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New research shows rural hospitals remain in dire straits

Scott E. Rupp Healthcare Administration

Since 2010, 95 rural hospitals have closed in 26 states as rural populations continue to crater compared to their urban counterparts. Rural hospitals are economic engines for the small communities they serve, and there are more than 60 million people who are cared for by these organizations. Thus, the loss of these hospitals is a crisis on two fronts: people are losing much-needed access to care and they are losing high-quality and high-paying jobs not likely found or replicated in the area. According to a new study, the economic effects of a lost hospital are immediate.

Why Brexit planning is making the UK cooling industry hot under the collar

Andrew Gaved Engineering

I don't know whether you have noticed, but the U.K. is supposed to be divorcing from the European Union in a month's time. Brexit is nearly upon us. Or is it? The problem is, to quote Donald Rumsfeld, we are very much in the realm of the "known unknowns" when it comes to the details of Brexit. In fact, as I write, we don't even know whether we are going to be leaving Europe as planned on March 29, because there is so little that the various political factions agree on that it seems more likely now that there will be a postponement. But for the cooling industry, there is an additional administrative burden to deal with.

4 tips for onboarding a new project team member

Deborah Ike Business Management, Services & Risk Management

Most projects that last more than a few months will involve onboarding new team members as you move into a new phase of the project. Part of your role as the project manager is to ensure that new team members acclimate to the project as quickly and as smoothly as possible. That won't happen without planning for their arrival in advance. Here are several tips for how to get new team members onboard and into a productive mode ASAP.

Is there a guaranteed annual income in your future? — Part 1

Patrick Gleeson Civil & Government

Nominally nonpartisan banking institutions like the World Bank have long held that a job "is the fastest way out of poverty." This view has been vigorously supported by conservative economists like Arthur Laffer, who has also maintained that lowering taxes, even at the expense of social services, ultimately benefits workers because employers in a low-tax environment create more jobs. The resulting increased labor demand, according to the Laffer theory, will raise both employment levels and workers’ wages, thus creating more wealth for everyone. Two relatively recent developments call these views into question. Instead, there is a new emphasis on this very old idea, a financial guarantee that provides at least a subsistence-level income for all.

Schools, law enforcement team up to curb new trends in drug use

Bambi Majumdar Law Enforcement, Defense & Security

The latest surge of drugs impacting teens is a matter of serious concern. While drug abuse has always been a problem, some of the newer ones are scary in the ways they are presented inconspicuously and innocently. This is why some law enforcement officials are teaming up with schools to warn parents of the latest teen drug trends as a part of their preventative efforts. These troubling new trends include prescription drugs, fentanyl, and heroin. Additionally, there's the risk of having entire generations addicted to nicotine. Federal, state, and local authorities want parents to be aware of all these so that they know the signs and act right away.

Are classroom sizes hurting students?

Patrick Gleeson Education

Is there some point beyond which every student added to a classroom reduces the overall result? As a former teacher, I've watched the growing debate over class size in American primary and secondary education with interest and some alarm. My instinctive response is that class size does matter and that we’re headed in the wrong direction, but does the evidence bear this out? A National Education Association study, for example, reported that funding cuts for education required increasing class size limits in Georgia and Fairfax County, Virginia, which already had larger-than-average class sizes.

Oakland, California, teachers’ strike helps define new era for education…

Michelle R. Matisons Education

2018 was a year of unprecedented labor actions that rocked the education world. Now, one year after the West Virginia teachers' strike, we see Oakland, California’s teachers’ union, the Oakland Education Association (OEA), on the picket line with very serious and locale-specific demands. Bay Area housing costs are too high to retain quality educators in local public schools.

The great proposal: Solutioning to strengths when faced with a recompete

Lisa Pafe Civil & Government

The great proposal did not start out great. In the beginning, 15 months prior to RFP release, there were the usual problems we faced when preparing for a recompete. Red flags included project startup issues that resulted in mediocre CPARS ratings, difficult client relationships, competing stakeholder demands, customer turnover on the acquisition side, and no dedicated Capture Manager or Capture Plan. Since this recompete represented the company’s largest federal contract, the CEO knew she had to take action.And that’s when the trajectory, which had been turning towards a possible proposal loss, started to reverse course.

The ‘juniorization’ of organizations: Why this idea should…

Roberta Matuson Business Management, Services & Risk Management

Blatant discrimination against older workers is illegal. Yet, it happens every day. David Neumark, a professor of economics at the University of California, Irvine, and two other economists published a study in 2017. They sent out 40,000 resumes for thousands of real jobs. The resumes for any given job were identical except for age. "The call-back rate — the rate by which employers contact us and say we'd like to interview you — drops from young applicants to middle-aged applicants and drops further from middle-aged applicants to older applicants," Neumark says.

Business groups react to national-emergency declaration for border wall

Seth Sandronsky Civil & Government

Sixteen states, roughly one of three in the U.S., are suing to block President Trump's decision to bypass Congress and declare a national emergency to access billions of federal dollars to fund a southern border wall with Mexico. Where do business groups stand on this matter? Garrick Taylor is senior vice president of government relations and communications for the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry. "The decision is a bad one," according to him. "It sets a terrible precedent and it once again punts to the courts a matter that should be legislated and negotiated with the executive branch."

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