Physician House Calls : Reviving an Old Practice to Modern Communities.

When was the last time you remembered a doctor visiting you in your home and see how you are doing? I was fortunate enough to have such personal care when I was still a young lad, that kind doctor was our neighbor. From that time forward, going to the doctor's office was really somewhat a luxury. It is since I don't have much time to spend and wait in line for doctors that always come in late for work .

In cases of medical conditions where you need to urgently see a doctor at wee hours of the night, where do you go? I cannot go to OPD section since they close at night. So I am left with no choice but to endure the steep cost of medical care in the Emergency Room, even if my case isn't an emergency.

We in the health care insurance business recognize the this serious flaw in the delivery of health care services to our countrymen. More often than not, the HMOs shoulder most of these unnecessary expenses incurred thereby increasing their utilization.

Being fully aware of this situation, KAINOS Health Management, Inc (our company) has come up with a simple plan that isn't really new at all; but a long gone practice - physician house call.

Yes, we believe that genuine health care should be patient centric and that, a personal and convenient approach is necessary at all times - even at night. Providing house calls is a very welcome convenience most specially for parents who have not enough resources to visit the nearest hospital or can't wait until morning to consult a very tardy doctor.

Visit our new program on our company website at www.kainoshealth.net to learn more.

Google Mail Going Offline!

 

I don't mean to cause panic to everyone who uses Google for their mails but yes, Google has pulled the plug from it's mail service.

Google has released from their Labs, Google Offline Mail service which means you can now view, search and compose Google Emails even when no Internet connection is available. Isn't that exciting?

How Google does this? If you're using IE7 or Firefox, they will prompt you to install a small background service called Google Gears in your computer. Google Gears will be the one responsible for caching and synchronizing all your email data with their remote servers. It does this automatically without you having to notice it after your first sync process.

What I like about GMail over outlook is that it is:

• simple and straightforward,
• full feature and very fast searching capability,
• huge storage space for mails - 7Gb, and
• very portable.

Now, I have every reason to tell my two brothers to dump their old, clunky and highly inefficient M$ Outlook and move in to Google Mail service instead.

Enjoy your offline email browsing with Google Mail

The Folly Of Action Group Meetings

I was the host tonight of a BCBP Action Group Meeting which we hold once every week to different households of each member couple. It is a fellowship community where my wife and I recently joined to worship Christ and commune with other members as well. Yes we had the usual stuff of studying the Bible and of course the personal sharing.

When the sharing started based on the reflections we had on a verse from the Bible, my wife and I had only a little over five minutes to say our part because the other couple took almost an hour to say their piece!

After the session, the host will normally serve food for the guest and we did. Since I am the host, I thought I will have the opportunity to share more and run the group's conversation. Unfortunately, that didn't happen. I was almost quiet that evening because their 'chit-chats' never seem to cut and it's difficult getting in between their conversations. I however tried to manage my way twice to get through and start to say my piece. Yes, they stopped and listened for a few seconds then they just smiled back. Immediately after that, they shot back and continued on  as if I did not talk at all or I wasn't there. I was not even asked for my opinion.

Sensing that it was hopeless for me to join their conversation, I just retracted and kept silent the whole night. Now, how is that for a group sharing?!

My advice:

I have only few advices to give to these people and I know it's not that difficult...

1. that they should listen more than they talk,
2. give time for others to talk,
3. and, be kind to the host to run the show - it's their house anyway!

I'd say that this is complete disregard and therefore disrespectful to my authority as a host. I felt that my house was turned into a cheap restaurant and I am the waiter!

With this, I am very,very disappointed. Sorry guys.

Half Past Eleven

One day got infuriated by something and someone who isn't worth mentioning about now. These words just came spewing out like a dormant volcano rumbling and throwing rocks of angry words. Nope that volcano hasn't erupted yet, it will soon be and pressure is building up fast.

These I write ...

 

A self-righteous man is a self-centered one who

thinks of himself as all knowing and blameless in all his

hideous acts.

~~

He who does not accept personal shortcomings

has a very short memory and lives a life as short

as what he can only remember

~~

An agitated man never seeks the

company of peace, but rather digs

himself in the graveyard of loneliness.

~~

A man who claims perfection is

himself living a less-idyllic life.

~~

Anger only reaps resentment. It's perilous

path leads to unfathomable depths of destruction,

loneliness and regret.

~~

A leader with a broken moral  compass,

leads a pack of sheep into a rocky cliff of

what he claims a promise land.

~~

A well guarded thought and tongue is more

respectable than one who speaks

folly and vile words.

~~

When do you say it's over?

When do you say it's enough?

When do you say you can't?

A quiet man never speaks a word about it,

nor moves a hair but

shows when he disappears.

~~

A true man's value can be appreciated

only abundantly when there is

less of him available.

~~

Great destruction can only come from

the least of them all.

~~

A proud man never learns to accept defeat

but when defeat is inevitable, he in turn blames the

world for his miseries.

~~

In the eyes of a proud man, he is blameless

and remains that way until all sight is lost.

Initiating an Almost 'Paper-less' Office

I work in a health care insurance industry and in this business, paper works are undeniably enormous and quite unsightly too. Though the initiative of doing 'paper-less' has been floated before, no real plans were laid out and no real participation by the management has been committed.

We all clearly say that doing 'paper-less' provides many potential benefits, and cost is one of them. Whenever people encounters challenges on implementing this program, all of a sudden they withdraw and not talk about it. True enough, it is very challenging - so this is where the fun and excitement begins!

When we talk about a 'paper-less' program, it is synonymous to using a special software to manage all paper works for distribution and storage. There are many softwares (aka Document Management Softwares - DMS) available in the market but many of which are insanely expensive and will surely make you lock-in to their service - that is something we do not want of course.

For several years, I have had the opportunity to work on several different DMS's and I would say there are many good ones out there as there are many bad ones too. One thing to consider as well is the company that makes these software and we wanted to make sure that they will still be there even after two decades of use.

What are the qualities of a good DMS?

A good DMS must atleast have the following properties:

• Easily accessible: All employees must have a ready access the uploaded documents for retrieval and review so there will be no physical distribution of documents that will eat up their desktops.
  
• Sharing: Uploaded documents must have the capability to share it with others based on the privileges provided by the owner of the document.
  
• Accountability: This is done in two ways: 1) version control to monitor all changes made by every single user and, 2) document permission to set security restrictions to every document.
  

GoogleDocs & Spreadsheet - A good way to start.

To give you an idea on how our office is setup, we have 60 plus employees both in our insurance business and medical clinics which are located in other parts of the city. Yes, papers are used a lot so my challenge here is to significantly minimize paper usage as much as possible if it cannot be remove at all. Since we are using GoogleApps platform anyway (thank goodness for that), for our email, calendar and instant messaging service; we might as well maximize all other services like using GoogleDocs & Spreadsheets as our Document Management System (DMS).

Implementation Plan

Sometimes, the only best option to make a plan like this successful is not to give your employees any other option. ;) Really! Believe me it works all the time. Below is my way of implementing an almost 'paper-less' office:

1. Make a memo to everyone concerned telling them about your plan and when it will be effective. The schedules of training, transition and implementation must be clearly stated to avoid potential conflicts in the future.
   
2. Create a simplified guideline and policy regarding this initiative. This will help the transition to paper-less easy for everyone to follow.
   
3. Provide training sessions and learning resources. Since most of the things they need to know can be found on the Internet. I provided our employees links to videos and interactive tutorials for them to study. training sessions are provided only if there are some advanced questions to be asked. Doing this saves time and effort on my part.
   
4. Remove all MS Office or Open Office applications installed on every desktop. This will ensure that all employees will be forced to use Google Docs and Spreadsheets and that these documents will be saved in Google servers.
   
5. Disallow document saving in any local hard drives or USB drives. This ensures better security and protection in cases of theft, calamity or virus attacks.
   
6. Provide regular review and feedback sessions to measure success of the project plan.
   

I have given my staff relatively three(3) weeks for the transition. With that, I think that is ample time for them to adopt to the new system.

How are you implementing yours?