The Communications Doctor to Hold Training Sessions for County Employees at Harris County, Texas

The Communications Doctor to Hold Training Sessions for County Employees at Harris County, Texas

Communications expert, Susanne Gaddis, PhD, will return to Harris County, Texas to hold three training sessions on Jan. 31 and Feb. 2 for county employees.

Houston, TX (PRWEB) January 31, 2006

Communications expert, Susanne Gaddis, PhD, will return to Harris County, Texas to hold three training sessions on Jan. 31 and Feb. 2 for county employees.

Having delivered training sessions for Harris County for the past seven years, Dr. Gaddis’ will share prescriptions for effective workplace communication.

The workshops are designed to boost morale and productivity in the workplace. The first session entitled “Change Your ‘Inner-Tude’—Change Your Life,” is scheduled from 8:30a. m.-12 noon and the second session entitled “Ego Boosters vs. Ego Busters: Motivating Others Through Words and Actions,” is scheduled from 1p. m.- 4:30p. m. on Jan 31. An additional session entitled “Listening Skills: Listening With Your Eyes and Ears,” is scheduled from 8:30a. m.-12 noon on Feb. 2.

“Working with the county is always a pleasure,” said Gaddis. “All organizations benefit when effective communication is used and I am excited to share key tips on how employees can create a healthy work environment.”

Susanne Gaddis, professionally known as “The Communications Doctor,” holds a Ph. D. in Marketing Communications and Information Technology from Florida State University and has taught the art of successful communication since 1989. An active member of the National Speakers’ Association, she is an internationally-known motivational speaker, trainer, consultant and author committed to alleviating the epidemic of unhealthy interactions in today’s society. For additional information about Dr. Gaddis or to subscribe to receiver her FREE newsletter, “Communication Booster Shots,” please visit www. communicationsdoctor. com or call (919) 933-3237.

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ClearTrial Launches Industry-first Software Platform for Integrating Clinical Trial Operations from Plan to Cash™, Driving Operational Efficiencies and Accelerating Clinical Development

ClearTrial Launches Industry-first Software Platform for Integrating Clinical Trial Operations from Plan to Cash™, Driving Operational Efficiencies and Accelerating Clinical Development

Version 3.0 of ClearTrial Clinical Trial Operations (CTO) software featuring new ClearTrial TRACK provides integrated planning, outsourcing, project tracking, reforecasting, accrual management, and reporting across clinical development.

Chicago, IL (PRWEB) September 29, 2009

ClearTrial (www. cleartrial. com), the leading provider of Clinical Trial Operations (CTO) software, announced today the release of v3.0 of its award-winning web-based clinical trial software. Following the rapid industry adoption of ClearTrial PLAN and ClearTrial SOURCE software, ClearTrial v3.0 introduces ClearTrial TRACK -- the only system in the industry enabling fast and accurate project tracking, management of accrued liabilities, and reforecasting for change orders and midstream study adjustments. ClearTrial v3.0 seamlessly combines all three products, providing the industry's first integrated management platform for clinical trial planning, forecasting, outsourcing, and project and financial tracking.

ClearTrial v3.0 eliminates one of the biggest barriers to operational efficiency in clinical operations today: the lack of a fast, accurate, and consistent framework for managing clinical trial information from Plan to Cash™. With v3.0 and ClearTrial TRACK, life sciences companies can quickly create clinical trial cost, resource, and timeline forecasts they can trust; efficiently negotiate and manage outsourced studies and licensing arrangements; and easily track projects against a detailed operational plan to pinpoint cost variances, underperforming studies, and accrued liabilities.

"Given the intense pressures today on pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies to support growing levels of global clinical research activity under tighter budgets, aggressive time lines and heavy capacity constraints," said Ken Getz, senior research fellow at Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development, "there is a huge premium that sponsor companies -- and their contract service providers -- are placing on more effective resource planning and management solutions."

Since the introduction of the groundbreaking ClearTrial PLAN and ClearTrial SOURCE clinical trial operations software, Top 20 biopharmaceutical companies, Clinical Research Organizations (CROs), medical device companies and small biotechs have embraced the software. These organizations have come to rely on ClearTrial's industry intelligence, embedded clinical knowledge, and activity-based scenario planning to add speed, flexibility, accuracy, and consistency to their clinical operations.

Now, with v3.0 and ClearTrial TRACK, these organizations can gain visibility and control over project status, accruals, and change order management by providing a fast, accurate, and consistent means of tracking actual study progress against planned budgets and timelines.

Key benefits of ClearTrial TRACK:

Instant Visibility Into Project Health
ClearTrial TRACK provides a "dashboard" view of studies, with early warnings to budget overruns and underperforming projects, as well as Earned Value Management (EVM) metrics tailored for use in clinical development. Easily compare planned against actual progress; quickly obtain schedule and cost performance as well as percent complete; and get detailed analyses of project trends, including time to project completion and its estimated cost at completion.

Fast, Accurate Accruals Management
ClearTrial TRACK offers a consistent, repeatable process showing accrued liability, integrated with the financial forecast. Automatically calculate cost accruals based on actual work performed; get accurate accruals updates when projects change; and achieve greater accuracy from unit-based costs, leveraging your study assumptions and ClearTrial's industry intelligence.

Quick Reforecasting for Midstream Study Adjustments or Change Orders
ClearTrial TRACK can easily reforecast and rebaseline studies that are underway. Get fast, accurate, and consistent reforecasting for change orders, protocol amendments, and other specification changes; maintain an audit trail of changes to assumptions and their downstream impact; and automatically calculate the budget, resource/FTE, timeline, and unit price impact for the remainder of the study.

In addition, ClearTrial v3.0 further enhances the software's ability to help life sciences companies plan and manage global clinical trials, with the addition of expanded currency support and the setting of exchange rates. Combined with country-specific industry intelligence such as regulatory delays, patient enrollment rates, and monitoring costs, the enhanced ability to plan and track projects in the currency of choice provides unmatched capabilities for conducting single-country, regional, or global studies.

"As the industry strives for greater efficiencies and performance in R&D, ClearTrial delivers greater visibility into and control over clinical trial costs, resources, timelines, and project status," noted ClearTrial CEO Mike Soenen. "By linking clinical and operational data in a single, integrated system, we are the first to provide senior management in life sciences with the means to effectively streamline their clinical development."

About ClearTrial®
ClearTrial is the leading provider of Clinical Trial Operations (CTO) software, a seamlessly integrated system for clinical operations planning, forecasting, outsourcing, and project tracking. ClearTrial's award-winning software helps life sciences companies streamline their clinical operations from Plan to Cash™ without sacrificing quality of results, providing executives and functional leaders in clinical operations, resource planning, finance, outsourcing, and project management with a common platform that promotes speed, accuracy, and consistency throughout the organization. For more information please visit http://www. cleartrial. com (http://www. cleartrial. com).

ClearTrial® and the ClearTrial logo are registered trademarks, and Plan to Cash™ is a trademark, owned by ClearTrial, LLC, which may be registered in certain jurisdictions. Any other company or product names mentioned in this release are hereby acknowledged as registered trademarks or trademarks of their respective owners.

For more information contact:

Mike Lange
ClearTrial
+1 630.986.9800 x112

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Reportcard. com Goes on the Auction Block

Reportcard. com Goes on the Auction Block

(PRWEB) March 31, 2000

Hedgehog, a Southern California based business, announced that the domain name reportcard. com has been listed for auction. With the exponential growth of the internet, an almost overwhelming number of websites have begun to appear. In order to find the best websites easily and effectively, it has become essential that a system of rating websites be developed. Hedgehog believes that the domain name reportcard. com is the domain name that will most effectively fit such a website. "Report card" is an universally recognizable icon of the proverbial instrument found among grading systems.

First and foremost, reportcard. com should prove highly attractive to financial ratings services. In addition, reportcard. com can be used to rate almost any category of website. These categories include finance, news & media, health, entertainment, education, reference, shopping, classifieds, personals, games, sports, chat, auctions, employment, legal, and much more. Complaints and criticism about certain websites and products may also be appropriate for such a site. The business potential of such a site would be limitless.

Whether it is over the internet or through traditional marketing channels such as radio, television, and print media, having a domain name like reportcard. com would allow for a far more effective marketing campaign. This is due to the fact that reportcard. com is a generic word and not a fabricated name, and already has meaning associated with it.

With the sale of Business. com last year for $7.5 million and Loans. com this year for $3 million, reportcard. com will be placed at auction with a reasonable opening bid. Reportcard. com is being offered at the premier domain name auction site AfterNIC. com. Those interested in placing bids should access AfterNIC. com at http://www. afternic. com/index. cfm? a=auctions&sa=listing&listID=185124 (http://www. afternic. com/index. cfm? a=auctions&sa=listing&listID=185124).

The "Baby Boomer Fitness Expert" Introduces Fitness Program for National Employee Health and Fitness Day

The "Baby Boomer Fitness Expert" Introduces Fitness Program for National Employee Health and Fitness Day

In honor of National Employee Health & Fitness Day on May 17, Highmark Blue Shield of Pennsylvania presented award-winning personal fitness trainer, Stephen Holt, to address their employees about the importance of health and fitness. Specifically, Holt addressed the need for everyone to include a scientifically-based strength training plan as part of a comprehensive fitness program.

Lutherville Timonium, MD (PRWEB) May 22, 2006

To celebrate National Employee Health & Fitness Day, Highmark Blue Shield of Pennsylvania brought in award-winning personal fitness trainer, Stephen Holt, to address their employees about the importance of health and fitness and the need for everyone to include a scientifically based strength training plan as part of a comprehensive fitness program.

“Not only is it important that Blue Shield recognizes the impact of healthier employees on their bottom line, I was especially impressed that a health insurance company asked me to come speak to their employees. That says a lot about the values of the company. They’re practicing what they preach and setting a great example,” stated Holt.

Holt’s presentation was entitled “Why’s and How’s of Strength Training: What everyone Needs to Know for Quick, Effective, Pain Free Results” and included tips on avoiding what Holt called “Myths That Are Holding You Back,” such as:

Spot Reduction

The Truth from Holt: Spot reduction is not only a myth that doesn’t make sense and cannot possibly work, focusing on only one muscle at a time actually decreases the number of calories you can burn per hour.

Fear of Building Muscle

Holt says: "The average American loses about ½ of muscle per year past the age of 25. This adds up to 10 - 15 pounds

Less muscle for baby boomers. Less muscle equals lower metabolism. The loss of muscle is one of the reasons we

Tend to get fatter as we get older. One of your goals with strength training should be to regain the muscle you had

When you were younger. That’s the best way to regain the body you had when you were younger."

Overemphasis of “Weight” Loss

From Holt: “This is a corollary to the Fear of Building Muscle. Far too many exercisers focus on weight loss when the goal should be ‘fat’ loss. The scale may read the same or even more, but – what’s more important – you’ll be healthier and you’ll look better.

Other intriguing topics covered included:

 How Your Cardio May Be Decreasing Your Strength Holt: “Most exercisers do far too much cardio if their goals health gains or positive changes in body composition.”

 “No pain, no gain” Holt: “Pain for days after a workout isn’t the sign of a great trainer, it’s typically a sign of an incompetent one.”

 “8-10 Major” muscle groups Holt: “What’s a ‘minor’ muscle group and who says so?”

 “Toning” Holt: “The light weight/high rep schemes that a lot of people propose for this so-called toning effect are nearly a total waste of time in many cases, and cannot achieve the desired effect.”

About Stephen Holt, The Baby Boomer Fitness Expert

Stephen Holt was named 2003 Personal Trainer of the Year by the American Council on Exercise and 1999 Expert of the Year by AllExperts. com, the Internet’s first and largest advice site. For information about Stephen Holt and his numerous fitness and health-related sites, please start by visiting BabyBoomerFitnessExpert. com.

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Payformance Corporation Selects QualEDIx HIPAA Test Data Managed Service Solutions to Accelerate and Streamline HIPAA 5010 Testing Efforts

Payformance Corporation Selects QualEDIx HIPAA Test Data Managed Service Solutions to Accelerate and Streamline HIPAA 5010 Testing Efforts

The technology partnership will enable Payformance to effortlessly create and emulate customer’s inbound files to ensure compliant 835’s to providers.

Bonita Springs, FL (PRWEB) July 28, 2010

Payformance® Corporation, the nation’s leading provider of healthcare payment simplification solutions, is pleased to announce a technology partnership with QualEDIx Inc. to ensure timely 5010 testing for all constituents.

QualEDIx Inc. (http://qualedix. com) through their product AgilEDIx revolutionizes the test data generation process by instantly constructing 5010/ICD-10 test cases in any data format for providers, clearinghouses, vendors and health plans. What typically takes months to accomplish with manual tools and processes, AgilEDIx generates pre-built test data in minutes for testing a payer’s 5010 TR3 and companion guide requirements. AgilEDIx creates HIPAA 4010A1, 5010, XML, Paper Claims, Flat Files, Image Files and even partial data files in any format, with either ICD-9 or ICD-10 diagnosis and procedure codes that is required for testing a specific technology or covered entity.

“At QualEDIx, we deliver a highly advanced managed service for HIPAA test data that can verify and validate any input or output file in any HIPAA or proprietary format. Because we are software testing experts, we specifically designed testing protocols and methodologies for testing every internal code change needed for a successful HIPAA 5010 implementation.” states Mark Lott, CEO of QualEDIx.

“Payformance takes the HIPAA mandated 5010 initiative seriously and QualEDIx will bring 5010 testing expertise and automated capabilities to augment our staff and provide subject matter expertise in resolving any 5010 issues”, said Dwayne McAfee, CEO of Payformance. In addition McAfee states, “Payformance will be able to use this service to accelerate payer integration testing readiness by emulating inbound customer files”.

Payformance Corporation has completed customer specific analysis and has supplied information to customers to assist with planning and coordinating testing efforts. The AgilEDIx toolkit will streamline the process and move Payformance quickly to the test execution stage.

About Payformance
Payformance is the leading provider of payment solutions to meet healthcare payment settlement requirements. Far more than ERA and EFT, Payformance focuses purely on healthcare payments and provides every stakeholder in the healthcare industry with comprehensive solutions that reconcile, correlate, and explain their payment information. The Payformance Healthcare Payment Exchange lays the foundation for unprecedented healthcare payment interoperability.

About QualEDIx
QualEDIx is the leading provider of HIPAA 5010/ICD-10 testing solutions and test data services for the healthcare industry. QualEDIx assists health plans, provider organizations, clearinghouses, vendors and other healthcare industry stakeholders with the technology for correctly addressing HIPAA 5010 TR3, ICD-10, EHR and HIE testing and compliance requirements. The QualEDIx team has over 300+ years of combined healthcare and software testing expertise in health IT business, testing, test data and trading partner solutions.

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American Chemistry Council Responds to Data on Phthalates and Toys in USPIRG'S Annual "Trouble in Toyland" Report

American Chemistry Council Responds to Data on Phthalates and Toys in USPIRG'S Annual "Trouble in Toyland" Report

The American Chemistry Council provides data to address claims made regarding phthalates and toys in USPIRG's annual "Trouble in Toyland" report.

Arlington, VA (PRWEB) November 21, 2007

The American Chemistry Council points to research to contradict suggestions made by USPIRG's "Trouble in Toyland" report. Responding to the annual study, Marian Stanley, manager of the American Chemistry Council's Phthalate Esters Panel (http://phthalates. org/), says, "USPIRG's annual 'Trouble in Toyland' report gives only minor attention to phthalates, yet even this minor attention yields major mistakes. Surely if PIRG is going to publish this annual survey, it can at least take the time to serve the public's interest -- and children's interest -- by doing its research before going to print."

Ms. Stanley outlines the discrepancies between the claims made by "Trouble in Toyland" and third party supported research:

1. The report claims that EPA studies show the cumulative impact of phthalate exposure shows an 'exponential increase in associated harm.' In fact, there has been one study by an EPA researcher on the subject of additivity. This study makes no claim of 'harm,' and showed that the cumulative exposures it measured were below EPA safety levels (http://www. phthalates. org/yourhealth/human_exposure_chart1.html).

2. The report also claims that Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data show phthalate levels in humans are "higher than levels shown to cause adverse health effects." Contrarily, data from the CDC (http://www. phthalates. org/yourhealth/human_exposure_chart1.html) show that both average exposure and exposures at the 95th percentile are far below the levels that have resulted in adverse health effects in some rats. (Only for critically-ill neonates getting life saving treatment involving flexible vinyl tubing and other equipment has it been hypothesized, but not shown, that levels might exceed federal safety levels.)

3. Also in the USPIRG's report are claims that phthalates have been linked to "abnormal genital development in baby boys." In actuality, the author of a statistical study looking for a link between phthalates and health effects in baby boys (http://phthalates. org/yourhealth/endocrine. asp) said there was no such abnormal genital development - stating flatly that she detected "no frank genital malformation or disease."

4. Additionally, according to "Trouble in Toyland" phthalates have been linked to premature delivery and early onset puberty. While one study did claim to show evidence of babies being born one week early, that is hardly the definition of premature. Another study on early puberty has long since been demonstrated to have been conducted improperly and is generally considered invalid.

5. And finally, the USPIRG report claims that the Consumer Product Safety Commission said there might be a risk to children who mouth toys for "'75 minutes a day or more'." However, the CPSC later did its own observational study (http://phthalates. org/yourhealth/childrens_toys. asp) of mouthing habits of children and found that the norm was a very few minutes at most.

"We expect better from PIRG…not another round of the kind of partial reporting and misinformation we see on the Internet and in news reports every day," concluded Ms. Stanley. "Parents face tough decisions regarding what toys to give their children, and deserve accurate information."

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Medical Toolbar Released

Medical Toolbar Released

Medical search engine releases toolbar, upgrades search performance.

(PRWEB) October 4, 2004

OmniMedicalSearch. com Monday released a bottom-side toolbar and announced upgrades designed to improve the search performance for the medical metasearch engine.

"The OmniSearchBar is compatible with all other toolbars because it loads at the bottom of your Internet Explorer window," founder Jason Morrow said. "It doesn't contain any kind of spyware, adware or malicious code that could harm one's computer."

When it comes to health and medical information, the integrity of the search results is priority, Morrow added. OmniMedicalSearch delivers quality results from 32 authoritative and reliable databases including medical search engines, image libraries and the latest health and medical news.

Since it was beta released 10 weeks ago, OminMedicalSearch recieved praise from medical professionals, researchers, librarians, patients, universities and even a few competitors.

At that time, OmniMedicalSearch only queried 25 databases. With the addition of seven more also came an exact phrase search function for those engines and databases that support it.

OmniMedicalSearch. com received over 150,000 searches and page views during September. There is no cost, registration or obligation of any kind to use this medical metasearch engine.

OmniMedicalSearch. com search options include:

15 Medical Search Engines (Default Search) 10 Health and Medical News Sources * 7 Medical & General Image Libraries

MedPro Search for medical professionals. Basic Search for the general public. Related Search Options. Single Site Search Focus. One-Click Dictionary look up.

Web surfers can also take advantage of many serendipitous information tools offered which include:

Acronym Search powered by Medilexicon Dictionary Search powered by OneLook Medical Association Mini-Directory (150+) Medical Journal Mini-Directory - (250+) Searchable Medical Databases  (70+)

Morrow founded OmniMedicalSearch in July to get away from the snake oil salesmen that are prevalent in the search results from mainstream search engines.

"The internet is a good place to find information and it can also be a very bad place to find information," he said.

The medical search engines and databases OmniMedicalSearch. com queries were carefully selected for providing authoritative and non-commerical health and medical information.

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