Cool Technology of the Week

Ok, you're going to think this is the strangest cool technology blog to date.

In my travels, I visit a large number restrooms throughout the world. Recently, I've noticed a significant rollout of "waterless" urinals.

There must be some serious technology behind this, since no "input" plumbing is required at all. I often used the analogy that the paperless hospital is as likely as the paperless bathroom, until the Japanese introduced me to a paperless high-tech bathroom. Now we have the waterless bathroom.

How does it work? A special cartridge contains a lighter than water liquid that floats on top of urine, providing an airtight seal between the urinal and plumbing - no odor of urine or sewer gas enters the room. A typical office building can save millions of gallons of water every year by installing these units. No water supply is needed so the capital costs of installing them are less than standard fixtures.

An environmentally sound, waterless urinal that uses the physical properties of fluids to create an airtight seal and eliminate odors, saving millions of gallons of water per year. That's cool!

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Networked EMR's and Healthcare Information Security: Practical When Massive IT Security Breaches Continue?

At "Networked, Interoperable, Secure National Medical Records a Castle in the Sky?" I wrote that the holy grail of electronic medical record efforts - the creation of a networked, interoperable, secure national medical records system - may be far more difficult than anyone expected due to vulnerabilities in current, widespread IT networking and OS platforms.

Now we hear the situation is even worse than in the articles I cited at that post:

Wall Street Journal
Feb. 18, 2010
Broad New Hacking Attack Detected

Global Offensive Snagged Corporate, Personal Data at nearly 2,500 Companies; Operation Is Still Running

Hackers in Europe and China successfully broke into computers at nearly 2,500 companies and government agencies over the last 18 months in a coordinated global attack that exposed vast amounts of personal and corporate secrets to theft, according to a computer-security company that discovered the breach.

The damage from the latest cyberattack is still being assessed, and affected companies are still being notified. But data compiled by NetWitness, the closely held firm that discovered the breaches, showed that hackers gained access to a wide array of data at 2,411 companies, from credit-card transactions to intellectual property.

One can only imagine how internet-connected hospitals, generally an IT backwater, might fare under such an onslaught.

... In more than 100 cases, the hackers gained access to corporate servers that store large quantities of business data, such as company files, databases and email.

They also broke into computers at 10 U.S. government agencies. In one case, they obtained the user name and password of a soldier's military email account, NetWitness found. A Pentagon spokesman said the military didn't comment on specific threats or intrusions.

At one company, the hackers gained access to a corporate server used for processing online credit-card payments. At others, stolen passwords provided access to computers used to store and swap proprietary corporate documents, presentations, contracts and even upcoming versions of software products, NetWitness said.

Data stolen from another U.S. company pointed to an employee's apparent involvement in criminal activities; authorities have been called in to investigate, NetWitness said. Criminal groups have used such information to extort sensitive information from employees in the past.

Read the while article. These breaches are an unpleasant reality in 2010, but what's worse is there really are no solid metrics for the true extent of this 'disease.'

Perhaps future Internet technologies will reduce or eliminate the problem, as one reader suggested in a comment to my aforementioned post. I do not believe, however, that patients and their medical records should be used as guinea pigs until those new networking and security technologies are widely deployed and well-proven.

In effect, this is probably not a good time for actual records-level interoperability to be deployed in any manner other than in consideration of a future strategy. Operationalizing that strategy should probably await a time when the "digital ether" in which the data resides and moves is more mature, unless proprietary networks and technology are to be used and without connection to the Internet. Planning data-level compatibility between systems, on the other hand, is work that should continue.

Finally, the layoffs and staffing levels in today's IT departments (at both vendor and user shops), plus the outsourcing of critical IT functions to overseas contractors where workers' loyalty to the primary firm is questionable at best, may be a contributing factor to the nakedness of corporate America's information systems.

-- SS

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Wairoa Extreme Race Final

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8 Feb, 2010 - The Gisborne Herald- Fire is back � �I�m going to win�

Kristine Walsh

POLLY Green�s mate reckoned that if she started training now, she could be in the top 10 at the 2011 whitewater kayaking freestyle world championships, in Germany.

He should know � German kayaker Arnd Schaeftlein is considered a legend in the sport. But Green says she did not receive his praise with much grace.

�I�m not interested in being in the top 10,� says the US-born sportswoman and filmmaker, who settled in Gisborne in 2007.

�I�m going to win.�

A bold claim but, if anyone�s going to make it, she is. This is the woman who last year told The Gisborne Herald she wanted her second short documentary � Soft Power Health, about kayaker Dr Jessie Stone�s humanitarian aid efforts in Uganda � to be an award-winner. The film was last month named jury winner of best action sports film at California�s Mammoth Mountain Film Festival.

She has a strong foundation to work from. As a fine arts student at the University of Colorado, she was already a hardcore sportswoman when she took up freestyle kayaking in the early 1990s. In 2003, she was fifth at the world champs in Austria.

Though she gave up competing two years later, Green believes her experience and ability to work under pressure will stand her in good stead.

Taking a top place next year will not be easy. In 2009 the championship in Switzerland was won by US kayaker Emily Jackson, at 19 half Green�s age.

�But it�s certainly do-able so I�m stoked that my sponsors, Jackson Kayaks and Kokatat Watersports Wear, are back on board.�

Green is already doing her part � a seven-hour-a-day, six-day-a-week schedule that combines flatwater training on the Waimata River with cycling, yoga and meditation.

To supplement that she plans regular trips starting this week to Rotorua�s Kaituna River which, with its grade five rating, will give her the whitewater she needs to perfect her tricks.

�But because I don�t really want to leave Gisborne, much of my training will be on flat water � which means a lot of the work I do will be mental,� she says.

Schaeftlein will coach her via the internet. Today she is in Auckland for a session with neuroscientist/sports coach Kerry Spackman, whose book The Winner�s Bible is a source of inspiration to her.

She will also appear on tomorrow�s 8.20am edition of the Sunrise television programme to talk about both her sport and her filmmaking.

She has a meeting booked with the New Zealand Film Commission to talk about funding for A Fire Burning, the feature film she intends to make documenting her comeback into whitewater kayaking.

The first shoot for the film has already been done and Green has assembled a team that includes co-producer/co-writer Darnelle Timbs and co-directer/co-photographer Jo Tito, with high-profile Gisborne-based US duo Peter and Sarah Dixon on board as mentors.

�You have to approach these things with a sense of humour, so the film should be quite funny as well as being very personal,� Green says as she buckles on her helmet for the day�s training session.

�It will be very raw, very real but should have a few life lessons along the way.�

Polly Green in part blames The Gisborne Herald for her coming out of retirement, after it reported comments she made last year about not having won the world championship she coveted.

�Seeing it in black and white brought it home that I hadn�t achieved my goal to be the world No. 1 and I knew that if I didn�t go for it, I�d regret it.

�So now I�m absolutely committed. The fire is back.�

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Training and Filming

Last week was a big one. Starting off with an interview on TV 3 Sunrise.

http://www.3news.co.nz/Gisborne-film-maker-creates-award-winning-documentary/tabid/418/articleID/140835/Default.aspx

-click on this link to view the interview

Then I went to Rotorua where I starting my first training back on the river. Training was filled with both ups and downs. It was great to be back on the river again, but I also experienced alot of frustration. Its been over a year since I have even been in a kayak so I felt really rusty and uncoordinated. And have high expectations of myself, knowing what I can do and am capable of.

I am super lucky to be getting coaching from Arnd Schaeftlein who brings to the table years of experience and a German no nonsense manner that is kicking me into shape whether I like it or not.
He gave me no choice in whether or not I was going to compete in the Wairoa Extreme Race. He said "Polly you will race and that's all there is to it". I was apprehensive as I hadn't been down the Wairoa in 5 years and hadn't even been down the Kaituna river yet. So it was strait into the frying pan and luckily German paddler Andi Uhl was there before my start and gave me a rundown of the lines for the time trial. I surprised myself and had pretty good lines and then found myself getting ready for the first of the head to head races. Once again I had good lines and kept advancing through my heats until I was in the final race. The whole way through the race I was focused on having good lines and having fun which I did, without focusing on the outcome. I ended up narrowly missing out on the win but felt great about my performance especially coming right off the couch so to speak.

So I think my lessons from last week are to be entirely in the moment and not focusing to much on the outcome.

We also began filming last week for a Fire Burning and I am starting to edit the trailer this week. We got some amazing POV shots thanks to Arnds new little Hero POV camera which is tiny but delivers amazing quality.

I am super grateful to my amazing production team and excited about the start of this journey! And also have to thank Andi Uhl who carried my boat up after each of my races which was a massive help and I appreciated so much, and was to me a true example of being a winning person, helping me when he didn't have to and going the extra mile. I am feeling so supported and it makes all the difference in the world!

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University of California CEO - You Can Reduce My Pay if "You Throw In Air Force One"

The San Francisco Chronicle recently reported how students at the University of California have been providing a satirical approach to the problems of the university's leadership:

It's been a seriously dramatic year at the University of California, where hundreds of students seized buildings, demonstrated and shut down regents meetings last fall to protest rising tuition and the perceived privatization of the public school.

It's also been a satirically dramatic year, thanks to the UC Movement for Efficient Privatization, a fledgling group of mostly grad students in business attire that uses humor tinged with sarcasm to lampoon UC officials.

Their own name is an example. Many UC students believe leaps in tuition and reduced state funding are turning the public university into a private institution.

In particular, they drew attention to the university president's sense of entitlement:

UCMeP has made itself known on the Berkeley campus since September. That's when UC President Mark Yudof, who earns about $600,000, drew students' ire for telling the New York Times he'd take a $200,000 pay cut for salary parity with President Obama - if Air Force One were part of the package.

Seeing this as a philanthropic opportunity, UCMeP issued fundraising flyers: 'Help Buy Mark Yudof a Plane!'

The relevant parts of the New York Times interview, which I regret to say I missed at the time it was published, are:

Some people feel you could close the U.C. budget gap by cutting administrative salaries, including your own.
The stories of my compensation are greatly exaggerated.

When you began your job last year, your annual compensation was reportedly $828,000.
It actually was $600,000 until I cut my pay by $60,000. So my salary is $540,000, but it gets amplified because people say, 'You have a pension plan.'

What about your housing allowance? How much is the rent on your home in Oakland?
It�s about $10,000 a month.

Does U.C. pay for that on top of your salary?
Yes, and the reason they do that is because they have a president�s house, it needed $8 million of repairs and I decided that was not the way to go. Why the heck would I ever authorize $8 million for a house I didn�t want to live in anyhow?

Why can�t you have architecture students repair the house for course credit?
Let me ponder that.

What do you think of the idea that no administrator at a state university needs to earn more than the president of the United States, $400,000?

Will you throw in Air Force One and the White House?

While Yudof's response is clearly sarcastic, he obviously never substantively addressed why he is entitled to be paid comparably to the President of the richest country in the world.

We have written a few times about the travails of the University of California, some of its multiple campuses, and in particular its medical schools and teaching hospitals.  Most recently we have written about how leaders of its teaching hospitals also seemed to feel entitled to substantial compensation, including bonuses for "performance" even when their institutions were receiving bad publicity for quality problems (posts here and here).

Again and again we see examples of leaders of academic medical institutions, and health care organizations in general who seem to feel entitled to be judged differently, and rewarded differently than the common folk.  These entitlements exist even when the economy, or the financial performance of the specific organization prevents other people from making any economic progress. This entitlement exists even if those other poeple actually do the work, and ultimately provide the money that sustains the organization.


Although the executives of not-for-profit health care organizations generally make far less than executives of for-profit health care corporations, collectively, hired managers of even not-for-profit health care organizations have become richer and richer at a time when most Americans, including many health professionals, and most primary care physicians, have seen their incomes stagnate or fall. They are less and less restrainted by passive, if not crony boards, and more and more unaccountable. In a kind of multi-centric coup d'etat of the hired managers, they have become our new de facto aristocracy.

Or as we wrote in our previous post, executive compensation in health care seems best described as Prof Mintzberg described compensation for finance CEOs, "All this compensation madness is not about markets or talents or incentives, but rather about insiders hijacking established institutions for their personal benefit." As it did in finance, compensation madness is likely to keep the health care bubble inflating until it bursts, with the expected adverse consequences. Meanwhile, I say again, if health care reformers really care about improving access and controlling costs, they will have to have the courage to confront the powerful and self-interested leaders who benefit so well from their previously mission-driven organizations. It is time to reverse the coup d'etat of the hired managers.

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Food Allergy Blog Carnival

Ladies and Gentleman....Step right up to the latest edition of the Food Allergy Blog Carnival! Feast your eyes on the wonders of living with food allergies. Tantalize your senses with allergy news from around the world. Join us on the wild, gut-wrenching ride of "Life with Food Allergy".

Enter our attractions- new and old- and prepare to be astounded and amazed:

Diane says, "More and more people are seeking a healthier lifestyle. Indeed, recent events in the economy have served as a wake up call for more than finances; for some, it is clear that fundamental changes need to be made in the way they live. Check out her "Top 50 Blogs to Help You Live Healthy".

Fred writes for Parenting Squad and wants to share his article about research on children and milk allergies.

The Allergy Kid Mom wonders if Nut Allergies Equals Poor Health.

We also have Wisdom From Wenchypoo's Mental Wastebasket who muses about adding protein to baked goods in a recent post.

Lisa offers her family's review of Sunbutter. She says, "My daughter was just diagnosed with a nut allergy. We are trying to figure it all out. We gave Sunbutter a try and here is what we thought.

Rational Jenn offers up "an admittedly ranty food allergy post, in which "I question the advice to 'just teach' our kids about their food allergies. I realize the advice is often well-intended, but when the kids in question are still quite young, protecting them from their deadly allergens is more than simply a matter of education."

Vicky's Ickies brings us "More Than Just Inconsiderate Comments".

Ruth at BestAllergySites.com started a food allergy list after numerous questions from non-food allergic friends and family. She hopes these Food Allergy FAQ's helps you share information with your friends and family.

Janeen comes to us from WEGO Health with a special February Blog Carnival Post.

Jenny, author of The Nut-Free Mom Blog has a duet of offerings for our carnival. First, she says, "So many classroom parties, so much food! Here's my take on it". In a separate post, Jenny says, "the stakes are getting higher as my daughter does more things independently, but I still want to let her do things. This post, Concession Stands, Basketball and Letting Go, describes a recent outing and its positive outcome despite potential nut allergy pitfalls.

Thank you to all and enjoy the rest of your day!

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