Innovative Approach to New Nurse Residency, Meaningful Use and Health Care Reform

The project’s aim was to examine the financial impact of replacing registered nurse (RN) travelers, RN registry and RN overtime with new graduate RNs. Newly graduated RNs are often viewed by hospital administrators as a more costly staffing resource. This project contributes knowledge regarding the potential cost savings with the utilization of a centralized float pool incorporating new graduates. In addition, it contributes a novel idea for reducing organizational costs of implementing an electronic medical record with the utilization of new graduates as super users. A new graduate program, which incorporated the use of a formal preceptor and mentoring program, was designed to train 100 nurses over the next four years. New graduates were hired as non-benefited employees into a centralized float pool. The first two cohorts consisting of 54 new graduates completed training in April 2013 and June 2013. Data were collected over a 12 month period using organizational financial reports and group discussions with the new graduates. Overtime decreased in the areas new graduates were hired and traveler/registry usage decreased to 26.4 FTE below the budgeted level. From April 2013 through September 2013 the savings contributed to the new graduate project was two million dollars. In October 2013 an additional $500,000 was saved due to the new graduate project and this monthly savings is expected to continue. Utilizing new graduates as super users also saved the organization 375,000 dollars. Implementing a new graduate program and replacing RN traveler, registry and overtime hours proved to be cost effective

Study of applications of biospace technology to patient monitoring systems - Program plans and budgetary cost estimates Final report supplement

Program plans and cost estimates of project for application of bioscience technology to patient monitoring syste

Semantic discovery and reuse of business process patterns

Patterns currently play an important role in modern information systems (IS) development and their use has mainly been restricted to the design and implementation phases of the development lifecycle. Given the increasing significance of business modelling in IS development, patterns have the potential of providing a viable solution for promoting reusability of recurrent generalized models in the very early stages of development. As a statement of research-in-progress this paper focuses on business process patterns and proposes an initial methodological framework for the discovery and reuse of business process patterns within the IS development lifecycle. The framework borrows ideas from the domain engineering literature and proposes the use of semantics to drive both the discovery of patterns as well as their reuse

RFID Technology in Intelligent Tracking Systems in Construction Waste Logistics Using Optimisation Techniques

Construction waste disposal is an urgent issue for protecting our environment. This paper proposes a waste management system and illustrates the work process using plasterboard waste as an example, which creates a hazardous gas when land filled with household waste, and for which the recycling rate is less than 10% in the UK. The proposed system integrates RFID technology, Rule-Based Reasoning, Ant Colony optimization and knowledge technology for auditing and tracking plasterboard waste, guiding the operation staff, arranging vehicles, schedule planning, and also provides evidence to verify its disposal. It h relies on RFID equipment for collecting logistical data and uses digital imaging equipment to give further evidence; the reasoning core in the third layer is responsible for generating schedules and route plans and guidance, and the last layer delivers the result to inform users. The paper firstly introduces the current plasterboard disposal situation and addresses the logistical problem that is now the main barrier to a higher recycling rate, followed by discussion of the proposed system in terms of both system level structure and process structure. And finally, an example scenario will be given to illustrate the system’s utilization

USCID water management conference

Presented at Emerging challenges and opportunities for irrigation managers: energy, efficiency and infrastructure: a USCID water management conference held on April 26-29, 2011 in Albuquerque, New Mexico.Includes bibliographical references.Verifying conservation estimates for on-farm agricultural water conservation programs -- Improving irrigation system performance in the Middle Rio Grande through scheduled water delivery -- Urbanization of irrigation districts in the Texas Rio Grande River Basin -- Urbanization issues in the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District -- From canyons to canals: applying regulated river research to canal bank analysis -- Water for irrigation, streams and economy: evaluating past and future climate change to secure a reliable water supply for multiple needs -- Flow measurement capabilities of diversion works in the Rio Grande Project area -- Open-channel and pipe flow measurement at Mohave Valley Irrigation and Drainage District using Venturi technology with bubbler sensors -- Using an ADCP to determine canal seepage losses in the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District -- Venturi meters constructed with pipe fittings: an under-appreciated option for measuring agricultural water -- Improving crop water use determination using adjusted eddy covariance heat fluxes -- Performance evaluation of TDT soil water content and Watermark soil water potential sensors -- Meeting water challenges in Idaho through water banking -- Water transfers in California: 20 years of progress, view to the future