AUDIO: Make Documentation Improvement Personal for Physicians ...

Richard Averill discusses?documentation improvement.

New pay-for-outcomes reimbursement structures looming over the healthcare industry will call for more specific coding ? which must be backed up by more specific documentation.

Though the transition to the more granular ICD-10-CM/PCS code set may help, documentation processes at most hospitals will need an overhaul to support the type of pay-for-outcomes coding needed to reflect the care delivered and the severity of illness for patients.

Quality measures are about more than just reimbursement for many providers. While the money is important, many physicians and healthcare organizations take the results of pay-for-outcomes quality measures personally, said Richard Averill, senior vice president of clinical and economic research at 3M Health Information Systems. Averill, a principal researcher for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services who helped create the DRG system, explains in this audio interview how HIM professionals can use personal talking points to drive home the importance of adequate record documentation by physicians.

The only way a clinical documentation improvement (CDI) program can succeed is if it gets physician buy in. And many HIM professionals know well that providing financial reasons for CDI won?t convince most physicians. But bring up how documentation affects quality measures and a physician?s reputation for care, and most will listen, Averill says.

This interview, recorded with Journal of AHIMA Editor-in-Chief Chris Dimick during the 84th AHIMA Convention and Exhibit in October, is the fourth and final installment in this audio series.

Source: http://journal.ahima.org/2012/12/26/audio-make-documentation-improvement-personal-for-physicians/

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Sandy Tops List of 2012 Extreme Weather & Climate Events ...

By Andrew Freedman, Michael Lemonick, and Dan Yawitz

From unprecedented heat waves that shattered "Dust Bowl" era records from the 1930s, to Hurricane Sandy, which devastated coastal New Jersey and New York, 2012 was the year Mother Nature had it out for the U.S. No country on Earth rivaled the U.S. in 2012 in terms of extreme weather and climate events, as one rare episode after another rocked the country.

Many served to highlight the growing role that global warming may be playing in tipping the odds in favor of high-impact weather events.

The statistics are staggering: The first half of the year was so warm that by early August, the U.S. had already exceeded the number of record-high temperatures set or tied during all of 2011. July 2012 was the hottest month on record in the U.S., as a desiccating drought enveloped the majority of the lower 48 states, stretching its misery from California to Delaware.

The drought has been the most extensive this country has seen since the 1930s. Ranchers were forced to sell off their herds as their fields turned to dust and the price of feed rose steeply; the Mississippi River neared a record-low level, threatening to curtail commerce; and drought-fueled wildfires consumed tens of thousands of acres across the West and threatened a large population center in Colorado Springs.

More than any other event this year, though, Hurricane Sandy brought the subject of climate change to the forefront, with politicians of all stripes expressing new-found interest in taking action after seeing the?impacts of the storm.

By the end of 2012 a scientific, and more importantly, a public consensus had emerged that global warming was making its presence felt. This landmark shift in the conversation revolved around the now hard-to-refute recognition that a warming planet means certain types of extreme events are more likely to occur and are more damaging when they do. It also kick-started a discussion about what action is needed to make the country more resilient to extreme weather and climate events, and how to reduce long-term global warming.

Here is our list of the top 10 extreme weather and climate events of 2012, our third annual year-end review. Our ranking system takes into account each event's severity, societal impact, unusualness (was it a relatively routine occurrence or something that stands alone in recorded history?), and the potential ramifications the event suggests for the climate system as a whole.

(Read each of the Top 10 events by following the page links below)

Page 1 of 11 pages 1 2 3 4 5 > Last ?

Source: http://www.climatecentral.org/news/hurricane-sandy-tops-list-of-2012-extreme-weather-and-climate-events-15405

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Asus G75VW-DH72

Gaming prowess rarely comes cheap, but that doesn't mean it can't at least be affordable. The Asus G75VW-DH72 gaming laptop may offer pricing and performance well below what tricked out systems like the Eurocom Scorpius can offer, but when stacked against mid-range gaming systems like the Alienware M17x R4, it still holds its own, getting you on the gaming grid for under two grand.

Design and Features
While previous incarnations of Asus' Republic of Gamers line have emulated stealth fighter jets and naval vessels, the G75VW's design is a little more conservative, especially for a gaming machine. It's not as slim as the Razer Blade (2012), by any means. The laptop is still large, measuring 2.0 by 16.3 by 12.6 inches (HWD), but has changed up the look a bit, adding metal accents around the keyboard and across the speaker grille, which break up the imposing all-matte-black look seen in designs past. The result is a gaming rig that looks almost professional. Now, don't misunderstand, at 8.7 pounds (10.9 with the power brick) you won't be lugging this laptop to and from work, but it wouldn't look completely out of place in an office environment.

Despite the conservative look, the gaming DNA is still there. The back end of the G75VW is dominated by large cooling vents, and Asus' designs are tweaked to keep the system cool but quiet, grouping the heat generating components toward the back of the system. The chiclet keyboard sits at a slight slope, but is otherwise competent, providing a shallow but firm key movement. The touchpad is the same high-quality touchpad found on the Asus G75VW-DS71, but with the shift to Windows 8, Asus has also added some gesture support for Windows 8-specific controls. A swipe from the right edge of the touchpad pulls up the Charms Bar, while a three-fingered swipe down cycles through open apps. Pinch and zoom and two-finger scrolling aren't new additions, but they take on new importance in the absence of a touchscreen.

You may not be touching the screen, but the 17.3-inch display is still bright and sharp, with 1920-by-1080 resolution providing 1080p whether you're playing Skyrim or watching The Dark Knight on Blu-ray. The sound is also pretty good (as tested with the new trailer for The Man of Steel), staying clear at high volumes and providing a fair amount of bass thanks to an integrated subwoofer.

In addition to a Blu-ray/DVD combo drive, the Asus G75VW is outfitted with four USB 3.0 ports (one with power for charging devices), Gigabit Ethernet, a 3-in-1 card reader (SDHC, MMC, MS), and jacks for headphone and microphone. You also get several options for video connectivity, with HDMI, VGA, and mini DisplayPort outputs. Wireless connections provide 802.11n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0.

The G75VW-DH72 pairs a 750GB spinning hard drive with a separate 256GB solid-state drive (SSD), letting you shift bulk data storage to the hard drive while keeping programs on the SSD for optimum performance. Included on the drive are Microsoft Office Starter 2010, a 60-day trial of Trend Micro Antivirus, Adobe Reader X, and Asus' Application Suite, which includes 3GB of free cloud backup with Asus WebStorage. Asus covers the G75VW-DH72 with a two-year warranty, but also includes a full-year of additional accidental damage coverage, 24/7 tech support, and 30-day "Zero Bright Dot" warranty on the display panel.

Performance
The Asus G75VW-DH72 is outfitted with a 2.4GHz quad-core Intel Core i7-3630QM processor with 16GB of RAM, and an Nvidia GeForce GTX 670M with 3GB of dedicated VRAM. The combination is potent?in Cinebench R11.5, the processor scored 6.44 points, outperforming both the Alienware M17x R4 (6.19 points) and the MSI GT70 0NE-276US (6.23 points), but falling behind both the Razer Blade (6.86) and the Eurocom Scorpius (7.29). The Asus G75VW-DH72 also made short work of our multimedia tests, completing our Handbrake video encoding test in 36 seconds, and Photoshop CS6 in 3 minutes 32 seconds.

Perhaps more important than general performance is how the G75VW-DH72 does with games. In Aliens vs. Predator, it racked up a respectable 55 frames per second (fps) at medium detail settings and 1,366-by-768 resolution, but dropped to a less than playable 18 fps when resolution was dialed up to 1,920-by-1,080. When tested with Heaven, however, it scored 70 fps at medium settings and a nearly playable 28 fps at 1080p. While you won't be able to go all out with the detail settings on high-end games, you will still see excellent performance on even the most demanding games, provided you back off on the eye-candy a bit.

The Asus G75VW-DH72 also did well in battery tests, lasting 3 hours and two minutes in our battery rundown test. While not even long enough to make it through a screening of Kurosawa's Seven Samurai, it's still pretty decent performance for a gaming laptop. Few laptops pass the three hour mark, with one of the few exceptions being the portability minded Razer Blade, which still only lasted 3 hours 53 minutes when tested with MobileMark 2006, our previous battery test.

As a decently priced mid-range gaming laptop, the Asus G75VW-DH72 offers great performance at an affordable price, letting you enjoy top of the line games (albeit with middle of the road graphics performance) for far less than a tricked out high-end system. It's an affordable option to the Alienware M17X R4, and as such, replaces it for our Editors' Choice mid-range gaming laptop.

BENCHMARK TEST RESULTS:

COMPARISON TABLE
Compare the Asus G75VW-DH72 with several other laptops side by side.

More laptop reviews:
??? Asus G75VW-DH72
??? Toshiba Satellite U845W-S430
??? Panasonic Toughbook CF-53
??? Lenovo ThinkPad Twist (3347-4HU)
??? Acer Iconia W700-6465
?? more

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/ntFL6jQla60/0,2817,2413469,00.asp

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Gunman who ambushed firefighters killed grandma in '80

Webster Police Chief Gerald Pickering says the gunman, who he identified as William Spengler, was a convicted felon who served 17 years in prison for killing his grandmother more than three decades ago.

By Jason White, NBC News

Monroe County Sheriff's Office

Undated booking photo of William Spengler, who shot and killed two firefighters Monday.

The gunman who ambushed four volunteer firefighters, killing two, in upstate New York had spent 17 years in prison for beating his grandmother to death with a hammer in 1980, police said.

William Spengler opened fire on the volunteers as they responded to a blaze just before 6 a.m. ET in a small cluster of homes along Lake Ontario in Webster, N.Y., police said, rocking this close-knit community.

The 62-year-old convicted felon had apparently set a trap, luring in first responders and then firing on them from atop an earthen berm.

"It does appear that it was a trap that was set,"?said Webster Police Chief Gerald Pickering,?his voice breaking at times.??People who get up in the middle of the night to fight fires, they don?t expect to get shot and killed."

---

Pickering lost a colleague in the incident: Police Lieutenant?Michael Chiapperini, who was a volunteer firefighter. The other firefighter killed by Spengler was?Tomasz Kaczowka.

Despite being shot, one of the injured firefighters was able to flee from scene under his own power. But the others remained pinned down on the narrow strip of land between Lake Ontario and Irondequoit Bay until a SWAT team arrived.

Webster Police Lt. Michael Chiapperini.

As police closed in, Spengler took his own life with a gunshot wound to the head, Pickering said. He was convicted of manslaughter in 1981 after the death of his grandmother, Rose Spengler, and was paroled in 1998.

Spengler's 67-year-old sister Cheryl Spengler is unaccounted for, Pickering said. Spengler lived in the house with his sister and mother, Arline, who died in October.

Prior to Monday's shooting, Webster police had not had any run-ins with Spengler since he was paroled, they said.

Police would not say what kinds of guns Spengler used, but as a convicted felon, he could not legally own firearms.

Firefighter Tomasz Kaczowka in an undated photo.

The two injured firefighters, Theodore Scardino and?Joseph Hofstetter,?were being treated for "significant injuries," according to Dr. Nicole Stassen, a surgeon at the?University of Rochester Medical Center. She said both were awake and alert and not on ventilators.

An off-duty police officer was also injured when he was hit by shrapnel after his car took bullets to the windshield and engine block, according to the?Rochester Democrat and Chronicle. His condition is unclear at this time.

After the shooting, the fire grew to engulf at seven homes and one motor vehicle.?

?These firemen are part of our family. You go into a fire with these guys. To see them go down with something like this is totally unexpected. We are in shock,? Billy Gross, fire commissioner for West Webster, told the?Democrat and Chronicle.

Dozens of area residents were evacuated, with police searching them as they left, the newspaper reported.

"Miserable thing to happen this time of year," Mark Johns, a state assemblyman who represents the area, told?local NBC station WHEC. Johns said he knew some of the firefighters who were shot.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo issued a statement after the shooting, offering his "deepest condolences."

?All of our thoughts and prayers go to the families and friends of those who were killed in this senseless act of violence," Cuomo said.??New York's first responders are true heroes as they time and again selflessly rush toward danger in order to keep our families and communities safe."

NBC's Tom Winter and Rosanna Arlia contributed to this report.

Volunteer firefighters responding to a massive house fire Monday morning were fired on by a gunman who had spent 17 years in jail for killing his grandmother with a hammer. NBC's Ron Mott reports.

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Source: http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/12/24/16125861-gunman-who-ambushed-firefighters-killed-grandmother-in-1980-police-say?lite

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Drive Your self and Your On the internet Business to Success! - Bnr.Co

When you listen to the achievement stories of how some on the internet entrepreneurs turned from possessing nine-to-5 desk jobs with minimal pay into getting a web site which has grow to be a virtual money cow for them, it actually becomes tempting to join in and begin your really personal on the internet company.

But is the world wide web business market one thing that anyone can be effective at? What if you have no idea at all about how to start off? What are the tools that you want to have to boost your probabilities of earning a large quantity of profit? That is specifically what we will try to locate out here.

Do You Have What it Requires to Succeed in an On-line Company?

To answer the aforementioned queries, we require to check initial regardless of whether you actually have what it requires to succeed as an web company entrepreneur or not. Take a appear at the following checklist that you can use as reference:

1. What are your motivations to succeed?
Motivation is quite a big aspect when it comes to figuring out whether or not you have what it takes to succeed in an internet enterprise or not. Maybe you would like to have the freedom to work without having possessing a boss looking over your shoulder. Or, it could be that you want to have the opportunity to function correct in the comfort of your own house. Or perhaps you just want to appreciate the financial freedom that goes along with it.

No matter which of these things apply to you, you can use them as a motivational factor in succeeding in the on-line internet enterprise venture of your option.

two. How a lot perform are you prepared to place in for your residence enterprise?
An additional way to know if you have what it requires to succeed in your online company is to figure out just how much work you are willing to place in it. Would you like to slave away your hours and really perform hard in the world wide web enterprise that you have? Or will you be happy with the additional income that you will make by working only during your free time?

3. What on-line business opportunity do you see oneself excelling at?
Lastly, determine which type of web company opportunity it is that you see your self excelling at. For this, you need to make sure that you are acquiring involved in a kind of enterprise that you are passionate about, skilled and talented at ? or at least, be involved in one thing that you?re interested in.

At the finish of the day, it is not the online residence company itself that will work towards your good results ? but it is you who can do it for yourself. The more time, effort and passion you throw towards your on the internet enterprise, the a lot more rewards your enterprise will give you financially.

Source: http://www.bnr.co/business/drive-your-self-and-your-on-the-internet-business-to-success/

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President Obama may return to Washington as soon as Wednesday: aide

MOBILE, Alabama (Reuters) - A tornado hit downtown Mobile, Alabama at about 5 p.m. on Tuesday, according to the National Weather Service. NWS observing program leader Gene Jacobi of the service's Mobile office said it had confirmed reports of a tornado, but did not yet know its size. Local media reports are describing property damage, downed trees and power lines, and widespread power outages. (Reporting By Mary Wisniewski and Kaija Wilkinson in Mobile; Editing by Todd Eastham)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/president-obama-may-return-washington-soon-wednesday-aide-014403713.html

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The Most Popular Scientific American Stories of 2012

Here are the stories you clicked on the most on our site

By The Editors

3 Comments

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1. 1. hanbroekman 07:38 AM 12/24/12

   The link for #1 is wrong

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2. 2. Chryses 07:56 AM 12/24/12

   Yes. #4. How Hollywood Is Encouraging Online Piracy, was n eye-opener for me.

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3. 3. Stagnaro 10:20 AM 12/24/12

   Admittedly, all most popular American Sceintific Stories are really interesting and fascinating. However, I find both enlightening and preoccupaying that readers showed to be no interested in papers suggesting new road, clinical in nature, in the war against today's growing epidemics, as CAD, type 2 DM, and Cancer.

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Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=7f482ca5ed0142692822f2961fb7082a

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