Advantages and Disadvantages of Technology Today

Advantages and Disadvantages of Technology Today Chirag Patel The world has come very far with respect to technology. In reality, technology, social media, and smart phones have breached the mainstay in our everyday lives in a short period of time. Gone are the days of cassette and VHS tapes. Gone are the days of typewriters and cursive handwriting. Those outdated technologies have been replaced with tablets, smartphones, and social media websites like Facebook. The same types of technologies have found its way into healthcare. Lambert, K., Barry, P., Stokes, G. (2012) state that, â€Å"Social media has infiltrated all of our lives both personally and professionally.† For better or for worse these technologies have blended into our everyday lives with no end in sight therefore, knowing they aren’t going away and how we use them will say as much about ourselves and as society as a whole. Today’s technologies allow us to be more connected to one another. Both patients and healthcare providers have information available at their fingertips including a patient’s personal health information (PHI). On concern could be stated as such, â€Å"How safe are today’s technologies and will patient’s personal health information be compromised?† The U.S. Department of Health and Human services created HIPPA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act). HIPPA is a federal law that protects medical information of patient’s and is enforced by the Office of Civil Rights. According to Lambert, K., Barry, P., Stokes, G. (2012), â€Å"The use of social media may expose professionals and healthcare entities to liability under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) as well as individual state privacy laws. HIPAA, as modified by the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH), governs the permitted use and disclosure of PHI by covered entities, including hospitals, physicians and other healthcare providers. The HITECH Act provides breach notification requirements and expands various requirements to business associates.† So why take the risks? Like anything in this world sometimes you have to take the good with the bad. A few advantages of today’s technologies and social media sites include accessibility. Patients can now play an active engagement in their health care. Social media and various apps allow an individual to do their own research on their conditions. It can give a patient a feeling of empowerment when otherwise they would feel helpless. Social media and varying apps allow for individuals to connect with support groups and message boards that can lend much needed empathy from people who are going through similar situations. We’ve heard the stories of bullying on Facebook but on the flip side there are stories of triumph and support when used in a way that garners sympathy and empathy. Facebook can be both an advantage and disadvantage depending on how it is used. Doctors, nurses, and other healthcare providers have advantages as well. They too can have the latest research and decision making support tools available to them at palm of their hands. Access to real time information such as the latest prescription recall or access to the most recent white paper of medical breakthroughs benefits both the healthcare provider and ultimately the patient. This collective online and mobile brain trust allow for healthcare providers to create robust medical strategies that can help in the decision making. Online and smart phone resources include mobile apps like Epocrates  ®, Medscape, and even AHRQ ePSS an app designed by the United States Department of Health Human Services (HHS). Online communities’ such as American Medical Association provide resources from varying topics including: managing your practice; medical ethics; legal issues; and career development. In general, most individuals prefer to keep their health status confidentiality hence, the patient-doctor confidentiality relationship. But with smartphones and use of social media the totality of a person’s health information could be vulnerable if safeguards are not in place. Solomon, P., et al. (2012) suggests that healthcare providers who have access to patient information made aware of strategies and facility policies in order to safeguard patient privacy. They should also be mindful and place themselves in a situation where access can be vulnerable i.e. leaving a computer on and unsecure. Solomon, P., et al. (2012) state emphatically that â€Å"Confidentiality is a legal right for clients as well as a professional ethical responsibility of providers.† A break in trust serves to weaken the relationship between the healthcare provider and the patient. Let’s go back to our original scenario. The nurse worked a night shift while her friend attended a concert. The lead singer of the concert the nurse missed is now her patient. At the end of her shift, what does she do? Our group chose the following conclusion: You go on Facebook, on your day off, and talk about the night you had at work and how you didn’t really feel as bad having to miss the concert, because you actually got to meet Jerod in person and even â€Å"Got his number!† You then post a picture of Jerod on Facebook and Instagram, figuring that most of your contacts would never recognize him anyway. It’s your day off and your personal time, so no harm, no foul, right? The scenario above is a plausible outcome in the world with which we live in. However, there are a lot of things wrong with the nurse’s line of thinking. It is not unreasonable for the nurse to think that her personal Facebook page is her private business. However, in the New York trial of Romano v. Steelcase (2010) the Supreme Court stated that, It is reasonable to infer from the limited postings on plaintiffs public Facebook ® and MySpace ® profile pages that her private pages may contain material and information that are relevant to her claims or that may lead to the disclosure of admissible evidence. To deny defendant an opportunity to access these sites not only would go against the liberal discovery policies of New York favoring pretrial disclosure, but would condone plaintiffs attempt to hide relevant information behind self-regulated privacy settings.† In other words, what the nurse posts on her Facebook could be used against her for several reasons 1). The p hoto was taken while she was working, 2). The photo violates a patient’s right to privacy and confidentiality and 3). By violating the patient’s right to privacy and confidentiality she could be setting herself for termination of employment and/or criminal or civil violations. Those are possible consequences that may prove costly in the long run. The nurse should stop and ask herself if the notoriety would be worth losing her reputation and career over. In summary, there are many advantages and disadvantages to smartphones and use of social media. Advantages include active engagement for patients in their health status; readily available resources in real-time; and ease of use and accessibility for all users both front-end and back-end. Some disadvantages include lack of privacy; accountability for posts on personal social media sites; and data integrity and vulnerability. Do the Pro’s outweigh the Con’s? One can only say that training, awareness, and professional and ethical responsibilities should dictate an individual’s actions. As the old saying goes, â€Å"Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.† A good warning that should be heeded by all. References Kosieradzki, J. (2011). Social media and privacy: when personal posts intersect with the business of litigation. Journal of Legal Studies in Business. (17), 51-64 Lambert, K., Barry, P., Stokes, G. (2012). Risk management and legal issues with the use of social media in the healthcare setting. American Society for Healthcare Risk Management. 31(4), 41–47. doi: 10.1002/jhrm.20103 Romano v. Steelcase, 907 N.Y.S.2d 650, 658 (N.Y. Sup. 2010) Solomon, P., Molinaro, M., Mannion, E., Cantwell, K. (2012). Confidentiality Policies and Practices in Regard to Family Involvement: Does Training Make a Difference?. American Journal Of Psychiatric Rehabilitation, 15(1), 97-115. doi:10.1080/15487768.2012.655648

My Experience with Technology

I have never really thought about how much I depend of technology. We got our first family computer when I was about 9 years old. At the time my brother was a computer geek (still is) and he would go buy the computer books that had programs in them where you had to type everything out to get a game on the computer to play. So when I would help or when he was teaching me, we would mix some of the programs up and see if we could come up with anything. Then it was to BBS’. That opened a whole new world!We could meet people online without actually meeting them. Now its becoming more and more complexed.. Now there is so many programs out there it’s hard to keep up. I have taught myself just about everything I do on the computer. I know Microsoft Word, Windows, Adobe reader and those are just the ones I can remember off hand.. I am pretty comfortable learning new programs and look forward to it. At this time the only one I can think of that my hinder me is Excel. Since I have only used it once I am not 100% comfortable with it yet.But I will be by the time this class is over. While I worked as a manager at a pet store we used a program called Campbell, it would keep track of the employees hours, what we sold in the store and everything in between. While I was at Staples I was learning all kinds of programs and applications. At this time the only thing that comes to mind that I would have a concern about would be not being able to ask a question and getting an answer right away. I look forward to this class and learning new applications that I can use on the computer.

Green Valley Megastore Case Study Essay

Green-Valley Megastores Green-Valley Megastores was a part of a large business group having investments in diverse businesses like pharmaceuticals, luxury hotels, textile manufacturing and exports, and food processing. The mega-stores were aimed to give the customers a truly international shopping experience—a one stop destination where entire families could enjoy a day together—watching movies, shopping, eating out and playing games in an unmatched ambience. This concept of shopping-cum-entertainment had paralleled the growth of shopping malls in India. Today, the customers who did not prefer to just watch movies at the old-fashioned movie halls had the option of going into multiplexes which offered more than one movie show at a single time, along with the option of spending time at multiple shops or restaurants at the same time within the same complex. This was designed so that the customer need not travel from place to place in search of different products – but could have it at one place. With this, the businesses tried to replicate the weekend holiday concept of the West where an entire family could spend a day out engaging itself in watching movies, shopping and eating out. To further this aim, Green-Valley Megastores had invested in multiplexes with floor space varying from 20,000 square feet to 40,000 square feet in prime locations in different cities. The shop-space was then leased out to different brands—who would sell their products within the multiplex. Thus, there was a wide variety of products in a single multiplex—ranging from dress material (which itself had different varieties of ethnic wear, western wear, leather accessories, sunglasses, fine jewelry, and saris) to shoes, electronics, toys, groceries and foodstuff, etc. In terms of product offering, these shops within Green-Valley offered a wide choice to their customers. Not only did Green-Valley offer the finest brands available in India, but it also offered a world-class ambience and service, with the widest choice. A customer could browse through the offerings to their hearts content without any pressure of buying through serene ambience in the classy glass and marble interiors designed by international architects. There was enough  space for them to rest, take a break, have refreshments while shopping and then continue again. Staff at Green-Valley While the shops within each Green-Valley Store had its own staff, Green-Valley maintained its own staff to take care of housekeeping (cleanliness of public space like lobbies, staircases etc.) manage the car park, and provide security services. The staff at Green-Valley was trained to be unobtrusive; they were supposed to be present and vigilant at all times and respond to a specific customer request only when the customer required. They were there to help one make a choice or serve quietly and efficiently. With constant in-depth training, the Green-Valley staff was required to offer service to all customers with a positive attitude, pleasant disposition, and good communication skills Organizational Structure Each store was managed by a store-in-charge who was supported by four managers. The different managers took care of security, housekeeping, services and accounts. The staff strength for security, housekeeping and services varied from store to store based on the requirements. While the housekeeping took care of the general cleanliness of the stores, services department took care of the maintenance of the lifts, electrical equipment, fire-fighting equipment etc. Both the housekeeping department and the services department relied on contractual staff instead of permanent employees. See Figure 1 for the organizational structure in the following page. Figure 1 Organizational Structure in a typical Green-Valley Megastore. Performance Appraisal for Megastores’ employees Performance appraisal for the store employees was carried out on an annual basis. Each of the employees were evaluated by their superior (refer Figure 1). The store-in-charges of different stores were evaluated by the Regional Managers. The Regional Managers were in turn appraised by the General Manager (Operations) who used to be located at headquarters. The regional managers had targets in terms of business development – getting new customers for floor space in the mega-stores. They had to achieve the targets in terms of lease rent from the stores in their regions. For the store-in-charges the nature of job was more of managing the facility for their customers. Each store had two categories of customers – the tenants and the shoppers. It was the responsibility of the store –in-charge of a Mega-store to ensure highest quality of service to both the categories. Performance Appraisal Process Only those employees who had completed a year in the organization were eligible for performance appraisal. There was no appraisal for the contractual staff or part-time employees. The appraisal process was carried out for all the eligible employees simultaneously in the February to March period. The appraisal process was initiated by a meeting conducted by the Store-in-charge where the announcement of the appraisal process was made. It was mandatory for all eligible employees to attend the meeting. During the meeting the eligible employees were informed individually about the date of his / her performance appraisal. The employees are asked to be prepared for any sort of situations or questions during the appraisal. As an important step of their career, employees took the appraisal interview seriously. Stage 1: Self appraisal This was the first step in the appraisal process at Green-Valley, where an employee has to rate himself from 1 – 6 where 1 is the lowest and 6 the  highest grade. The employee was handed over a form with following five parameters (refer Table A). The parameters were based on the important aspects of his/her responsibility in Green-Valley and had different weights. The employee had to grade himself/ herself on those parameters. Stage 2: Assessment by Appraisal Committee The appraisal interviews were carried out by an Appraisal Committee that was formed for each store. The members in that committee were the Store-in-charge and two HR managers from the headquarters. The committee would carry out interviews of the employees and based on the interviews would give their assessment of performance. On a single day nearly 4-5 employees were appraised. The committee would start the interview using the self-assessment as the basis, probing reasons why a particular employee had rated himself 6. In most cases employees used to rate themselves on the higher side—typically either 5 or 6. For each of the parameters, the appraisal committee had a set of questions which would examine the employee. For example, reliability would be probed with questions like: 1.Where were you when so and so incident took place in the store? 2.If a customer has forgotten her purchases in the lobby – how would you locate the customer to give it back to them? The appraisal committee would make its own assessment and give marks on the 1 to 6 scale. TableA: Performance Assessment Form Name: _______________________________ Store Location:________________________ Assessment Period:_____________________ S. No.Performance DimensionsWeights (in %) WSelf RatingCommittee Rating RW X R 1.Customer focus20 2.Task focus15 3.Upkeep of uniform and self 15 4.Discipline & Attendance10 5.Honesty & Integrity10 6.Communication10 7.Initiative 10 8.Reliability10 Total Raw Score: Total of WxR 100 Additional achievements by the employee: Comments by the Appraisal Committee: Signature of the committee members: Final Score: Signature of employee: The marks were used to derive the grades. The grading was done as per the scheme depicted in Table B. Table B: Grading Scheme Marks cut-offRating > 5.5Outstanding 5 – 5.5Very Good 4.5 – 5 Good 4 – 4.5Adequate

Analysis Of Dracula By Justin Varghese - 1657 Words

Rough Draft by Justin Varghese Dracula is a well-known Gothic classic. Its representation in film and play adaptations made Dracula famous worldwide. Stoker wrote Dracula to challenge the views of the late 19th century era. Sexuality and its references were seen as taboo in The Victorian Era. Stoker’s background including childhood sickness, college athletic career, and interests in the supernatural found in the various folklore along with influence from his mentor Walt Whitman and the Enlightenment Era lead to strong characteristics in main protagonists such as Van Helsing. While his contrasting views on sexuality by describing it in a violent manner and emphasizing the desiring and lustful feelings of humanity. Stoker’s athletic career influenced the characteristics of his main hero in his novel, Dracula. Stoker was born under the Protestant denomination in a town near the capital of Ireland. His family was average, and so was his early childhood days. He went to college at the heart of Ireland and became successful in his sporting career at the college. He took up his father s work as a civil service clerk. His first literary appearance was critic pieces in newspapers and later magazines. He grew close to Walt Whitman. He met his future business client six years later, after he started his job as a civil service clerk in 1870. In 1878, he managed a theatre in London for his client. He married after quitting his stint in London. In the last three decades before