BOSTON (AP) — Vice President Joe Biden planned to join Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and former U.S. Rep. Patrick Kennedy for a forum on policies that affect people with mental illness, intellectual disabilities or addiction.
The two-day event marks the 50th anniversary of President John F. Kennedy's signing of the Community Mental Health Act. The legislation, the last signed by Kennedy before his assassination, helped transform the way people with mental illness are treated and cared for in the United States.
Chelsea Clinton and Chicago Bears wide receiver Brandon Marshall, who's been treated for a personality disorder, also plan to attend the opening night gala.
Biden, Sebelius and Marshall are expected to speak at the event.
Clinton, vice chair of the Clinton Foundation, will moderate a conference panel on public health and community approaches to addressing behavioral health disorders.
Patrick, the late president's nephew and a longtime mental health advocate, said he hopes the forum will help remove the stigma surrounding mental illness.
The Wednesday night gala will be followed by a daylong conference Thursday at the Westin Copley Place in Boston.
The forum also will include a discussion of the importance of stemming suicide among veterans and improving mental health care for a generation of veterans returning from a decade of war.
The law signed by Kennedy in 1963 aimed to build mental health centers accessible to all Americans so that those with mental illnesses could be treated while working and living at home, rather than being kept in state institutions that sometimes were neglectful or abusive.
Recent deadly mass shootings, including at the Washington Navy Yard and a Colorado movie theater, have been perpetrated by men who were apparently not being adequately treated for serious mental illnesses.
Those tragedies have renewed public attention on the mental health system and areas where Kennedy's hopes for the treatment and care of those with mental illness were never realized.
SAP is planning to rely heavily on HTML5 and open standards within its products for building mobile applications, and is embracing the concept of BYOT (bring your own tools) in order to draw interest from developers.
Version 3.0 of SAP Mobile Platform, which was announced Tuesday during the Tech Ed conference in Las Vegas, will combine SAP's NetWeaver Gateway, Sybase Mobiliser and Syclo Agentry products "to meet current and future mobile app use cases," according to the announcement.
SAP's mobility tools will support open-source standards such as OSGi, OData and Apache Cordova. Developers can also expect "extensive use of HTML5," SAP said.
Under the BYOT approach, developers can use their desired tools alongside those from SAP's platform. SAP is also planning to offer a cloud version of the mobile platform, according to the announcement.
The company announced updates to its Mobile Secure product portfolio on Tuesday as well.
An upcoming cloud-based version of SAP Mobile App Protection will help companies apply "fine-grained" security to applications running on iOS and Android devices, SAP said. The company has also upgraded its Mobile Documents product, adding iPhone and Android support, and has created a new secure mobile browser.
SAP gained a set of mobility products through the 2010 acquisition of Sybase.
It has been emphasizing mobile-friendly software development heavily of late, and earlier this year launched Fiori, a set of lightweight mobile applications that tie into its core Business Suite ERP (enterprise resource planning) system.
The Mobile Platform 3.0 release also represents a fresh start of sorts for SAP, according to one observer.
"When SAP assumed Sybase's mobile assets, they basically did not have a complete or stable product," said analyst Ray Wang of Constellation Research. "This new release is a major overhaul which allows them to write once, deploy everywhere."
SAP did make tweaks to the Sybase technology as part of the 3.0 upgrade, said executive board member Vishal Sikka, who heads all development, during a press conference on Tuesday at Tech Ed.
SAP has also had some time to rethink what is truly important for mobile developers, Wang added.
"Embedded security, mobile apps stores, and community are key to their potential success this time around," he said. "The challenge will be the price points as IBM is also aggressively competing in this space."
Chris Kanaracus covers enterprise software and general technology breaking news for The IDG News Service. Chris' email address is Chris_Kanaracus@idg.com
IU, Regenstrief initiative aims to decrease hospitalization of nursing home residents
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
24-Oct-2013
[
| E-mail
]
Share
Contact: Cindy Fox Aisen caisen@iupui.edu 317-843-2276 Indiana University
INDIANAPOLIS -- The OPTIMISTIC study, an innovative initiative developed by research-clinicians from Indiana University and the Regenstrief Institute to improve health care, reduce avoidable hospitalizations and increase access to palliative care, is now underway in 19 nursing facilities throughout Central Indiana. The program is supported by a $13.4 million 2012 award from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).
Emergency room visits and hospitalizations are common but extremely stressful to nursing home residents -- many of whom are physically frail and/or cognitively impaired -- and to their families. Total costs for these potentially avoidable hospitalizations for Medicare-Medicaid enrollees for 2011 have been estimated by CMS to be an estimated $3 billion.
The goal of OPTIMISTIC -- Optimizing Patient Transfers, Impacting Medical Quality and Improving Symptoms: Transforming Institutional Care -- is to improve care and communication within nursing facilities and between these facilities and acute care institutions so problems can be caught and dealt with before it becomes necessary to transport a resident to the hospital.
"We chose the acronym OPTIMISTIC to set a tone for how we feel about the potential to improve care for this vulnerable population," said OPTIMISTIC project co-director Kathleen T. Unroe, M.D., MHA, Regenstrief Institute investigator, assistant professor of medicine at the IU School of Medicine and IU Center for Aging Research center scientist. "Working with the IU School of Nursing and the University of Indianapolis, and community partners including nursing homes, we are providing education and training in real-world environments to develop a new model of care, putting increased resources into nursing homes, which we hope will result in system change in Indiana and across the nation."
For example, nursing aides working in the 19 nursing homes are trained to recognize warning signs to identify a change in a resident early -- for example, that a resident's swollen feet may be an indication of heart failure. They and the nursing staff are also educated to communicate rapidly and effectively with the resident's medical team so appropriate treatment can begin before the problem escalates to a level requiring hospitalization.
"Long-stay nursing facility residents are high-need and high-risk individuals who have gotten little attention in the research arena and have been neglected previously to a great extent by health care reform," said Regenstrief investigator Greg A. Sachs, M.D., OPTIMISTIC project director and director of the IU School of Medicine's Division of General Internal Medicine and Geriatrics. Dr. Sachs is also a professor of medicine and an IU Center for Aging Research center scientist. "With OPTIMISTIC, we are working with the residents where they live to improve many aspects of their lives including chronic disease management -- especially for dementia, which affects more than half of long-stay residents -- as well as improve the care they receive during the transition process to and from a hospital, when that transfer is necessary."
In addition to Drs. Unroe and Sachs, OPTIMISTIC is led by Arif Nazir, M.D., IU School of Medicine (medical director); Susan E. Hickman, Ph.D., IU School of Nursing (leader of the palliative care component); Ellen Miller, P.T., Ph.D., Center for Aging and Community, University of Indianapolis (leader of the education/training component); Greg Arling, Ph.D., Regenstrief Institute and IU School of Medicine (leader of the data and evaluation component); and Michael LaMantia, M.D., Regenstrief Institute and IU School of Medicine (leader of the transitions of care component). Laura Holtz, B.S.; Helen Maurer, M.A.; Merih Bennett, M.A. and Ravan Carter, B.S. of the Regenstrief Institute and IU Center for Aging Research manage the project.
OPTIMISTIC is supported by a project team of IU and Regenstrief geriatrics and palliative care experts along with their nursing facility partners. Specially trained nurses are stationed on site at the 19 Central Indiana nursing facilities to provide direct support to long-stay residents as well as education and training to the staff.
OPTIMISTIC nurses also lead care management reviews of long-stay patients to optimize chronic disease management, reduce unnecessary medications and clarify care goals. Nurse practitioners cover "pods" of geographically related facilities providing additional resources and expertise to the onsite nurses.
Nursing homes participating in OPTIMISTIC are:
Allisonville Meadows
American Village
Brownsburg Meadows
Countryside Meadows
Forest Creek Village
Golden Living Indianapolis
Greenwood Meadows
Harrison Terrace
Hooverwood
Kindred Greenwood
Kindred Wildwood
Miller's Merry Manor, Castleton
Miller's Merry Manor, Indy East
North Capitol
Northwest Manor
Rosewalk Village
Riverwalk Village
University Heights
Westpark
"OPTIMISTIC benefits our long term residents. An experienced and highly trained RN conducts assessments and evaluations. This work supplements, complements and informs the care that our nursing center staff provide," said Pamela Zanes, RN, BSN, Ed.M., senior director of care transitions, Kindred Heathcare. "The OPTIMISTIC nurse's findings are reviewed and discussed with the physician and nurse practitioner caring for the patient as well as the other members of the interdisciplinary care team. OPTIMISTIC also provides educational sessions for our staff which enhances their ability to care for our residents."
OPTIMISTIC is supported by one of only seven cooperative agreement awards nationwide to implement CMS' Initiative to Reduce Avoidable Hospitalizations among Nursing Facility Residents. In addition to Indiana, programs are underway in Alabama, Missouri, Nebraska, New York, Nevada and Pennsylvania.
According to CMS, research has found that approximately 45 percent of hospitalizations among Medicare-Medicaid enrollees receiving either Medicare skilled nursing facility services or Medicaid nursing facility services are potentially avoidable.
###
[
| 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.
IU, Regenstrief initiative aims to decrease hospitalization of nursing home residents
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
24-Oct-2013
[
| E-mail
]
Share
Contact: Cindy Fox Aisen caisen@iupui.edu 317-843-2276 Indiana University
INDIANAPOLIS -- The OPTIMISTIC study, an innovative initiative developed by research-clinicians from Indiana University and the Regenstrief Institute to improve health care, reduce avoidable hospitalizations and increase access to palliative care, is now underway in 19 nursing facilities throughout Central Indiana. The program is supported by a $13.4 million 2012 award from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).
Emergency room visits and hospitalizations are common but extremely stressful to nursing home residents -- many of whom are physically frail and/or cognitively impaired -- and to their families. Total costs for these potentially avoidable hospitalizations for Medicare-Medicaid enrollees for 2011 have been estimated by CMS to be an estimated $3 billion.
The goal of OPTIMISTIC -- Optimizing Patient Transfers, Impacting Medical Quality and Improving Symptoms: Transforming Institutional Care -- is to improve care and communication within nursing facilities and between these facilities and acute care institutions so problems can be caught and dealt with before it becomes necessary to transport a resident to the hospital.
"We chose the acronym OPTIMISTIC to set a tone for how we feel about the potential to improve care for this vulnerable population," said OPTIMISTIC project co-director Kathleen T. Unroe, M.D., MHA, Regenstrief Institute investigator, assistant professor of medicine at the IU School of Medicine and IU Center for Aging Research center scientist. "Working with the IU School of Nursing and the University of Indianapolis, and community partners including nursing homes, we are providing education and training in real-world environments to develop a new model of care, putting increased resources into nursing homes, which we hope will result in system change in Indiana and across the nation."
For example, nursing aides working in the 19 nursing homes are trained to recognize warning signs to identify a change in a resident early -- for example, that a resident's swollen feet may be an indication of heart failure. They and the nursing staff are also educated to communicate rapidly and effectively with the resident's medical team so appropriate treatment can begin before the problem escalates to a level requiring hospitalization.
"Long-stay nursing facility residents are high-need and high-risk individuals who have gotten little attention in the research arena and have been neglected previously to a great extent by health care reform," said Regenstrief investigator Greg A. Sachs, M.D., OPTIMISTIC project director and director of the IU School of Medicine's Division of General Internal Medicine and Geriatrics. Dr. Sachs is also a professor of medicine and an IU Center for Aging Research center scientist. "With OPTIMISTIC, we are working with the residents where they live to improve many aspects of their lives including chronic disease management -- especially for dementia, which affects more than half of long-stay residents -- as well as improve the care they receive during the transition process to and from a hospital, when that transfer is necessary."
In addition to Drs. Unroe and Sachs, OPTIMISTIC is led by Arif Nazir, M.D., IU School of Medicine (medical director); Susan E. Hickman, Ph.D., IU School of Nursing (leader of the palliative care component); Ellen Miller, P.T., Ph.D., Center for Aging and Community, University of Indianapolis (leader of the education/training component); Greg Arling, Ph.D., Regenstrief Institute and IU School of Medicine (leader of the data and evaluation component); and Michael LaMantia, M.D., Regenstrief Institute and IU School of Medicine (leader of the transitions of care component). Laura Holtz, B.S.; Helen Maurer, M.A.; Merih Bennett, M.A. and Ravan Carter, B.S. of the Regenstrief Institute and IU Center for Aging Research manage the project.
OPTIMISTIC is supported by a project team of IU and Regenstrief geriatrics and palliative care experts along with their nursing facility partners. Specially trained nurses are stationed on site at the 19 Central Indiana nursing facilities to provide direct support to long-stay residents as well as education and training to the staff.
OPTIMISTIC nurses also lead care management reviews of long-stay patients to optimize chronic disease management, reduce unnecessary medications and clarify care goals. Nurse practitioners cover "pods" of geographically related facilities providing additional resources and expertise to the onsite nurses.
Nursing homes participating in OPTIMISTIC are:
Allisonville Meadows
American Village
Brownsburg Meadows
Countryside Meadows
Forest Creek Village
Golden Living Indianapolis
Greenwood Meadows
Harrison Terrace
Hooverwood
Kindred Greenwood
Kindred Wildwood
Miller's Merry Manor, Castleton
Miller's Merry Manor, Indy East
North Capitol
Northwest Manor
Rosewalk Village
Riverwalk Village
University Heights
Westpark
"OPTIMISTIC benefits our long term residents. An experienced and highly trained RN conducts assessments and evaluations. This work supplements, complements and informs the care that our nursing center staff provide," said Pamela Zanes, RN, BSN, Ed.M., senior director of care transitions, Kindred Heathcare. "The OPTIMISTIC nurse's findings are reviewed and discussed with the physician and nurse practitioner caring for the patient as well as the other members of the interdisciplinary care team. OPTIMISTIC also provides educational sessions for our staff which enhances their ability to care for our residents."
OPTIMISTIC is supported by one of only seven cooperative agreement awards nationwide to implement CMS' Initiative to Reduce Avoidable Hospitalizations among Nursing Facility Residents. In addition to Indiana, programs are underway in Alabama, Missouri, Nebraska, New York, Nevada and Pennsylvania.
According to CMS, research has found that approximately 45 percent of hospitalizations among Medicare-Medicaid enrollees receiving either Medicare skilled nursing facility services or Medicaid nursing facility services are potentially avoidable.
###
[
| 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.
People using online identities to deceive Wikipedia users, according to the Wikimedia Foundation. Several hundred user accounts have been suspended because of suspicions that these "sockpuppets" were using the site to promote clients and/or give misleading information. Host Rachel Martin talks to foundation Executive Director Sue Gardner,
ATLANTA (AP) — A new high-dose flu vaccine for seniors works better than the standard shot in that age group, according to a long-awaited study by the vaccine's manufacturer.
Experts say regular flu shots tend to be only about 30 to 40 percent effective in people 65 and older, who generally have weaker immune systems. Sanofi Pasteur's Fluzone High-Dose vaccine boosted that to 50 percent.
"I wouldn't call it great" said Dr. Edward Belongia of the Wisconsin-based Marshfield Clinic Research Foundation, a flu vaccine researcher who was not involved in the Sanofi study.
But any improvement is welcome, and the results could mean fewer illnesses — and, hopefully, hospitalizations and deaths — in seniors, he said.
For other ages, effectiveness can run 60 percent or higher for the regular vaccine.
The Food and Drug Administration licensed the higher-dose Sanofi vaccine in late 2009, based on a study that showed it led to higher levels of flu-fighting antibodies in seniors a month after vaccination. The new study is the first to measure how much protection it actually provides against the flu.
The study involved 32,000 seniors in the U.S. and Canada during the last two flu seasons. Half got a regular flu shot and half got the high-dose version. Researchers called the participants to see if they had flu symptoms or were hospitalized; tests to confirm the flu were done in more than half of the people reporting symptoms.
The high-dose shot was 24 percent more effective than the regular shot at preventing flu, against all strains, the company said.
Sanofi has the only high-dose flu shot for seniors on the market. It was used last year in 1 in 5 seniors who got vaccinated, according to Sanofi. The $27 per dose cost is more than twice the $12 for the company's older version. But Medicare pays for both, and Sanofi executives say they don't think cost is a significant deterrent.
Instead, they believe doctors have been holding off until they saw real-world effectiveness studies.
Dr. David Greenberg, a Sanofi vice president, is scheduled to present preliminary study results on Thursday at a meeting of vaccination experts in Atlanta. The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices advises federal health officials, who then make vaccination recommendations to doctors.
The government already recommends flu vaccines for everyone, except babies under 6 months. The panel is expected to discuss whether to one day voice a preference for Fluzone High-Dose for seniors.
Among infectious diseases, flu is considered one of the nation's leading killers. On average, about 24,000 Americans die each flu season, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Sonic Youth released its greatest record, Daydream Nation, 25 years ago in October 1988. And even after all of those years, the Led Zeppelin reference in the album's art is still puzzling.
The Disrupt Europe Hackathon is underway, but just because you can’t make it out to Berlin for the festivities, it doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy the experience.
That said, we’re bringing you as close as possible to the sights, sounds, and (unfortunate) smells of the 24-hour coding competition with this video. We’re seeing starts from near and far, experienced and brand new to the scene compete.
More than $5,000 is on the line, as hackers will present their products on stage tomorrow at noon to a panel of amazing, expert judges. Plus, our incredible API sponsors like Weather Underground and Yammer are giving away some amazing prizes for the best use of their API.
This photo provided by EBONY shows the December 2013/January 2014 cover of EBONY magazine featuring Forest Whitaker on How Black Men Took Over Hollywood. The issue also features The Power 100 list which includes Whitaker, President Barack Obama, Kerry Washington, Chiwetel Ejiofor, and others. (AP Photo/EBONY, Peter Hapak)
This photo provided by EBONY shows the December 2013/January 2014 cover of EBONY magazine featuring Forest Whitaker on How Black Men Took Over Hollywood. The issue also features The Power 100 list which includes Whitaker, President Barack Obama, Kerry Washington, Chiwetel Ejiofor, and others. (AP Photo/EBONY, Peter Hapak)
This photo provided by EBONY shows the December 2013/January 2014 cover of EBONY magazine featuring Chiwetel Ejiofor on How Black Men Took Over Hollywood. The issue also features The Power 100 list which includes Ejiodor, President Barack Obama, Kerry Washington, Forest Whitaker, and others. (AP Photo/EBONY, Peter Hapak)
NEW YORK (AP) — Ebony magazine's celebration of its "Power 100" list will have a Motown vibe — Berry Gordy is being honored with a lifetime achievement award, the Jacksons will perform in his honor, and the cast of "Motown The Musical" is due to appear, as well.
The Jacksons will pay tribute to the Motown founder at a gala event at Lincoln Center in New York City on Nov. 4. Gordy signed the brothers when they were known as the Jackson 5, led by pre-teen Michael Jackson.
The event will also honor those who made the list of power brokers in the black community, including President Barack Obama, Kerry Washington, "Fruitvale" actor Michael B. Jordan, Harry Belafonte and others.
Marcia Wallace has died at the age of 70. The actress died Friday night, Oct. 25, in Los Angeles, TMZ reports. According to the site, she had been sick for the past several months, and passed away at her home with her family by her side.
The Emmy awarding-winner actress first broke out in Hollywood in TV with guest roles in Bewitched, The Brady Bunch and The Bob Newhart Show. She also was featured in Murphy Brown, 7th Heaven and The Young and the Restless. Her film credits include My Mother the Werewolf and Teen Witch.
Wallace was best known as the voice of Edna Krabappel on The Simpsons for the past 23 years from 1990 to 2013. She also spent three decades on various TV game shows in the 70's, including Hollywood Squares, Match Game and The $25,000 Pyramid.
Wallace was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1985 and became a high-profile advocate for breast cancer awareness. She became a motivational speaker, and traveled across the country to discuss her personal story.
Though there may be plenty of hurdles when it comes to getting self-driving cars on the road in large numbers, Google has gotten one step closer to its goal of replacing every human on Earth with machines (I think that's what "Don't Be Evil" meant). Through an analysis of reams of data, they've proven that their autonomibiles are smoother and safer than the average driver.
Bloomberg's gotten word from the perennial "people familiar with the matter" that HTC is building an Android-based smartwatch that's set for release in the latter half of 2014. While other features and a price have yet to be set in stone, the outlet's source says the timepiece will sport a camera. ...
Today's centerpiece of congressional inquiry bears the title, "Affordable Care Act Implementation Failures: Didn't Know or Didn't Disclose?" See where this is going?
The morning gathering will be the first in a promised series of GOP-led House Energy and Commerce Committee hearings into the implementation of Obamacare and its well-documented challenges.
The witness list is stocked with contractors in charge of the administration's snake-bit health care insurance sign-up website. Here's the lineup: Cheryl Campbell, senior vice president, CGI Federal; Andrew Slavitt, group executive vice president, Optum/Quality Software Services, Inc.; Lynn Spellecy, corporate counsel, Equifax Workforce Solutions; and John Lau, program director, Serco.
We anticipate finger-pointing.
The Associated Press reports that the contractors in testimony prepared for the committee will attempt to shift blame for problems to the administration. Late changes and lack of coordination, they say, bollixed up the system.
Slavitt in his prepared testimony, according to the AP, "blamed the administration, saying that a late decision to require consumers to create accounts before they could browse health plans contributed to the overload. 'This may have driven higher simultaneous usage of the registration system that wouldn't have occurred if consumers could window-shop anonymously,' he said."
You can read submitted testimony for yourself here.
Meanwhile, a handful of Senate Democrats, including two — Mark Begich of Alaska and Mark Pryor of Arkansas — who face difficult reelection races in 2014, have called on the administration to lengthen the Obamacare enrollment period.
At The Hill, Cameron Joseph writes that "Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark., and Sen. Mark Begich, D-Alaska, have signed onto Sen. Jeanne Shaheen's , D-N.H., push to extend the time in which uninsured people can buy insurance. Pryor also expressed concerns with the law's individual mandate — set to take effect next year — if the exchange website isn't fixed soon." Says Pryor:
"I believe, given the technical issues, it makes sense to extend the time for people to sign up. In addition, the administration should state clearly how the enforcement mechanism will work if people can't sign up in time. We all want to see the law work, and I hope the administration will take a hard look at this reasonable suggestion."
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, who has overseen the health care act's rollout, is expected to testify next week.
Immigration
Also this morning, President Obama will attempt to reintroduce immigration into the Capitol Hill conversation, after weeks dominated by government shutdown, default, and health care battles.
The political bottom line, succinctly put by Marc Caputo in the Miami Herald, is this: "Obama jumps into immigration reform Thursday. Does this mean it's dead or alive?"
Here's his analysis:
1) The president wants to make good on his campaign promise to get it done, and this is a chance to work with the House.
2) The president knows the House won't pass it. So he wants the proverbial cat to die on their doorstep. And he wants Hispanics to know where the body lies.
The fact that GOP House Speaker John Boehner this week declared an immigration overhaul "important," did little to change anyone's perception of the political reality in the House.
In his morning speech, the president is expected to deliver what his aides characterize as a call for Congress to pass "common sense immigration reform."
Ted Cruz's Better? Other? Half
With Texas GOP Sen. Ted Cruz's recent elevation to the national stage, it was only a matter of time before his wife, Heidi, 41, began sharing the spotlight. Here's today's New York Times profile of the "vegetarian with a Harvard M.B.A." who's a managing director at Goldman Sachs.
Writes Ashley Parker: "She works for Goldman in Houston, where she lives with the couple's two young children, and as her husband's fame has increased — depending on the audience, he is among the most pilloried or revered members of the Senate — she has maintained a low profile."
And, finally, here's what we've also been reading about:
-Name change voter ID law confusion in Texas, reported by the Texas Tribune.
-Maryland Attorney General and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Doug Gansler's supremely ill-advised teen drinking party attendance, reported by the Baltimore Sun.
-Debate in Illinois over minimum sentencing laws, reported by NPR's Cheryl Corley.
Oh, and we don't care about the rooms in Mitt Romney's new house, hidden or otherwise. Leave the man alone.
PRAGUE (AP) — A special parliamentary election held in the Czech Republic left no party with a majority on Saturday, which could lead to protracted negotiations aimed at forming a coalition government.
The two-day election was called to end a political crisis triggered by the center-right government's collapse in a whirlwind of allegations about corruption and marital infidelity.
With all the votes counted by the Czech Statistics Office, the left-wing Social Democrats won 20.45 percent, or 50 seats, in the 200-seat lower house of Parliament. The party's ally, the Communists, finished third, receiving 14.91 percent of the vote, or 33 seats.
The Communists had hoped to give the Social Democrats their tacit support in a government that would give the Communists a share of the power for the first time since the 1989 Velvet Revolution, which ended 40 years of communist rule in the country.
"The result is not what we expected," Bohuslav Sobotka, the chairman of the Social Democrats, said, referring to the worst election result for his party since 1993, when Czechoslovakia split into two countries: the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
In the republic, Parliament's lower house dominates the legislative process, and the leader of its strongest party is generally asked by the president to try to form a new government. But that is not expected to be easy this time, given the election result for the top seven parties of the 24 that competed in the election.
The new centrist ANO (YES) movement, which campaigned on an anti-corruption ticket, finished in a surprisingly strong second place, with 18.65 percent, or 47 seats.
"No government would be able to do without it," said analyst Tomas Lebeda, regarding the forthcoming coalition talks.
ANO, which had reached out to voters disgusted by corruption scandals, is led by a billionaire businessman Andrej Babis.
On Saturday, he criticized a plan by the Social Democrats to increase corporate and personal income taxes for those in the highest bracket. "Our country needs economic stability," he said. "What we need is low taxes."
The election was called after Prime Minister Petr Necas' center-right coalition broke down in June amid a spy scandal and corruption allegations. They included the arrest of Jana Nagyova, Necas' closest aide, with whom he was having an affair. She is suspected of bribery and ordering a military intelligence agency to spy on Necas' then estranged wife.
Necas has since divorced his wife, Radka, and married Nagyova.
Necas' conservative Civic Democrats party was clearly punished by voters, receiving just 7.72 percent of the vote, or 16 seats.
"It's a fatal loss," said its acting chairman, Martin Kuba.
Another conservative member of the former government, the TOP 09 party, captured 11.99 percent of the vote, or 26 seats.
The new populist Dawn of Direct Democracy movement got 6.88 percent, while Christian Democrats returned to Parliament after a three-year absence with 6.78 percent. Both those parties now have 14 seats.
The Social Democrats said they are ready to open negotiations about forming a new government with any party except the Civic Democrats and the TOP 09 party.
"Our goal is to create a stable government," Sobotka said.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama promised on Saturday that his troubled healthcare website was just weeks away from a cure as he struggled to convince Americans he is on top of what has become a self-inflicted wound to his signature first-term achievement.
His administration unveiled a plan on Friday to make Obamacare insurance marketplaces on healthcare.gov - a website riddled with error messages, long delays and bugs - work better by the end of November.
It was the end to an embarrassing week where Obama discovered he had overshot on an Oct 1. promise of a website that would make shopping for health insurance as easy as buying "a plane ticket on Kayak or a TV on Amazon."
"As you may have heard, the site isn't working the way it's supposed to yet," Obama said in his weekly Saturday address - an understatement after days of reports of people being shut out of the system.
"In the coming weeks, we are going to get it working as smoothly as it's supposed to," he added.
Obama had stood firm against Republican attempts to defund or delay the healthcare law, known popularly as Obamacare - efforts that led to a 16-day government shutdown this month.
He and his top officials had warned publicly before October 1 that there could be "glitches," but the White House has been scrambling to control the damage from a rollout that was far worse than expected.
The depth of the design flaws has raised questions about why the Obama administration was so insistent on starting the enrollments on October 1 when the system was clearly not ready - and laid bare the president's mistake in raising expectations about how good the website was going to be.
"Either they made assumptions that were too optimistic and were caught off guard, or they knew that the difficulties would be greater than the public understood, but chose not to say so," said Bill Galston, a Brookings Institution expert who was a domestic policy adviser to Democratic President Bill Clinton.
"It may be some of both."
CRISIS MANAGEMENT 101
Obama adviser Jeffrey Zients, appointed on Tuesday to figure out how to manage the complicated fixes for the website, was an unannounced participant on a conference call with health reporters on Friday afternoon.
Zients gave a deadline, although he cautioned there was a lot of work to do. "By the end of November, healthcare.gov will work smoothly for the vast majority of users," he said.
Borrowing from the lexicon of homebuilders, Zients said he had hired a "general contractor" to manage the many contractors on the project, and developed a "punch list" of dozens of problems to address.
The message followed classic corporate crisis management strategy, said Peter LaMotte, a senior vice president at Levick, a firm that devises communications strategies for large corporations and organizations.
"State the facts, be clear, be transparent, and then shut up," LaMotte said. "That is what we often recommend to our clients."
That deadline buys the administration and tech experts time to iron out the bugs in the website before millions of Americans give up trying to use it, LaMotte said.
But he added, "People are going to hold you to that date."
Norm Ornstein, a political analyst at the American Enterprise Institute, said the date was "comforting" because it came from Zients, who is known for being a "straight shooter" with private-sector management expertise.
"He's not making it up. It does not serve his interests to pick a date without a clue as to whether you can make it," Ornstein said, noting Zients would become Obama's top economic adviser at the White House on January 1.
"His credibility is at stake here," Ornstein said.
POLITICAL BREATHING ROOM
Republicans are using the problems to push for a delay to the requirement that Americans buy insurance by March 31.
"Despite hundreds of millions of taxpayers dollars invested, the website still does not work for most," Fred Upton, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said in the Republican reply to Obama's Saturday address.
Upton's panel will grill Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius at a hearing next week.
Zients' Friday announcement will take some pressure off Sebelius in the hearing, said John Ullyot, who works on crisis communications as a managing director at High Lantern Group.
But Ullyot, a former Senate Republican aide, said the plan would have had more punch had it been presented earlier in the week by the "much louder megaphone" of either Sebelius or Obama.
"They had a full week of drip, drip, drip in the media, and you never want to have that," he said.
Once the website is fixed, officials will face another communications challenge. They will need to concentrate on luring back to the site those people who gave up trying to access it in the initial phases, said a former Obama administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
"I think that people are going to like the site and sign up for it. The problem is once a user has a bad experience at a website, they're not usually going to want to go back to it," the official said.
(Reporting by Roberta Rampton and Steve Holland; Editing by Peter Cooney)
The Boston Red Sox host the St. Louis Cardinals tonight in game one of the World Series. The teams are evenly matched and many expect a tight series. We'll see if playing in an American League park — and having a designated hitter — offers an advantage to either team.
NEW YORK (AP) — Larry Kirshbaum, a high-profile publishing executive who helped Amazon grow its book publishing business in New York, is leaving the company on Jan. 17.
Amazon spokeswoman Sarah Gelman confirmed the departure on Friday, saying the company is sorry to see him go. Kirshbaum joined Amazon in 2011 and is going back to being a literary agent.
Kirshbaum, a longtime publishing executive who had headed Time Warner Book Group, was expected to help bring high-profile writers to Amazon. But with Barnes & Noble and other competitors refusing to stock books published by Amazon, there were few notable signings.
Gelman said Amazon's New York publishing office will continue to expand as the Seattle-based online retailer's overall publishing business grows. It also plans to launch new imprints soon.
FILE - In this Aug. 1, 2012 file photo, Jeffrey Zients testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington. President Barack Obama is calling Zients to help correct problems with the new federal health care website. The White House says Zients will assist a team that is said to be working around the clock on the site, www.healthcare.gov. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
FILE - In this Aug. 1, 2012 file photo, Jeffrey Zients testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington. President Barack Obama is calling Zients to help correct problems with the new federal health care website. The White House says Zients will assist a team that is said to be working around the clock on the site, www.healthcare.gov. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — It should be working well by the end of November. That's the Obama administration's rough timetable for completing a long list of fixes to HealthCare.gov, the new, trouble-plagued website for uninsured Americans to get coverage.
Summarizing a week's worth of intensive diagnostics, the administration acknowledged Friday the site has dozens of complex problems and tapped a private company to oversee fixes.
Jeffrey Zients, a management consultant brought in by the White House to assess the extent of problems, told reporters his review found dozens of issues across the entire system. The site is made up of layers of components that are meant to interact in real time with consumers, government agencies and insurance company computers.
It will take a lot of work, but "HealthCare.gov is fixable," Zients declared.
The vast majority of the issues will be resolved by the end of November, he asserted, and there will be many fewer screen freezes. He stopped short of saying problems will completely vanish.
The administration also said it is promoting one of the website contractors, a subsidiary of the nation's largest health insurance company, to take on the role of "general contractor" shepherding the fixes.
Quality Software Services Inc. — owned by a unit of UnitedHealth Group— was responsible for two components of the government's online insurance system. One is the data hub, a linchpin that works relatively well, and the other is an accounts registration feature that initially froze and caused many problems.
HealthCare.gov was supposed to be the online portal for uninsured Americans to get coverage under President Barack Obama's health care law. Envisioned as the equivalent of Amazon.com for health insurance, it became a huge bottleneck immediately upon launch Oct. 1. The flop turned into an embarrassment for Obama and will likely end up as a case study of how government technology programs can go awry.
The briefing from Zients came a day after executives of QSSI and the other major contractor, CGI Federal, told Congress that the government didn't fully test the system and ordered up last-minute changes that contributed to logjams. Next week, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is scheduled to testify.
Visiting a community health center on Friday in Austin, Texas, Sebelius said that "in an ideal world there would have been a lot more testing" but added that her department had little flexibility to postpone the launch against the backdrop of Washington's unforgiving politics. House Republicans trying to defund the nation's health insurance program precipitated a government shutdown.
Zients gave some new details about the extent of the problems, but administration officials are still refusing to release any numbers on how many people have successfully enrolled. Although 700,000 have applied for coverage through the new online markets, it's believed only a fraction of that number actually managed to sign up. Before the website went live, an administration estimate projected nearly 500,000 people would sign up in October alone.
The marketplaces are the gateway to obtaining health insurance under the new health care law, which requires most Americans to have coverage by Jan. 1. Middle-class people who don't have insurance on the job can purchase a private plan with new tax credits to make the premiums more affordable. Low-income people will be steered to an expanded version of Medicaid in states that agree to extend the safety net program.
The federal government is running the insurance markets or taking the lead in 36 states. The rest were set up by states themselves.
Consumers have until Dec. 15 to sign up for coverage to take effect Jan. 1. Under the law, pre-existing medical conditions will no longer be a barrier. But the markets also need lots of young, healthy customers to keep premiums affordable. Open enrollment season extends until Mar. 31.
Zients said almost daily fixes are already having an impact. For example, more than 90 percent of users can now complete one of the first steps, creating an account.
But the application process, which involves submitting and verifying personal information and income details, remains "volatile," he said. At one point, as few as one-third of users were getting through that part.
Zients said there are two big categories of problems. Performance issues involve the speed and reliability of the website. Functional issues are bugs that keep the software from working as intended. Among the high-priority issues is that insurers are getting enrollments with incomplete, incorrect or duplicative information.
NIH hosts national research summit on link between aging processes, chronic disease
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
25-Oct-2013
[
| E-mail
]
Share
Contact: Megan Homer nianews3@mail.nih.gov 301-496-1752 NIH/National Institute on Aging
Media invited to Oct. 30-31 event
WHAT: "Advances in Geroscience: Impact on Healthspan and Chronic Disease" brings together 50 renowned investigators to examine how the basic biology of aging drives chronic disease. Aging is the single biggest risk factor for the development of non-genetic, chronic diseases; better understanding of this interplay is crfitical for progress. The meeting reflects the emergence of "geroscience," which features an integrated approach to the study of diseases and disability associated with aging.
WHO: Keynote speakers include: Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D., Director, National Institutes of Health (NIH); Brian Kennedy, Ph.D., President and CEO, Buck Institute for Age Research; Linda Fried, Ph.D., Dean, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University; Christopher Murray, M.D., D.Phil., Professor of Global Health, University of Washington
WHEN: Wednesday and Thursday, October 30-31, 2013
8:00 a.m. 5:00 p.m.
WHERE: Natcher Conference Center at NIH
9000 Rockville Pike
Bethesda, MD, 20892
In addition to a plenary session with the keynote speakers, the summit features seven scientific sessions covering inflammation, adaptation to stress, epigenetics, metabolism, macromolecular damage, proteostasis, and stem cells and regeneration. (A brief summary of these sessions appears here: http://www.nia.nih.gov/newsroom/2013/10/nih-hosts-national-research-summit-link-between-aging-processes-chronic-disease#.UmfwYBD-TK0.)
The summit was organized by the trans-NIH GeroScience Interest Group (GSIG) and co-sponsored with the Alliance for Aging Research and The Gerontological Society of America, with additional private sector support through the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health (FNIH). The GSIG was formed to focus on the relationships between aging and age-related diseases and disability and is among the newest trans-NIH interest groups. Additional information and the agenda are available at: http://www.geron.org/gerosciencesummit.
Media are invited to attend the meeting, which will be held on the NIH campus in Bethesda, MD. Please contact the communications office at the NIH's National Institute on Aging at nianews3@nia.nih.gov or 301-496-1752 if you plan to attend.
###
About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): NIH, the nation's medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit http://www.nih.gov.
NIHTurning Discovery into Health
[
| 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.
NIH hosts national research summit on link between aging processes, chronic disease
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
25-Oct-2013
[
| E-mail
]
Share
Contact: Megan Homer nianews3@mail.nih.gov 301-496-1752 NIH/National Institute on Aging
Media invited to Oct. 30-31 event
WHAT: "Advances in Geroscience: Impact on Healthspan and Chronic Disease" brings together 50 renowned investigators to examine how the basic biology of aging drives chronic disease. Aging is the single biggest risk factor for the development of non-genetic, chronic diseases; better understanding of this interplay is crfitical for progress. The meeting reflects the emergence of "geroscience," which features an integrated approach to the study of diseases and disability associated with aging.
WHO: Keynote speakers include: Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D., Director, National Institutes of Health (NIH); Brian Kennedy, Ph.D., President and CEO, Buck Institute for Age Research; Linda Fried, Ph.D., Dean, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University; Christopher Murray, M.D., D.Phil., Professor of Global Health, University of Washington
WHEN: Wednesday and Thursday, October 30-31, 2013
8:00 a.m. 5:00 p.m.
WHERE: Natcher Conference Center at NIH
9000 Rockville Pike
Bethesda, MD, 20892
In addition to a plenary session with the keynote speakers, the summit features seven scientific sessions covering inflammation, adaptation to stress, epigenetics, metabolism, macromolecular damage, proteostasis, and stem cells and regeneration. (A brief summary of these sessions appears here: http://www.nia.nih.gov/newsroom/2013/10/nih-hosts-national-research-summit-link-between-aging-processes-chronic-disease#.UmfwYBD-TK0.)
The summit was organized by the trans-NIH GeroScience Interest Group (GSIG) and co-sponsored with the Alliance for Aging Research and The Gerontological Society of America, with additional private sector support through the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health (FNIH). The GSIG was formed to focus on the relationships between aging and age-related diseases and disability and is among the newest trans-NIH interest groups. Additional information and the agenda are available at: http://www.geron.org/gerosciencesummit.
Media are invited to attend the meeting, which will be held on the NIH campus in Bethesda, MD. Please contact the communications office at the NIH's National Institute on Aging at nianews3@nia.nih.gov or 301-496-1752 if you plan to attend.
###
About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): NIH, the nation's medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit http://www.nih.gov.
NIHTurning Discovery into Health
[
| 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.
Caught alone while coming back from work on "Romeo and Juliet" in the Big Apple, the multi-talented Orlando Bloom was grilled about the collapse of his marriage with wife, Miranda Kerr.
The photog asked Orlando if he was alright, questioning the "Hobbit" star about his friendship with Miranda, asking if they were indeed, still friends. He kept a cool head, saying, "We're not friends. We're family."
Not satisfied with the answers given to him, the photog kept pressing the issue, asking what happened between Miranda and Orlando, but the 36-year-old star jumped into a waiting car before any more questions could be asked of him.
Before motoring away, Orlando told the photog that life works in mysterious ways, and not always the way you want it to. He has been separated from Miranda for several months, but they officially ended their marriage today.
There's some big excitement in the sleepy town of Dingwall, Scotland, where the remnants of Viking parliamentary gathering spot was just discovered under a parking lot. This is where Norse nobleman would get together and settle their differences before swords started swinging. Now it's a Camry hangout.
![[ Back to EurekAlert! ]](http://www.eurekalert.org/images/back2e.gif){kind=small}
Share
Bloomberg's gotten word from the perennial "people familiar with the matter" that HTC is building an Android-based smartwatch that's set for release in the latter half of 2014. While other features and a price have yet to be set in stone, the outlet's source says the timepiece will sport a camera. ...
Source: 
