Farm Level Impacts of a Revenue Based Policy in the 2007 Farm Bill

Revenue-based policy alternatives are thought to be a potential component of the 2007 Farm Bill. This research provides an economic analysis of switching to a revenue assurance farm program for representative farms. Specifically, this research provides a monte-carlo stochastic simulation model that compares the effect of a revenue based safety net policy relative to continuing the 2002 Farm Bill policies for different types of U.S. crop farmers. The results show that both revenue assurance proposals by the National Corn Growers Association leave the majority of farmers, especially feed grain producers, with higher total receipts and higher government payments.Agricultural and Food Policy,

Measuring Spatial Dynamics in Metropolitan Areas

This paper introduces a new approach to measuring neighborhood change. Instead of the traditional method of identifying “neighborhoods†a priori and then studying how resident attributes change over time, our approach looks at the neighborhood more intrinsically as a unit that has both a geographic footprint and a socioeconomic composition. Therefore, change is identified when both as- pects of a neighborhood transform from one period to the next. Our approach is based on a spatial clustering algorithm that identifies neighborhoods at two points in time for one city. We also develop indicators of spatial change at both the macro (city) level as well as local (neighborhood) scale. We illustrate these methods in an application to an extensive database of time-consistent census tracts for 359 of the largest metropolitan areas in the US for the period 1990-2000.

Internship Partners for Long-Term Care Administrators – A Model Sustainable Through COVID-19 Is a Model for the Future

Most long-term care administration programs require an internship as a graduation requirement. The University of Wisconsin – Eau Claire’s Health Care Administration interns are highly valued by partner sites, hosting students annually. In the 2019-2020 academic year, 59 students were nine months into their internship experience when COVID-19 disruptions became widespread. This paper describes the program’s immediate and multifaceted response, which led to exceptional outcomes. Lessons learned suggest that through effective planning and exceptional reaction in the face of adversity, strong academic programs and partnerships play a key role in alleviating long-term care workforce challenges by producing extraordinarily prepared future leaders

Widening the scope for early cancer detection: identification of alarm symptoms by community pharmacies

Background Cancers are one of the leading causes of death in the world and, due to the aging population, incidence rates are set to rise. As such, considerable effort has been placed on initiatives that aid the early detection of cancer, as this may improve patient survival outcome. One such initiative is the development of guidelines that explain how and when patient reported alarm symptoms suggestive of an underlying malignancy should be referred to a specialist. However, despite being conveniently placed to deliver interventions to promote the early detection of cancer, it is not clear what role community pharmacists could have in the development and implementation of these guidelines. Objective To: (1) assess the frequency and mean of patient reported alarm symptoms in a community pharmacy setting; (2) determine the demographics of patients presenting with the alarm symptom; and (3) explore the relationship between deprivation index of the community pharmacy and average frequency of alarm symptoms per pharmacy. Setting Thirty-three community pharmacies in the North of England. Method A prospective study from September 2013 to February 2014. Each community pharmacy team was provided training in relation to alarm symptoms to ensure there was consistency in reporting. Deprivation tertiles for each community pharmacy were calculated using the IMD 2010 deprivation index. The data were analysed using a Kruskal-Wallis test in order to determine whether there were any statistically significant associations between average frequency of alarm symptoms presented per pharmacy and the deprivation tertile. Main outcome measure Frequency of patient reported alarm symptoms

Narrative descriptions should replace grades and numerical ratings for clinical performance in medical education in the United States

Background: In medical education, evaluation of clinical performance is based almost universally on rating scales for defined aspects of performance and scores on examinations and checklists. Unfortunately, scores and grades do not capture progress and competence among learners in the complex tasks and roles required to practice medicine. While the literature suggests serious problems with the validity and reliability of ratings of clinical performance based on numerical scores, the critical issue is not that judgments about what is observed vary from rater to rater but that these judgments are lost when translated into numbers on a scale. As the Next Accreditation System of the Accreditation Council on Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) takes effect, medical educators have an opportunity to create new processes of evaluation to document and facilitate progress of medical learners in the required areas of competence. Proposal and initial experience: Narrative descriptions of learner performance in the clinical environment, gathered using a framework for observation that builds a shared understanding of competence among the faculty, promise to provide meaningful qualitative data closely linked to the work of physicians. With descriptions grouped in categories and matched to milestones, core faculty can place each learner along the milestones' continua of progress. This provides the foundation for meaningful feedback to facilitate the progress of each learner as well as documentation of progress toward competence. Implications: This narrative evaluation system addresses educational needs as well as the goals of the Next Accreditation System for explicitly documented progress. Educators at other levels of education and in other professions experience similar needs for authentic assessment and, with meaningful frameworks that describe roles and tasks, may also find useful a system built on descriptions of learner performance in actual work settings. Conclusions: We must place medical learning and assessment in the contexts and domains in which learners do clinical work. The approach proposed here for gathering qualitative performance data in different contexts and domains is one step along the road to moving learners toward competence and mastery

Achieving the Dream and Four-Year Institutions: Perspectives from Three Houston Colleges

This report examines the experiences of three Houston area four-year universities that are participating in Achieving the Dream, a national initiative designed to use data-driven decision making to promote student success, especially among low-income students and students of color. Each of these universities is a minority-serving institution, two are Historically Black Colleges or Universities and one is a Hispanic Serving Institution