Recent Articles

  • Better connectivity needed to improve prescription drug monitoring programs

    Pamela Lewis Dolan Medical & Allied Healthcare

    ​Among the most powerful tools healthcare providers have to combat the growing prescription drug abuse problem are prescription drug monitoring databases. Even though physicians and PAs in most states have access to a drug monitoring database, few actually use them. Efforts are underway to change that.

  • Feast or fire: Caution for Thanksgiving kitchen blazes

    Dr. Denise A. Valenti Food & Beverage

    The risk of a kitchen fire triples on Thanksgiving Day, according to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. From 2009-11, there were an average of 1,300 cooking-related fires causing injury each Thanksgiving Day. As part of an active campaign to educate holiday celebrants about fire safety when cooking, CPSC Chairman Inez Tenenbaum has some simple advice.

  • Why 4K? The latest TV tech flop?

    Mitch Weinraub Communications

    ​As the "soft" announcements continue to roll out that a number of players (​DirecTV, ​Netflix, etc.) are planning to launch 4K TV services, it probably makes sense to take a step back and ask both why and when? Of course, planning could mean anything from "we've penciled it for 2017" to "we will have a channel launched before the end of the year." That aside, why would anyone be in a rush to ready a 4K TV service?

  • Go green: Implementing 5 low-cost hospitality products in the hotel room

    Stephen Kirby Travel, Hospitality & Event Management

    According to the 2013 Global Business Traveler Survey published by Timetric, 47 percent of business travelers prioritize "green" hotels when on the road. Environmentally-conscious, well-informed travelers expect hotels to do more than just provide a comfortable place to stay. They want to know and see that the hotel they have chosen implements energy-efficient practices and is eco-friendly in many ways.

  • Deciphering M&A activity in the US oil and gas sector

    Lucy Wallwork Natural Resources

    Mergers and acquisitions hit the headlines daily in the financial pages, often making it all the way onto the front pages. Someone has swallowed a struggling target company; someone divested assets to focus on others. In the oil and gas sector, the level of M&A activity is used as a weather bell for the broader health of the sector, making investors nervous when things slowed down earlier this year. Now indicators seem to have picked up, but what does it all mean beyond those headlines?

  • No-shows: The bane of a therapist’s existence

    Heidi Dawson Medical & Allied Healthcare

    I regularly have conversations with reliable clients, therapists and friends about the best way to tackle the problem of no-show clients. There are differing thoughts and opinions regarding the best way to reduce the impact this has on your business, so I thought I would explain some of the options and downfalls when it comes to addressing late cancellations and no-shows.

  • Marketing to the newest generation of shoppers

    Emma Fitzpatrick Marketing

    A huge lifestyle and consumer trend is that the newest shoppers of 2014 will be hitting the market in a big way: the millennials. They're going to begin buying houses, which means decor, gardening and furniture, too. Millennials are those between the ages of 18-34, and they currently make up 23 percent of the U.S. population. That means that 23 percent of those with spending power in the upcoming year will be the millennials.

  • Will we all be on statins soon?

    Jason Poquette Pharmaceutical

    ​The sky is falling. The statins are coming. At least that's what some folks are saying. According to some interpretations of the latest recommendations issued by the American College of Cardiology and American Heart Association, we'll all be on statins before you know it. These new guidelines were released Nov. 12 and are already drawing sharp criticism.

  • Confessions of a miser: The thrill of profit

    Bob Fortune Business Management, Services & Risk Management

    Frugality, thrift and good budgeting can and will lead to profit — financial profit as well as human and social thriving. It's worthy to point out that profit and frugality do not oppose themselves. The origin of the word frugality is "fruit" or "to bear fruit." And the fruits of a successful business are wildly exciting. Profit allows companies to purchase assets to grow revenue, increase earning power for staff, share their wealth with charities and offer more perks to employees.

  • 3 sanity checks when caught in the middle

    Mark MacDonald Religious Community

    My wife is a middle child. She tells stories about how she felt left out and sometimes caught in the middle. You may even feel like you're always the middle person on the team. Not the best, not the worst. And even now, the awkward couple of weeks in the middle of Thanksgiving and Christmas is coming. The middle gets a bad rap. The middle is a strange time or position. So what do you do when you're after a large event and before another. The church often has these times.