Mes: agosto 2020

MIDDLETON, Mass., Aug. 4, 2020 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ — As the premier healthcare community for clinical documentation specialists, the Association for Clinical Documentation Integrity Specialists (ACDIS) is doubling down on its commitment to providing continuing education, professional growth, program recognition, and networking opportunities to its members and CDI professionals in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.

ACDIS is offering a comprehensive CDI COVID-19 survival toolkit to help hospitals that are actively treating COVID-19 filled with free resources, including common clinical indicators, hard-to-find guidance on cytokine storms, physician documentation needs, pediatric inflammatory multisystem syndrome, and survey data related to the pandemic’s impact of the profession. Access it by visiting https://acdis.org/resources/cdi-covid-19-survival-toolkit.

The toolkit is just one easy-to-use resource. ACDIS is also providing ongoing guidance with:

• A weekly eNewsletter, CDI Strategies, highlighting COVID-19 news, updates, and documentation and coding updates https://acdis.org/articles
• Webinars covering topics from denials management, risk adjustment, and outpatient CDI reviews https://hcmarketplace.com/product-type/webinars
• Episodes of the ACDIS Podcast: Talking CDI covering firsthand experiences, clinical and coding nuances, documentation pearls, cytokine release syndrome and CAR-T therapy, and queries and the frontline workflow https://acdis.org/acdis-podcast
• A 3-day virtual education event, Staying Engaged: ACDIS Presents Virtual Education & Community (now available on demand), featuring more than a dozen educational sessions with valuable continuing education credits through an app https://hcmarketplace.com/staying-engaged-acdis
• A special 50% savings on any Online CDI Boot Camps to help you stay up to date and in compliance amid ever-changing healthcare regulations (For more information, visit https://hcmarketplace.com/product-type/boot-camps/clinical-documentation and use code CDIONLINE.)
• The 2021 ACDIS Pocket Guide, filled with the latest updates to clinical diagnostic standards, the Official Coding Guidelines, ICD-10-CM codes, CMS-HCCs, and CDI critical thinking tips https://hcmarketplace.com/2021-acdis-pocket-guide

Plus, there are exclusive members-only benefits, such as the bimonthly CDI Journal with in-depth advice and insight from CDI leaders, an ACDIS Advisory Board conference call discussing CDI work during the pandemic, and more.

«When times get tough—and boy, they have been a bear these last few months—CDI professionals have a wonderful way of rising to the occasion,» says ACDIS Director Brain Murphy. «Results from our recent impact of COVID-19 on CDI departments survey demonstrated the willingness of these professionals to engage in tasks far removed from record review, from administering personal protective equipment and other life-saving equipment and supplies (10%) to serving on call center lines (15%), and even returning to the bedside to provide direct patient care (16%).»

With so much uncertainty around what CDI professionals will have to overcome in the future months, you can count on ACDIS as a resource to keep you informed with the following:

• Meet Up Mondays via Facebook Live with ACDIS Associate Editorial Director Melissa Varnavas
• A 1-day free virtual summit discussing CDI professionals’ return to work in hospitals and the impact of COVID-19 on their work at home (July 23)
• An in-depth webinar discussing sepsis and its implications for COVID-19 patients
• ACDIS Podcast: Talking CDI episode on the presentation and diagnosis of multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (August 12)
• An ACDIS membership quarterly conference call on CDI and telehealth (August 20)
• A weeklong celebration of professional recognition featuring an extensive report on the CDI industry, a free webinar, daily industry expert Q&As, giveaways, and more during the CDI Cinema-CDI: Coming to an Organization Near You (September 12–18)
• A 3-day virtual education event, Virtual Education Curtain Call: Behind the Scenes of Star-Studded CDI Programs (September 23–25)
• Continued news coverage through CDI Strategies and the CDI Journal

For all its disruptions and tragedies, COVID-19 has brought communities together, and ACDIS is proud to be the go-to resource for CDI professionals to receive the ongoing education, support, and guidance all in one place. Learn more about ACDIS by visiting https://acdis.org/.

 

SOURCE ACDIS

WICHITA, Kan., Aug. 4, 2020 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ — Wichita State University Campus of Applied Sciences and Technology (WSU Tech) today announced a new partnership with the inquiry-based discussion platform Packback that will enable instructors and students to access more engaging, dynamic online discussions. As the COVID-19 pandemic reshapes the landscape of higher education, Packback’s unique approach will help WSU Tech enrich online discussions to ensure a meaningful, high-quality learning experience in the wake of the crisis.

«Students were never engaged in the old discussion board formats, but Packback has enabled them to feel more connected to the class — and, more importantly, to each other,» said Vrendra Pritchard, a faculty member in WSU Tech’s allied health department. «Their platform will enable faculty across WSU Tech to maintain quality and level of engagement in our courses — by tapping sophisticated technology to bring more creativity and curiosity to online discussion.»

The initiative comes at a time when colleges and universities across the country are working to grow and strengthen online offerings, as they navigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. In April, WSU Tech froze tuition for the 2020-21 academic year, and also waived all online fees for its summer semester courses, reflecting the institution’s ongoing commitment to affordability and student success.

«At WSU Tech, our students are at the center of everything we do,» said Dr. Sheree Utash, President of WSU Tech. «We are excited to bring this innovative solution to enhance our online classes and overall student experience.»

Founded by college students and backed by entrepreneur Mark Cuban, Packback uses proprietary AI and machine learning technology to provide inquiry-based online discussion to over 2,000 instructors and over 450,000 students, who have posted 12 million questions and responses to date. A soon-to-be-released study conducted in partnership with 10 higher education institutions indicates that students in classes that use Packback are more likely to be engaged in discussion, and are also more likely to report higher levels of satisfaction and higher overall course grades.

«Research indicates that the quality of class discussion is closely related to student engagement and academic performance,» said Kasey Gandham, co-founder of Packback. «WSU Tech is doubling down on its efforts to support students during this crisis by creating online programs that are not only accessible and affordable, but also engaging and academically rewarding.»

 

SOURCE Packback

WATERLOO, Ontario, Aug. 4, 2020 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ — A new data-driven study outlines the complexity of electric vehicle charging behavior and indicates that utility companies need to take seasonal temperate and climate into consideration. Further analysis of the world’s largest electric vehicle data set by FleetCarma, a division of Geotab, showcases that EV charging and driving behavior is highly nuanced and must be examined at a territory specific level.

«The Geography of EV Charging: Understanding how regional climate impacts EV charging and driving behavior» is a newly released study which analysed over 3,900 electric vehicles across North America. By grouping vehicles into one of two groups based on geographic area, North or South, FleetCarma was able to reveal the difference in charging behavior caused by temperature. Summer and Winter months were also compared for both regions to show the implications of seasonal temperature.

Findings from the report reveal that:

• More charging energy is used during colder months even though vehicles are driven less
• Regional and seasonal conditions will influence a vehicle’s charging pattern
• Regardless of region the majority of EV charging occurs at home, however there are differences throughout the year

It is imperative for utilities to fully understand this nuanced information when planning or managing charging infrastructure. Without an in depth analysis of the charging behavior in their service territory they may be making assumptions off of false information, which can have significant financial implications.

The full report can be downloaded here.

 

SOURCE FleetCarma, a division of Geotab

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C., Aug. 4, 2020 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ — Syncfusion, Inc., the developer solutions company of choice, announced today the release of Essential Studio 2020 Volume 2. This release offers the largest set of native Blazor controls on the market, including DataGrid, Charts, Calendar, and more. Also included are new features, compatibility with multiple platforms, and several new components, including three new widgets for Flutter.

«Volume 2 responds to many requests from our developers, including a fully native Blazor suite that supports Blazor WebAssembly, and error bars in Xamarin charts,» said Daniel Jebaraj, CEO of Syncfusion. «These are just a few of the many enhancements that Volume 2 delivers, and we are thrilled to offer them to our growing community.»

The Flutter suite now boasts a preview DataGrid widget. This mode-efficient DataGrid features column types, column sizing, auto row height, cell selection, conditional styling, and dark and light themes. Additionally, users can enjoy new Maps and Slider widgets, plus histogram and spline range charts.

The Xamarin suite continues to expand with a new Signature Pad control, giving users the power to capture and save signatures in mobile apps, and error bars in charts to indicate errors or uncertainty in reported values.

The native Blazor suite, now the largest available, includes the following components:

•     Calendar: Display the date and days of the week with a variety of view options and fully customizable appearance
•     Button: Indicate to users that they can call an action with support for icons, predefined styles, and different button types.
•     Card: Display content in the form of a card to show detailed information in an organized way.
•     Progress Bar: Indicate to users that something is loading, and fully customize the control’s shape, color, state, and more.

Essential JS 2 platform gains new features for existing controls, including:

•     File Manager: An Amazon S3 MVC file provider and access control support for SQL databases.
•     Document Editor: Change tracking and form fields.
•     PDF Viewer: Ink annotations.
•     Spreadsheet: Aggregate view and conditional formatting.

Syncfusion’s desktop tools feature support for. NET 5 Preview 3. In addition, the WPF suite now offers:

•     Brand-new TreeView and Scheduler controls.
•     Office 2019 theme support for all controls.
•     Swim lanes for the Diagram control.

These are just some of the highlights of the Volume 2 release. To see a full list of new controls, features, and enhancements, please visit Syncfusion’s What’s New page. To gain additional insight into these new features, as well as other related topics, subscribe to the Syncfusion blog.

About Syncfusion, Inc.
Syncfusion is the enterprise technology partner of choice for software development, delivering a broad range of web, mobile, and desktop controls coupled with a service-oriented approach throughout the entire application lifecycle. The company has also channeled its data visualization expertise into Bold BI, a simplified yet comprehensive solution for building and delivering business dashboards.

Founded in 2001 and headquartered in Research Triangle Park, N.C., Syncfusion has more than 22,000 customers, including large financial institutions, Fortune 100 companies, and global IT consultancies.

 

SOURCE Syncfusion

DALLAS, Aug. 4, 2020 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ — Alchemi Advisory Group, an information technology, and cybersecurity compliance and audit firm for small and mid-sized businesses, has officially launched with the opening of its first location in Dallas, Texas.

The firm enters the market with a commitment to take the mystery and speculation out of IT audits, assessments, cybersecurity, and regulatory requirements. Alchemi’s founding partners, Gary Pennington, CISA, Steve Grishman, CPA, and Michael Grishman, recognized an increased demand for companies to work with outside IT compliance and audit resources. That trend is likely to continue rising as everyday operations—and in some cases, the future—remains confusing for many businesses.

«In many ways, the downturn in the economy has been a catalyst-to-creation for us,» Pennington said. «Alchemi’s unique service offerings are customized to meet the specialized needs of each client. Our services are designed to help them effectively manage risk in today’s rapidly changing marketplace.»

As a cybersecurity and privacy compliance partner, Alchemi specializes in helping its clients shift from complexity and chaos to efficient, effective processes and practices; and from outdated policies and sub-optimized performance to accelerated business results.

«In today’s uncertain times, the coronavirus pandemic has created a heightened need for businesses to implement tighter internal controls and higher cybersecurity standards, all with reduced resources,» Steve Grishman said. «Organizations are shifting from a relatively controlled office environment to a ‘work from anywhere’ environment, causing cybersecurity and compliance risks to skyrocket. Competing priorities and shrinking budgets have internal resources stretched thin, and we are here to help. As new standards emerge and existing ones change, you can count on one thing—our ability to stay on top of the changes and demystify the road ahead for your enterprise.»

The company plans expand to their business with additional locations already in the works. The Atlanta location is expected fall of 2020.

«We started the Alchemi Advisory Group to create genuine relationships with our clients and help them solve their most challenging business problems and seize opportunities,» Pennington said. «We now have a great opportunity to accelerate our growth in this rapidly-changing market.»

ALCHEMI ADVISORY GROUP’S SERVICES INCLUDE:

AUDIT & ASSURANCE

• SOC 1
• SOC 2
• SOC for CyberSecurity
• SOC for Supply Chain
• NIST 800-171 & CMMC
• ISO 27001
• ISO 27701
• ISO 22301
• ISO 9001

ADVISORY SERVICES

• Enterprise Risk Management
• Business Resiliency & Consulting
• Fractional C-Suite

ABOUT ALCHEMI ADVISORY GROUP
Alchemi Advisory Group provides information technology and cybersecurity assessment, audit, and business continuity consulting, specializing in services for small and mid-sized business enterprises. True to its name, Alchemi removes the mystery and speculation from the audit, assessment, and regulatory processes. Through an Alchemi engagement, clients shift from complexity and chaos to efficient, practical procedures and practices, from outdated policies and sub-optimized performance to accelerated business results. For more information, visit https://thealchemigroup.com/, or email info@thealchemigroup.com, or call (888) 590-1618.

###

If you would like more information about this release, please contact Lori Barber at 214-906-6633 or lorib@lux214.com.

 

SOURCE Alchemi Advisory

SEATTLE, Aug. 4, 2020 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ — Pacvue, an enterprise platform for brands, sellers, and agencies to manage their eCommerce advertising by combining holistic performance data with recommended actions, today released Q2 2020 CPC Report: Amazon Ad Growth Through an Uncertain Market. For the full report, including detailed methodologies and raw data, visit https://www.pacvue.com/q2-2020-cpc-report.

Key findings from the report include:

• Amazon cost-per-clicks (CPCs) dropped in April and May, mainly due to the pandemic, and Amazon delayed shipment on non-essential categories.
• Amazon CPCs rebounded in June to near pre-COVID-19 levels.
• Out-of-stock products, shipping delays, and other complexities caused budget uncertainty.
• Sponsored Brand return on ad spend (ROAS) overtook Sponsored Product ROAS for the first time.

«We created this report as a guide for brands looking to better understand advertising with Amazon during a very uncertain period,» said Melissa Burdick, co-founder and president of Pacvue. «Our data insights show that despite the peak panic buying tailwind, Q2 saw CPCs return to pre-covid levels in most categories on Amazon. However, due to underspent budget with out of stock issues, winding down brick and mortar advertising, etc., we expect to see a surge in competitiveness in the remainder of the year.»

The data in the report is sourced from Pacvue’s proprietary Amazon keyword tracking database, which tracks ASINs from small, mid-sized, and large advertisers and aggregates data across every major product category. The Q2 2020 CPC Report also includes month-to-month data to better display the effects of COVID-19 on Amazon advertising.

With COVID-19 still affecting US spending habits and the overall economy, Q2 of 2020 saw fluctuations in the costs and strategies for advertising on Amazon. Despite lower CPCs and budget uncertainties, ROAS and advertising budgets increased significantly.

The overall drop in CPCs in Q2 can be clearly seen in April and May compared to the spike caused by early COVID panic-buying. This is likely due to COVID contraction as Amazon focused on essential verticals and consumers limited purchases of luxury items. Additionally, the surge of online shopping traffic, combined with the uncertainty of advertisers’ budget, led to cheaper bids. However, June saw a rebound in CPCs as online shopping remained steady and competitiveness across most categories increased.

Despite budget uncertainties, average daily spending increased for both Sponsored Brand ads and Sponsored Product ads.

In Q2 and continuing into Q3, manufacturer shortages in availability of consumer packaged goods (CPG) have led to increased noise in daily pacing. Thanks to improved ROAS, this uncertainty did not see an overall decrease in ad budgets for most industries and instead saw advertisers getting more strategic with their ad spend. For categories which were dark due to lack of inventory, back half budgets are looking robust. This could lead to CPCs increasing in Q3 and Q4 as companies work with inflated budgets.

Despite Amazon’s push for advertisers to adopt new offerings such as Sponsored Display and enhanced Sponsored Brand, these changes have not shown a significant impact on ad strategies. Advertisers with robust foundations continue to focus on the fundamentals of Sponsored Products and static Sponsored Brands and using these new offerings as enhancements. Products such as Sponsored Brand Video are showing good efficiencies and in general these new enhancements are welcome additions to well rounded advertising campaigns..

A closer look at the data insights:

Click-through rate for Sponsored Product ads and Sponsored Brand ads converge in Q2 2020.

• Q2 brings the big gap in CTR for Sponsored Product ads and Sponsored Brand ads to a bare minimum. CTR for Sponsored Brand ads fell from 0.58% in Q1 2020 to 0.44% in Q2 2020. For Sponsored Product ads the change was the opposite – CTR rose from 0.35% to 0.41%.
• CTR for Sponsored Product ads are back at the same level they were a year ago in Q2 2019, and even higher than they were pre-COVID-19 in Q4 2019. Meanwhile, there is a downward trend for CTR for Sponsored Brand ads.
• The average CTR for Sponsored Brand ads over the last five quarters is, however, still significantly higher than for Sponsored Products. The average CTR for Sponsored Brand ads was 0.53% compared to 0.38% for Sponsored Product ads.

ROAS on Sponsored Brand ads surpassed ROAS on Sponsored Product ads.

• With a decline in CPC for both Sponsored Product ads and Sponsored Brand ads, there was an increase in ROAS. Sponsored Brand ads have the biggest quarter-over- quarter growth of 22%, while Sponsored Product ads grew 8% in the same period.
• However, Sponsored Brand ads are the only ones that have positive YoY growth in ROAS in both Q1 2020 (15%) and Q2 2020 (32%). This is also the first time in the last year that ROAS on Sponsored Brand ads surpassed ROAS on Sponsored Product ads.

CPA for Sponsored Brands decreased by almost 25%.

• Sponsored Product ads still have the most cost-efficient performance, but only marginally compared to other quarters. In Q2 2020, CPA for Sponsored Brand ads was $6.91 and $6.45 for Sponsored Product ads.
• For Sponsored Brand ads this is a particularly big change in CPA. In Q1 we saw a CPA of $8.17, which means CPA decreased by almost 25%.

Conversion for Sponsored Brand ads is still better than for Sponsored Product ads.

• The conversion rate for Sponsored Brand ads is higher than for Sponsored Product ads for the second consecutive quarter. The difference between the two increased this quarter despite the fact that both Sponsored Product ads and Sponsored Brand ads decreased QoQ by 11% and 2% respectively.
• When it comes to yearly growth, the situation is quite different. Compared to the same time last year, conversion rates for Sponsored Brand ads grew 33%, while the conversion rate for Sponsored Product ads decreased by 7%.

Average daily spend is increasing for both Sponsored Brand ads and Sponsored Product ads.

• Average daily spend has increased both QoQ and YoY for both ad types. On a quarterly basis, both Sponsored Brand ads and Sponsored Product ads grew by 13% and 14% respectively.
• In terms of a yearly change, daily spend on Sponsored Brand ads has increased dramatically – 78% – compared to 23% for daily spend on Sponsored Product ads.

About Pacvue:
Pacvue is a leading eCommerce SaaS platform that empowers agencies, brands and sellers to programmatically manage and optimize their advertising on Amazon. Created by industry experts, Pacvue combines AI algorithms and specialized eCommerce and advertising expertise to help their customers grow their share of voice, increase sales and improve profitability.

Headquartered in Seattle, the Pacvue team consists of Amazon veterans and eCommerce leaders united by a passion for technology, digital media strategy and data. By combining deep industry knowledge with cutting-edge technology, the company is uniquely positioned to drive dynamic results for their clients, which include up-and-coming to multi-billion-dollar brands, mission-driven companies, international agencies, and everything in between. For more information, visit http://www.pacvue.com.

 

SOURCE Pacvue