August 2010
US Airforce SNIM Contract Announcement
We are happy to announce a recent award on which Global CI is a named team mate on the SNIM vehicle. "This is another wonderful opportunity for Global CI to continue to grow our cyber-security group and contribute with our SMEs in Enterprise Architecture, SOA, Database Warehousing, Informatics, Infrastructure, Embedded Systems and Applications development." said Mike Ziman, Global CI's CEO.
Global CI as part of the team led by Battlelle has been chosen as one of a select number of teams given the chance to bid on computer software, network, information, modeling and simulation programs for the federal government under the SNIM contract.
Battelle’s selection by the Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC) means we will be allowed to bid on up to $2 billion worth of task order contracts over the next five years covering cyber-security, networks, software design and other information-related programs in support of the departments of Defense, Homeland Security and other government agencies. Jeanette Miller, Global CI's lead Business Developer said "Our proprietary TOR (Task Order Review System), HCMT (Human Capital Management Tool) and Business Development style are made to order for this type of contract. We look forward to meeting the challenge everyday."
AFCEA Health IT Day
Right on the heels of HIMSS, Global CI is off to another Health IT event! Please join us at AFCEA Bethesda Chapter Health IT Day on April 6. More information can be found here -à http://guest.cvent.com/EVENTS/Info/Summary.aspx?e=b1f75097-7adf-4da0-91b7-1f037ada28ab
March 2010
HIMSS 2010
Change is everywhere...Opportunity is here!
Transforming healthcare through IT.
Global CI is participating in the HIMSS conference again in 2010! We will be at booth 1162 to learn what is new and hot in Health ITand to continue to lead the way in developing the best applications of technology to solve the complexities of partnering government and industry for our clients and the benefit of all people.
Key Global CI consultants will also be speaking at the Interoperability Showcase representing SSA.
Please call us to arrange an on site visit at the conference...
Global CI...Your Partner for Building a Better Future!
IT employment loses few jobs in September
-Techserve Alliance
Alexandria, VA, October 2, 2009 - IT employment incrementally declined last month by only 1,100 jobs that could be an indication that the worst is over in terms of companies eliminating IT positions.
IT employment was 3,810,900 in September, which was only 0.03 percent lower than the August level. Cuts of IT jobs start relatively late in the current economic cycle since it did not begin until December 2008, a year after the recession officially started and overall employment began to decline. And although job losses continue in the general employment economy - last month, the overall labor market lost 263,000 jobs, or 0.20 percent from the previous month - IT jobs losses have been moderating recently.
IT jobs are found in virtually every sector and industry in varying degrees. The following table presents information about the total number of jobs in certain sectors that provide a significant amount of employment for IT professionals as well as to the number of all jobs.
Note: The IT Employment Index will be published on a quarterly basis due to changes made by the TechServe Alliance
Will a facial expression recognizer help Autistic kids? -Elizabeth Armstrong Moore, CNet.com
Computer scientists at Nanyang Technological University
in Singapore are developing a system that could help autistic children
identify the emotions of those around them by first locating the edges
of faces, then finding crucial fiducial points to extract and process features, and finally classifying those features into corresponding emotions.
Their paper, "Towards a Portable Intelligent Facial Expression Recognizer," is available online through the journal Intelligent Decision Technologies (Volume 3:3).
"Emotion is a state of feeling involving thoughts, physiological
changes, and an outward expression," write the paper's authors,
Teik-Toe Teoh, Yok-Yen Nguwi and Siu-Yeung Cho of the Centre for Computational Intelligence of the School of Computer Engineering
of Nanyang Technological University. "In this paper, we propose a
system that synergizes the use of derivative filtering and boosting
classifier."
One theory related to autism, developed in the 1980s and known as empathizing-systemizing,
suggests that autistic individuals can systemize (develop rules of
operation to handle events within the brain), but not always empathize
(develop rules of operation to handle events generated by external
agents, i.e. another person's face).
Whether or not the portable device will effectively, efficiently,
and discreetly translate what is going on in the faces around autistic
children (or adults, or perhaps anyone who struggles with interpreting
facial expressions) remains to be seen. So does whether it helps with
empathy, or whether a significant number of people even want help in
this area. We'll report back if and when this hits the market.
Government Healthcare: Turning to IT for Transformation
-Washington Technology
Of the $2.1 trillion spent annually on healthcare in the U.S., the
federal government accounts for 40 percent of that total. An injection
of $19 billion in federal funding for healthcare initiatives, via the
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, will enable government
healthcare organizations to leverage technology to improve both the
quality and access to healthcare services nationwide.
Proponents
have said the creation of more interoperable health IT systems will
improve communications among providers and facilitate better
coordination among caregivers. Meanwhile, advances such as personalized
medicine, which involves the application of genomics to medical
diagnosis will also improve the speed and accuracy of healthcare
services. By 2014, one industry report indicated more than
three-quarters of prescribers will be using e-prescribing, which can be
used to transmit prescriptions to pharmacies electronically, speeding
the process of picking up prescriptions. This advance will also reduce
harmful drug interactions and avoid duplicate prescriptions.
Increasingly,
it's clear that while the U.S. health care system is still world class,
the nation really needs to get a grip on healthcare costs. Clearly,
everyone is hoping technological advances such as electronic health
records and other health IT applications can help improve quality and
efficiency. Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of Health and Human Services,
has said she views the widespread use of health information technology
as 'essential to reforming the health care system.'
The
current administration's government-wide healthcare vision centers
largely on a virtual lifetime electronic health record that would
provide a longitudinal record and include information assurance,
privacy safeguards and rules-based access to protect sensitive health
information. President Barack Obama has said access to electronic
records is "essential to modern health care delivery and the paperless administration of benefits."
A
recent report conducted by Visante Inc., indicates that ARRA funding
should aid in cutting costs, while increasing efficiency. Based on
estimates by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and American Academy
of Family Physicians (AAFP), Visante analysts estimated that stimulus
funding will help the federal government cut costs by $22 billion and
will save citizens who pay for healthcare services a total of $56.2 billion.
According
to Paul Foley, vice president and senior consultant for Visante, Inc.,
the increase in health IT adoption will also "prevent 3.5 million
adverse drug reactions and 585,000 hospitalizations stemming from those
reactions." Although the law's incentives will not totally offset
providers' outlays for acquiring electronic health records, the report
predicts that "pay-for-performance measures implemented by the private
sector will likely provide further financial inducement for providers
to adopt the technology," he added.
Push for electronic medical records picks up steam
-Alan Goforth, The Star
With or without health care reform this year, electronic medical records are picking up steam.
Recent
technological advances are easing the transition for doctors and
hospitals, and there's the little matter of the Health Information
Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act.
The act, part
of last spring's stimulus package, included billions of dollars to
"advance the use of health information technology."
There's
plenty of advancing to do, with one group estimating that less than
half the hospitals and only one in five physicians are equipped to
fully use electronic records.
"The United States is far more
advanced in grocery store technology than in medical records
technology," said Steve Lieber, president and chief executive officer
of the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society in Chicago.
The
society's mission is to promote the use of medical records technology.
The argument is that the systems, which have been evolving for decades
now, can cut costs through reduction in labor and paperwork, plus
improve patient care by reducing errors.
But the systems cost a
lot up front, which is where stimulus act money will be able to help -
up to $11 million for a hospital and up to $48,400 for doctors who
adopt certified electronic medical records for their practice.
Today,
about three-fourths of hospitals have the fundamental building blocks
of electronic health records, Lieber said. That is, they have the basic
ability to collect and store data but not to move it around.
But only 45 percent have the ability to collect patient information at the point of care and then store, retrieve and use it.
Integrating
the software into the care-delivery process is the biggest hurdle for
many hospitals, said Helen Thompson, chief information officer for
Heartland Health System in St. Joseph.
Heartland, a regional
medical center serving 22 Missouri counties and parts of Iowa and
Kansas, has been working with some form of electronic medical records
for 15 years.
Season of mists and mellow
fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and
bless With fruit
the vines that round the thatch-eves
run; To bend with apples the moss'd
cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to
the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel
shells With a
sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the
bees, Until they think warm days
will never cease,
For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy
cells.
Who hath not seen thee
oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing
wind; Or on a half-reap'd furrow
sound asleep,
Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while
thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined
flowers: And sometimes like a gleaner
thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours
by hours.
Where are the songs
of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music
too,-- While barred clouds bloom
the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy
hue; Then in a wailful choir the
small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or
dies; And full-grown lambs loud bleat
from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble
soft The red-breast
whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the
skies.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
syntax highlighted by Code2HTML, v. 0.9.1
