Vegetable oils are a health boon

Flax seed oil, rapeseed oil, olive oil and even avocado oil – there are dozens of edible vegetable oils which can form a part of a healthy balanced diet.

Cold pressed olive oil is one of the healthiest oils which is widely available. High in monounsaturated fats,  which are linked to good heart health, it is also jam packed with vitamins and anti-oxidants. These are the compounds which help ward off cancer and premature ageing.

The first pressing ‘virgin olive oil’ is definitely the best when it comes to health. Every time olive oil is processed, it contains less of the important active ingredients although it also becomes more affordable. Avocado oil has recently become more popular and is also high in monounsaturated ‘healthy fats.’ However, it is expensive and not widely available.

Flax seed oil is high in omega-3 long chain fatty acids, which are normally found in fish oils. Vegetarians or people on restricted diets can obtain these essential fatty acids, which are important for maintaining the brain, from this source. However, the form of omega-3s in flax seed oil is not so easily converted to useable EPA and DHA, so someone may still need to take supplements. For the full article click here

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Oh no, Donald Trump didn’t! And what is the woman’s card, anyway?

When Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump accused his presumptive Democrat opponent, Hillary Clinton, of playing the ‘woman’s card’  in the race to the White House, it backfired.

Clinton was the first to respond, unleashing many other retorts from both women and men – and an extra $2.4 million in campaign fundraising.

“If fighting for women’s health care and paid family leave and equal pay is playing the woman card, then deal me in!” Clinton shot back.

One of our favorite commentaries came from Kirsty Styles, writing onthenextweb.com: Styles writes about a deck of cards in production now by a creative sister and brother team which is celebrating famous women, such as Harriet Tubman, Susan B. Anthony, Mary Cassatt and Beyonce. Clinton is the ace in this deck, which is due on the market in July.

While enamored of the idea, in her column Styles points out that the Woman Card deck doesn’t reference any female tech innovators who’ve made America great.

Styles suggests three to get the creators of the card deck fired up for tech: Pioneering computer programmer Grace Hopper, Radia ‘don’t call me the Mother of the Internet’ Perlman and women in tech champion Anita Borg. For the full article click here

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White House to hold workshops on AI’s promises, pitfalls

Artificial Intelligence (AI) holds both promises and pitfalls for many industries,including healthcare, which is leading the White House to host workshops on the technology’s future.

In a blog post, Ed Felten, deputy U.S. Chief Technology Officer, notes the importance of AI in efforts such as President Obama’s Precision Medicine Initiativeand Vice President Biden’s cancer moonshot, but also acknowledges the risks the technology carries.

The workshops will be held over the coming months, Felten writes, including one on June 7 that will focus on AI for social good, which includes healthcare efforts.Post For the full article click here

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Yale New Haven Health System Shares Lessons Learned On its Value Journey

Last week, I had the benefit of attending the first annual National Symposium on Value Innovation at Yale, hosted by Yale New Haven Health System (YNHHS) leadership.

The event was a collaboration with YNHHS, the Yale School of Management, the Center for Outcomes Research & Evaluation (CORE), the Yale Center for Biomedical and Interventional Technology (CBIT) and health IT vendors Strata Decision Technology and PeraHealth.

The goal of the event, according to YVHHS leadership, was to share the health system’s lessons learned and best practices as part of its ongoing journey toward improving quality and lowering cost across the system.

What struck me was that this was a health system that includes Yale-New Haven Hospital, the primary teaching hospital for the Yale School of Medicine, and regularly ranked among the best hospitals in the country, openly sharing its struggles and challenges as it transitions from volume to value with an audience that included healthcare leaders from hospitals and health systems throughout the country.

I’ve been covering the health IT space for less than a year, yet it’s my understanding that up until very recently, healthcare was very insular. Yet, it seems that we’re starting to see the wheels turning on more open discussions and sharing of best practices. For the full article click here

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New report ranks Sweden top for patient satisfaction

Sweden has come out top in a new global study for patient satisfaction, with two other Scandinavian countries – Finland and Norway – following closely behind.

The report, which involved more than six million patients in 25 countries, gave Sweden a 92.37% patient satisfaction rating with neighbouring Finland and Norway at 91.92% and 90.75% respectively.

Eight European countries in top 10 list

Interestingly, eight of the top 10 countries on the list, by global customer and employee satisfaction research firm, HappyorNot, were European – with the US (number four) and New Zealand (at number eight) the only two outsiders.

For many healthcare facilities, the performance level of their patients’ experience of care is linked to financial incentives associated with operational improvement strategies, such as, for example, the Institute for Healthcare Improvement’s Triple Aim Initiative and the UK NHS’s World Class Commissioning or CareQuality Commission.

Patient satisfaction:  a complex picture

“The importance of improving patient satisfaction by gathering feedback is a rising theme in the many countries, for example the UK which has a number of initiatives aimed at improving the patient experience including the Friends and Family Test to implement feedback tools to support collecting, measuring, and monitoring patient experience,” said a spokesman. For the full article click here

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Fighting High Tech Muggers And Their Ransomware

MCLEAN, Va (WUSA9) — Imagine someone breaking into your home and stealing your your files, your photos – all your favorite things.

Victims say that’s what it’s like to be hit by ransomware, malicious software code that encrypts all the files on your computer. You’ve got a maybe 50-50 chance of recovering your precious memories if you pay a ransom. But you can fight back.It’s like a high tech mugging and it’s surging, hitting people and businesses across the country. The FBI estimates internet pirates extorted at least $25 million in ransom from Americans last year.

In the first few months of this year,  it’s maybe ten times that.”I felt like a thief had come up through my computer screen and was in my house,” said Catherine, a McLean mother of three who was a victim. “I had at least a thousand photographs on there.”

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EXABEAM ESTABLISHES FEDERAL ADVISORY BOARD TO SUPPORT COMPANY’S MOMENTUM WITHIN THE PUBLIC SECTOR

Members of the Advisory Board Include Cybersecurity Leaders from the US Air Force, Department of Defense, and Department of Energy

May 2, 2016

SAN MATEO, Calif., – May 2, 2016 – Exabeam, the leader in user and entity behavior analytics (UEBA) for security, today announced the establishment of its Federal Advisory Board, led by established cybersecurity experts with experience in government agencies. The goal is to assist agencies within federal and state governments to improve detection of and response to modern cyber threats.

The founding members of the Exabeam Federal Advisory Board include:

• Robert Lentz, president, Cyber Security Strategies, and former CISO for the U.S. Department of Defense.

• Maj. Gen. (Ret.) John Maluda, former director of cyberspace transformation and strategy in the Office of the Secretary of the Air Force, and Chief Information Officer.

• Pete Tseronis, CEO, Dots and Bridges LLC, and former CTO for the U.S. Department of Energy.

“Exabeam’s Stateful User Tracking provides a new approach to assessing behavioral risk within the enterprise network,” said Robert Lentz, president of Cyber Security Strategies. “Since most organizations can no longer rely on a secure network perimeter, they must detect threats that build within the network itself. Exabeam enables security analysts to detect and respond to attacks before they cause data loss.”

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