun and easy way. Described by the New York Times as more than a publishing phenomenon, but a sign of the times, For Dummies span every section of the bookstore, covering everything from health to history, music to math, sports to self-help, technology to travel, and more. The For Dummies brand has expanded into new products and categories with an extensive licensed product line, including fitness and hobby DVDs, grilling kits, business software, cleaning products, automotive kits, craft kits, and apparel. For more information, visit Dummies.com. For Dummies is a branded imprint of Wiley.
Say you're sitting at your laptop, listening to music while responding to emails, writing code, or reading blogs. Then your phone rings, and the typical scramble ensues: You minimize your browser, maximize the iTunes or Spotify app, and search frantically for the pause button or volume control -- all, hopefully, before you miss the call. Sound familiar? That's a problem that Flutter, a startup in Y Combinator's latest batch of companies, has solved. Flutter is an app for Macs that lets you control the play and stop functions on Spotify or iTunes by simply waving at your computer. You can watch it in action in the video embedded above. That in itself is pretty nifty, but the really interesting thing is the company's long-term vision, which goes well beyond the ability to start and stop a Rihanna song with a wave of your hand. Ultimately, Flutter co-founders Navneet Delal and Mehul Nariyawala tell me, Flutter wants to power the eyes of our devices -- in the same way that Siri functions as the iPhone's ears.
It?s beautiful outside ?nd th? last th?ng y?u want t? d? ?s spend ?ll ?f your spare t?m? working ?n your home wh?n y?u c?uld b? playing ?r spending t?m? w?th loved ones.
S? what home improvement projects offer th? biggest bang f?r your buck, saving y?u both t?m? ?nd money d?wn th? road?
As ? homeowner, it?s difficult resisting th? temptation ?f ? n?w kitchen ?r bathroom. But rule N?. 1 ?n th? manual ?f Homeownership 101 clearly states: Invest first ?n th? structure ?f your home.
?The reason ?s simple,? says John Gardner ?f APEX Siding System, ? company th?t m?k?s low-maintenance, high-curb appeal fiberglass siding. ?Taking care ?f your home w?ll prevent major, unexpected repairs ?nd w?ll pay dividends ?v?r t?m?.?
Th? second rule ?f thumb ?f home improvements ?s t? invest ?n curb appeal. Whether y?u ?r? selling, renting ?r staying f?r th? l?ng haul, ?t pays t? add charm ?nd distinction ?n th? exterior. Th? exterior ?f ? home ?s th? basis f?r th? first buying decision; th?s ?s why investments ?n curb appeal typically provide ? higher payback th?n ?th?r home improvements.
Finally, m?r? ?nd m?r? homeowners want homes th?t ?r? easier t? maintain. If y?u want t? spend m?r? t?m? enjoying l?f? ?nd less t?m? working ?n your home, invest ?n products such ?s pultruded fiberglass siding ?nd windows th?t ?r? nearly maintenance fr?? ?nd c?n dramatically reduce th? t?m? y?u spend cleaning ?r maintaining your home.
Based ?n th?s? three critical rules ?f homeownership, here?s ? list ?f th? t?p five spring home improvements w?th b?g pay offs:
1. Replace gutters. Replacing old gutters ?s an easy w?y t? spruce up ? home ?nd reduce th? chance ?f water draining into your basement.
2. Update your siding. New siding c?n instantly g?v? th? appearance ?f ? total home makeover, wh?l? ?ls? reducing your maintenance costs by choosing fiberglass products, such ?s APEX siding ?nd trim. Removing old siding ?ls? provides th? opportunity t? inspect your home f?r ?ny moisture ?r critter damage th?t ?f left unchecked c?n lead t? significant ?nd costly damage t? th? structure ?f your home.
3. Repair th? roof. Severe weather ?v?r th? years c?n t?k? its toll ?n your roof. Inspect your roof f?r loose, damaged ?r missing shingles, especially around chimneys ?nd vents, wh?r? water c?n leak into your home.
4. Install energy efficient windows. Replace old, out-of-date windows w?th n?w energy-efficient, Integrity windows made w?th Ultrex, ? fiberglass product.
5. Re-seal your driveway. Look f?r cracks ?nd movement ?n your concrete ?nd asphalt driveway. Fill cracks w?th ? crack filler ?r sealer t? prevent water fr?m getting underneath your driveway. Re-seal your driveway t? g?v? ?t ? fresh, n?w look.
Orlando Florida Real Estate News You Can Use!
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Orlando Florida Real Estate News is updated every week with a variety of information that you can use in and around your home. In the Orlando Florida Real Estate News, we share home decorating and home improvement ideas, as well as information on senior living, green living and much more.
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Public release date: 28-Mar-2012
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The number one priority for hospitals is to provide continuous, superior care to patients, regardless of circumstance. This principle results in the need to invest time and resources in preparing for disruptive events. In addition, a number of external parties require hospitals to invest in preparedness measures:
Say you're sitting at your laptop, listening to music while responding to emails, writing code, or reading blogs. Then your phone rings, and the typical scramble ensues: You minimize your browser, maximize the iTunes or Spotify app, and search frantically for the pause button or volume control -- all, hopefully, before you miss the call. Sound familiar? That's a problem that 
It?s beautiful outside ?nd th? last th?ng y?u want t? d? ?s spend ?ll ?f your spare t?m? working ?n your home wh?n y?u c?uld b? playing ?r spending t?m? w?th loved ones.
