If Disney Ran Your Hospital: 9 1/2 Things You Would Do Differently - Book Review

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota

Fred Lee has a great story-telling talent and a unique combination of first-hand experience of working at both hospital and Disney. This book compares their workflows and cultures and teaches us how to design modern hospital patient interactions for success. It turns out that his lessons are directly applicable to our business.

Whenever a medical billing service owner comes to me for "billing software" they usually mean software to manage what they had. I, on the other had, want to understand how their service is designed and delivered and what the practice owner (their customer) and the patient (their customer's customer) would expect. It seems to me that if the billing service is sub-par, outdated, or not profitable, we should consider redesigning it before automating it. I believe that the worst you can do to a poorly delivered service is to scale it up and exacerbate an already negative customer experience by delivering it faster to more customers. This often does not sit well with billing service owners who see my expertise limited to selling my software and see my questions about their business approach and growth, compliance, and convenience as needlessly intrusive.

You would think that a billing service owner has a much more difficult customer than Disney; the risk of client loss is higher; the medical billing environment is much more complex with many more non-standard situations. At Disney, the customers start our happy and excited instead of upset and underpaid. They stand in lines but not worried about their insurance claims, patient referrals, or compliance. They take a ride that's duplicated a million times while every new payer is a unique experience. Meanwhile practice operations, technology, and legal costs are growing. Disney looks like a picnic compared to the nightmare the billing and practice managers face every day in a hostile payer environment over which we have very little of the kind of control we would have at Disney.

Using examples from his work at both Disney and as a senior-level hospital executive, Fred Lee challenges the assumptions that have defined customer service in healthcare. In this unique book, he discovers the key similarities between Disney and hospitals - both provide an "experience," not just a service. It shows how any business can emulate the strategies that earn Disney the trust and loyalty of their guests and employees.

This book also shows how standard service excellence initiatives in healthcare have not led to high patient satisfaction and loyalty, and defines 10 principles to help ant business gain the competitive advantage that comes from being seen as "the best" by their own employees, consumers, and community.

This book is practical and profound. Instantly useful.

Know any health care providers who complain about shrinking insurance payments and increasing audit risk? Help them learn winning Internet strategies for the modern payer-provider conflict by steering them to Vericle - Medical Billing Network and Practice Management Software, which powers such leading-edge billing services as Affinity Billing ( http://www.psychiatry-billing.com/ ) and Billing Dynamix ( http://www.pt-billing.com/ ), and is home for "Medical Billing Networks and Processes" book by Yuval Lirov, PhD and inventor of patents in artificial intelligence and computer security.

Book Review: Outliers

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota

"The thing that distinguishes one performer from another is how hard he or she works. That's it. And what's more, the people at the very top don't work just harder or even much harder than everyone else. They work much, much harder." -Outliers

The tagline of Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell is: The Story of Success. I think that's a topic of interest to most folks and coaches in particular. I've got a story about a teammate of mine who is the definition of the opening quotation.

My teammate, let's call her Susie, was an all-American at the University of Wisconsin, which was a top twenty-five team at the time. She was the best, most skilled, and hardest working player that I knew. She had aspirations beyond collegiate volleyball...Susie wanted to represent our country in the Olympics. She talked to one of our assistant coaches who'd played on the national team about what she should do...and the coach told her to work harder.

I'm telling you, Susie was already the hardest working player on a nationally ranked team! She was our best player, she was the undisputed leader, she was a baller. But if she wanted to move to the next level, Susie needed to work harder.

And if we want to be better, we've got to work harder as well. And so do our athletes.

The rundown: Like Daniel Coyle talked about in The Talent Code, Gladwell identifies ten thousand hours as the magic number for success. It's not just ten thousand hours of casual practice...but motivated, focused, persistent practice. We've probably all coached the athlete who gives up about twenty seconds after we've tried to teach her a new skill. We've got to let her know that "success is a function of persistence and doggedness and the willingness to work hard for twenty-two minutes to make sense of something that most people would give up on after thirty seconds."

Recommended for: Coaches who want to get better and who want their athletes to get better. I believe we all want to put ourselves and our players in the best position to excel and reach our highest potential. This book will motivate us all to put in the work necessary to never have regrets about our achievement level.

Not recommended for: Coaches who believe that hard work is all it takes to be successful. While Gladwell talks about the ten thousand hour rule, he also mentions things that are out of our control that influence success. Things like the month and year we're born, the era in which we're born (if I were a woman fired up about coaching a hundred years ago, I'd be out of luck), affluence or lack thereof, etc.

So, Susie didn't make the Olympic team. As I think back, I wonder what would have happened if she'd stuck with it, because she was almost at her ten thousand hours. Gladwell says that it takes about ten years to reach that threshold...Susie stopped playing in year eight. We didn't know about this kind of stuff back then.

But we do now...let's make sure we're using the information that's available to us.

Dawn Redd is the Head Volleyball Coach at Beloit College. Come visit Coach Dawn's community of coaching nerds and team leaders over at her blog, http://www.coachdawnwrites.com/, where she teaches how to become an excellent coach, motivate individuals, and build successful teams.

Her book, Coach Dawn's Guide To Motivating Female Athletes, is available for purchase on her website.

Follow Coach Dawn on Twitter: @CoachDawnWrites

Moonwalking With Einstein

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota

Have you ever wondered who the world's smartest person is? In a world that celebrates the antics of the world's strongest people very little time is given to those who excel in mental pursuits. Such antipathy for mental prowess put Joshua Foer on a quest to find out who might fit the bill of world's smartest person. When he began his quest, he did not discover who the smartest person was in the world...rather he was introduced to the world of the mental athletes.

Foer's path crossed with the like of memory champions Ben Pridemore, who could memorize gargantuan amounts of numerical digits and the layout of five decks of cards in just a few minutes. Such mental prowess piqued Foer's curiosity and set the journalist within ablaze to discover all he could about their techniques. His quest propelled him along a path which would ultimately culminate in his competition in the U.S. Memory Championship.

This trek placed him in the pathway of interesting individuals-such as Britain's Tony Buzan, an educational consultant who is credited with developing the "mind mapping" technique of taking notes. After meeting with Buzan, Foer enlisted the help of a youthful United Kingdom memory competitor, Ed Cooke, to coach him and prepare him for the U.S. Memory Championship. At Ed's behest, Foer dove into available literature-finding references to mnemonic techniques from around the fifth century BC. Not wanting to leave any stone unturned, Foer also tracks down Kim Peek, the inspiration for the character in Dustin Hoffman's Rain Main, to determine if there were any memory techniques he could glean from an obvious savant..

Foer unearthed techniques many refer to as building a memory palace which allowed him to "store" information spatially along routes of which he was familiar. Want to learn a list of 75 words? No problem. Imagine walking through your house and assigning these words in bizarre contexts (include the most sensory stimulation you can) along the pathway. Suppose the first item is an aardvark...you might place the inconspicuous fellow outside your mailbox juggling the second word you need to remember. Then, when called upon to regurgitate the list you would simply walk through these pre-constructed locations and recall the mental images. Foer used this very technique to place in key events and ultimately win the 2006 National Memory Championship. Not only did he win, he set a new U.S. record by memorizing a deck of playing cards in a minute and 40 seconds.

Although the title seems a little bizarre, it is not until you are reading his blow-by-blow account of the championship that you realize that one of his "mental images," was Foer moonwalking with Einstein to help remember a playing card. After the championship, Foer settled back into journalism and is not sure that his overall memory was changed very much.

This book is commended as a good read of an interesting memory challenge.

But wait, where did I put my car keys?

Popular Ebooks on Collectible Toys

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota

Kids play with puzzles, soft toys, Hot Wheels cars and marbles in their childhood, to name a few. Even after growing up, they can reminisce their childhood memories with all these things as they always remain close to the heart. People who have interest in collecting antique toys can buy popular collectible toys ebooks from any trustworthy ebook shop. These collectible toys ebooks have all the important information that a collector needs to know while buying collectible items.

One of the famous collectible toys ebooks is Hot Wheels Variations ebook. Written by Michael Zarnock, it is considered interesting and useful youngsters and adults alike. The book makes readers aware of the variations between two similar Hot Wheels cars. Whether it is a different wheel, different colour enamel, interior or base, these differences can mean a lot to collectors. Hot Wheels Variations ebook includes the model made by Mattel between 1989 and 2008. The 4th edition of this book is the best collector's guide and has the largest and most comprehensive classification and prices of more than 5,500 cars listed in it. It includes chronologically listed cars from 1989-2002 and numerically arranged models from 2003-2008. 3,100 identification photos are arranged in this book systematically, which makes it easy to identify vehicles.

Apart from Hot Wheels Variations ebook, Collecting Antique Marbles ebook by Paul Baumann is also a known name among the young and adult collectors. Thinking of marbles instantly takes readers down the memory lane of childhood and adolescence. This book proves to be an excellent source of references on marbles. Collecting Antique Marbles ebook not only gives recent values of old marbles in the market, but also provides reader with useful collecting tips and advice. The book contains colourful pictures of some of the rarest and most sought after marbles in the world and gives information about identification of marbles. Collectors can find history of different types of marbles as well as their manufacturers, along with crucial details on identifying fakes.

Collectors can also take reference from Totally Tubular '80s Toys ebook written by Mark Bellomo. The captivating book is filled with toys of super heroes and other such characters. Readers will get to know everything about toys of He Man, Ninja Turtles, Trivial Pursuit, Cabbage Patch Kids, Transformers, Rubik's Cube, Pac-Man and Mario Bros: Donkey Kong in this complete collectible toys reference ebook. The book features the greatest toys of the 1980s, colour photos of around 500 amazing toys and list of the top 10 TV shows and movies. This ebook can be bought at competitive prices at any reputed ebook shop on the World Wide Web.

Author Bio: We're so glad you want to know more about us. Let's see... first thing about us - we love reading! We noticed that the world was moving towards a more. Eco-friendly, digital way of reading - the world of Ebooks. That's where we came in. OnlineBookPlace.com- Your Community Ebook Store.

Our vision: to bring together people who love reading and provide them with an affordable, convenient and intuitive way to discuss and buy Ebooks.

Book Review: The Cross Dresser's Wife

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota

Non-fiction/Essays
The Cross Dresser's Wife: Our Secret Lives
Dee A. Levy and B. Sheffield Hunt
CreateSpace
2011
Pages: 150

In the Cross Dresser's Wife: Our Secret Lives, Dee A. Levy and B. Sheffield Hunt share the stories of women who were married to or in relationships with men who enjoy wearing women's clothing. While there is great controversy and prejudice associated with this type of behavior, this book-which manifested from the stories told in the forum on which the book is titled -is about so much more than men who wear women's lingerie. The stories in this book speak to the consuming devastation of emotional abuse, the absolute necessity that women perceive themselves as whole in and outside of a relationship, and the damage a family can endure when one person's obsession becomes so huge that it consumes everything in its path.

"The Queen of Denial" is the first story in the book and compared to the other four, it is the mildest. After ending a twenty year marriage to a philanderer, the story teller (only the writers' forum names are provided) remarries and in the early months of her relationship discovers that her new husband secretly dresses in women's clothing. This essay opens the door for the more outrageous stories that follow.

"The Golden Nugget" introduces the reader to the damage that cross dressing can inflict on a long term marriage. In this piece, the wife is first exposed to her husband's fetish by way of his affinity for satin sheets which soon turns into a request to wear her underwear. This essay is a perfect example of how the women in this book sacrifice their own needs to accommodate their husbands. That sacrifice takes on the form of physical and emotional abuse in "Gaslighting." It is the longest story in the book and the most painful to read. The author of this story nearly loses her sanity and her health to the mental and physical trauma caused by her husband's cross dressing and sexual habits.

The men in each of the essays expresses to his partner that cross dressing doesn't hurt anyone. As Levy's own story reveals ("Mr. Wonderful"), cross dressing consumes the man's focus. The harm begins even before the man opens up about his desire to wear women's clothing or uses his wife as a prop in his sexual fantasies. These men hurt the women in their lives when they made the decision not to reveal their true selves in the very beginning of their relationships.

The Cross Dresser's Wife is an honest look into the lives of women who have loved men with an unusual fascination with women's clothing. The stories in the book report on the abuse that can occur in this type of relationship. Fortunately, the essays also share how woman can free themselves from abuse. While this is a difficult book to read, it is also a source of hope. I highly recommend it.

Melissa Brown Levine
for
Independent Professional Book Reviewers

Melissa Brown Levine is the author of "I Need to Make Promises: A Novella and Stories" http://www.melissabrownlevine.com/

Park Flying 1-2-3D

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota

Summary

Park Flying 1-2-3D leads pilots from the basics of learning to fly through to advanced aerobatic and 3D maneuvers.

The Good

The author, David Scott, runs a popular RC flight school. He is also an experienced full-size airplane aerobatic pilot. He has what I call "been there, done that" in spades. His book is best when talking about flying, and every single page where he does that convinced me that this guy knows what he is talking about. The book is packed full of hints, tips, and observations that only come from years and years of experience.

The book is profusely illustrated. Nice diagrams of different model airplanes in flight are often combined with diagrams of the appropriate control stick positions. These combinations are very effective.

The writing style is good. It's all very legible and easy to read. I can easily imagine Mr. Scott standing next to me at the flying field talking me through each maneuver and giving me tips all along the way.

The Bad

The book is only about 100 pages long and costs over $20. On the surface, "bang for the buck" appears to be low. I hesitated to buy a copy in the first place because of the price. Having bought it, I'm happy with my purchase. You don't need hundreds of pages to cover the subject. The book is spiral bound, which I appreciated to be able to hold it in front of me while using an RC flight simulator. I'm sure the binding method added to the printing costs.

At the bottom of many pages he has the abbreviation "KPTR" followed some good advice. It was driving me nuts, because I had no idea what KPTR meant! I finally tracked the definition down to one of the introductory pages: key point to remember. Doh! Using just "Tip" or even better, some sort of graphic, would have been preferable.

The Ugly

The book states that many foam park flyers use flat-plate airfoils. That may have been the case years ago, but I cannot think of a single current commercial foam park flyer design that uses a flat-plate airfoil. Even most of the scratch-built designs use something else. The foamy designs have just gotten more sophisticated over time.

The book also states that flat-plate airfoils tend to be unstable when compared to other airfoils. Flat-plates have sharp stalls, but the overall stability on an airplane is mostly due to other factors besides the airfoil. Much later on in the book he clarifies that he was talking about abrupt stalls.

The page on balancing your airfoil just had me shaking my head. The comments made on that page are only valid if you are working with a very conventional airplane design. This fact needed to at least be mentioned. If you have an unusual airfoil or a canard, for example, then following the advice on that page will lead to very bad results.

It gets worse. On the page on control functions, the book states that ailerons are optional on under-cambered or flat-bottomed wings. That's like saying that a door has to be painted white if it opens to the outside. One thing has absolutely nothing to do with the other. This was not just an oversimplification, but a very misleading statement.

Conclusion

Despite my misgivings about the accuracy of the technical background pages, I strongly recommend this book. It is excellent at what it set out to do: helping you become a better park flyer pilot. The explanations of the more complex and trickier maneuvers are specially good. If there's an aerobatic maneuver (including 3D ones) that you have been trying to master and are having trouble, I can make no better recommendation that to buy and read this book.

http://www.rcadvisor.com/ founder - Home of the best model airplane calculator. Free!

Author of RCadvisor's Model Airplane Design Made Easy and other books.

Host of Ask the RCadvisor in the free weekly http://www.thecrashcast.com/ podcasts.

AMA Scientific Leader and Contest Director #4601.

A History of the World In 100 Objects - Book Review

There was once a saying at the height of the British Raj in India (colonial occupation) that "Mad Dogs and Englishmen Go Out in the Noon Day Sun," however, something similar can be applied to Britain's historical establishment because nothing will stop them from looking at the history of man in some very different ways.

Take Neil MacGregor's work where he studies the History of the World in 100 Objects. That's right, the director of the British Museum out-minimalized the super-minimalists, who thinks nothing of finding the fewest arguments or gadgets available to prove a point. It's like motorcycle historians who neatly boil that particular branch of motoring into "petrol" and "non-petrol," with "real" motorcycles as having a four-stroke "petrol" engine and the rest of the world just pretenders.

That they have forgotten the seminal work of Roper and Copeland, as well as Michaud, the engineer who made the motorcycle possible when he realized that two wheels of the same size and a real steering fork are necessary for safe two-wheeling. Yet the contributions of these men are neatly glossed over.

However MacGregor's history works to an astonishing degree. If you look at the firm examples he uses to back up his thesis, it is not as bizarre an idea as one might think.

Take the many shards of and clay pots found in the ancients city-states that were built on earlier cities as they rose from the plains of the Indus or Ganges rivers. The pot here or the tablet there that connects the dots to the pots in the holds of Phoenician traders who spread their culture across the ancient world. It shows that, while many in the historical establishment look down their rather long pince nez glasses at a "popular historian" like MacGregor, they cannot escape the fact that he's often right.

For example, the great statuary of the Greeks and their temples - one idea or two, the choice is yours; MacGregor would likely think they are linked as they define the period of Greek history in which they appeared, as well as for the millennium to follow, even through the rise of Persia and Syracuse and the Romans.

The Romans took the flower of Greek thinking and overlayed it on their "Republic," Aristotelian or Euclidean thought and objects to produce an empire that did last nearly 1,000 years and even survived a period of 100 Caesars in 100 years. The refinement of the Greek school of art and its advancement and morphing under Rome, along with the perfection of thought and the invention of the "sciences" of "history" and "sociology" and the strictures that they exposed are just two more examples of the direction of history.

The development and perfection of illumination by the Church and the many Holy Scribes and monks whose work each day was a page, if they were lucky, saved many of the great early works of man and our history. Illumination and the art of penmanship were two more objects along the way which strongly defined the direction of history and thought and all one has to do is look at them to know their means.

The real revolution comes with the introduction to the West of moveable type of the 15th Century invention of the printing press where, at once, thought could be made available to the masses, not just the nobility. What a concept, the masses learning to read and knowing as much as their "betters." That invention, in itself, and the revolution in though that spun off of it shows that MacGregor is quite right. If you look at the history of the west, it can be defined by 100 distinct objects, including such silly-looking objects as the king's throne made of hunting rifles.

Right there you have two engines of domination, the rifle with which the nobility could shoot their fill and still subjugate the local populace. In the wrong hands, though, history took another turn, didn't it? Imagine the combination of the cannon, rifle and printing press and you have all of the makings of even more revolution.

Then add in the "mechanical muscle" provided by the waterwheel and Canals which helped to speed the spread of thought. Of course, this led to experimentation in other areas such as those of Faraday and Morse and the invention of the telegram so that the world was instantly smaller.

That, in turn, led to more sophisticated printing plants and electronics, computers, the Internet and Worldwide Web.

Each, if you look closely at it, is merely an outgrowth of earlier work that was built on one or two elements of an earlier period. This is why the entertaining and witty MacGregor's work, an Amazon Best Book, works so well. It shows that, indeed, the history of western thought and man can be defined by just 100 objects.

It may look like a real stretch when you first crack the back of the book - yes real print and books - although sometimes you are limited to an eReader versions (there's just something missing) - but it's not as MacGregor shows why he is considered one of the wittiest and insightful historians of his generation. It's an interesting theory that he carries off.

Roberto Sedycias works as an IT consultant for ecommUS-Books