HHS Office Will Be Funded Partly By The HIPAA Fines It Levies

On August 19, 2009

HHS Office Will Be Funded Partly By The HIPAA Fines It Levies

Have you ever heard of a federal agency in charge of enforcing a set of regulations that is partly funded by the penalties it imposes on violators? I had not, until I began researching the provisions of the HITECH Act that are related to the HIPAA privacy and security rules. Part of the economic stimulus package that was passed in February, the HITECH Act focuses primarily on incentives for providers to adopt electronic health records and to use them to improve the quality of care. But it also stiffens the penalties for privacy and security violations by HIPAA-covered entities, which include most doctors and hospitals, and requires the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to periodically audit providers to...
On August 19, 2009

What Ad Spending Green Shoots Will Look Like

Advertising-dependent media could have to wait another year before seeing signs of an economic turnaround. CBS CEO Les Moonves' recent elation about a recovering TV advertising market -- "[T]he money is going to start coming in..." -- could be premature. Here are some of the green shoots that could signal an end to the advertising recession and the start of a recovery: More advertisers will join Coca-Cola and Procter & Gamble in making pay-for-performance the new default standard -- not just an option -- as they expand to more measurable, accountable interactive platforms. P&G recently moved GreyGlobal Group from billable hours to a value-based compensation involving an upfront fee and add-on payments for sales and market share gains.  This is...
On August 19, 2009

Hotels Are Losing Guests Due to Web Site Problems

A recent study by IPerceptions, a market research company that specializes in Web sites, found that many visitors to hotel Web sites found the sites confusing enough that it precluded them from booking rooms. Oops! Hotels should take heed: More than 40 percent of the study's 123,000 respondents reported that they didn't book a room "because of a usability problem with the booking engine or because of a technical or navigation issue in another section of the Web site." Sure, consumers are always looking for a deal and may bypass a hotel's Web site altogether in favor of a discount site such as hotels.com, but if someone is on a hotel's Web site, the point is to keep that person...
On August 19, 2009

The Cost of Poor Service | BTalk Australia

[caption id="attachment_1844" align="alignleft" width="120" caption="Jason Stirling"][/caption] (Episode 312: 11 minutes 30) A survey commissioned by Genesys has shown that Australian businesses are losing more than $2.6 billion each year as a result of poor customer. 72% of consumers said they had ended a relationship due to poor customer service, and 56% had an experience that made them more likely to do so in the past year. This is happening despite developments in the sophistication of contact centre software. So what’s going wrong? That’s a question Phil Dobbie puts to Jason Stirling, the Vice President APAC for Genesys. He says the problem is often the result of old processes and poor implementation. What’s your experience? Add comments in the Talkback section...
On August 19, 2009

Is Merck’s Singulair Patent a Fraud? Suit Lays Out Timeline of Omissions

Patent litigation is usually dull stuff, but the case filed by several wholesale pharmacies against Merck over its Singulair patent is a doozy. It describes in detail how Merck allegedly defrauded the Patent Trademark Office by hiding the fact that the idea for Singulair did not spring from its labs but from four published articles that Merck failed to mention in its application for the patent.
On August 19, 2009

Travel Roundup: Radisson Reports Security Breach, De Botton is Heathrow’s Writer, Oregon’s Low Bids Benefit Amtrak and More

Radisson reports unauthorized guest records, credit-card information accessed -- Federal agents are investigating unauthorized access to computer systems at some Radisson Hotels & Resorts  in the United States and Canada. The company said today that the systems were accessed between November 2008 and May 2009, but said the instances were limited. Radisson said that it alerted credit-card companies about the breach but didn't disclose which properties were involved. Radisson has more than 400 locations in 68 countries. [Source: Denver Business Journal] Alain de Botton is first writer-in-residence at Heathrow Airport -- Author Alain De Botton will spend a week in Heathrow Airport's Terminal Five, where he will  have an all-access pass and write a book about the experience. De Botton, who views airports as...
On August 19, 2009

Microsoft Lawyers Start to Sweep Up Word Mess

Microsoft has asked an appeals court to stay an injunction that Judge Leonard Davis of the U.S. District Court for Eastern Texas issued against the sale of Microsoft Word. The judge made the ruling after a jury found that Microsoft had infringed on a patent held by Toronto-based i4i. It is set to go into effect in October.


On August 19, 2009

Social Media in Books

Social Media has been a big topic for awhile, and seems to increase daily, as businesses scramble to figure out how to put this stuff to use. There’s a lot of debate over best practices, and even if it should be used at all, but the overwhelming consensus is: use it. The problem is, “using [...]


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