IF INTERESTED in the internship below, apply via UMBCworks ASAP or send your resume to Christine Routzahn, Director of Internship through the Shriver Center at routzahn@umbc.edu

The internship is with Baltimore County Public Schools, School of Social Work Services and works with a homeless shelter that is located next to Franklin Square Hospital in Rosedale.  The internship is part-time (about 8-10 hours per week) and is unpaid.  Potential credit is available depending on your major.

Description of Function:   Providing support to the school social work program interventions to students and families experiencing homelessness in a Baltimore County Shelter setting, the intern will collect data on the effectiveness of those interventions on increasing engagement activities of students and families in local schools. Engagement activities such as attendance at parent-teacher conferences; parental use of email to communicate with teachers; and video/telephone conferencing will be reviewed.  In addition, the intern will participate in a Read-Aloud program with parent-child and collect satisfaction surveys to determine impact of affective bonding around reading as an engagement strategy for an after school activity in a homeless shelter. 

Other Responsibilities:

·         The intern will a literature search and compile articles related to using reading as an engagement strategy for  children and families experiencing homelessness who reside in homeless shelters.

·         The intern will locate community resources to partner with the school social workers and write letters to solicit support for refreshments for parents participating in a psycho-educational group.

·         The intern will be required to complete observations, record findings, visit schools with school social workers, and maintain records of activities.

·         The intern will be required to complete recordings of the Read-Aloud sessions, administer surveys, consent forms, and collate results.

·         The intern will need to work closely with school social work supervisor and collaborate with Research and Accountability Department, with Student Data, and pupil personnel workers to obtain information and coordinate activities.

Requirements:

·         The individual must be able to work with a diverse group of individuals of different socio-economic backgrounds.

·         The individual must be able to work some evening hours for the Read Aloud Group. The hour for the Read Aloud is 5:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m.

·         The individual must have their own transportation.

By Mario Hyland

Senior Vice President,

AEGIS

Date/Time: Thursday, November 8, 2012 7:10 pm Location: ITE 459, UMBC

AEGIS.Net Inc. is a CMMI and ISO rated consulting firm with a focus on Healthcare IT and interoperability, defining interoperability standards, procedures, and helping to ensure quality of care given to patients. Their clients include the VA with the VLER initiative, Office of the National Coordinator, the Healtheway eHealth exchange and the Interoperability Work Group (IWG), and Meaningful Use Standard testing through NIST. Mario has led the efforts at these initiatives to ensure interoperability and organizations adhere to the standards and specifications as produced by the governing bodies.

Aegis recently was selected by the National Institute of Standards and Technology to establish a health IT test infrastructure that verifies conformance and interoperability with industry standards as part of meaningful use of electronic health records (EHRs). The NIST $6.25 million contract award is one example of the recognition and rising importance of testing for interoperability to make sure that health IT systems have standards in place according to specifications and can effectively exchange information.

The initial emphasis of the NIST contract will be on testing the standards for meaningful use, but it will also provide test tools to support electronic health record communication and electronic clinical document exchanges, such as for e-prescribing, lab results, immunization and patient administration, as health care moves in that direction, according to a recent NIST announcement in Federal Business Opportunities.

In another testing effort, Aegis.net is partnering with the Certification Commission for Health Information Technology (CCHIT) to use its testing software, the Aegis Developers Integration Lab, to test interoperability for the EHR/HIE Interoperability Workgroup, an effort led by the New York eHealth Collaborative (NYeC) that includes 15 states and 34 health information exchanges (HIEs). Aegis will work with CCHIT to make sure that the interfaces are consistent between the health IT and HIEs across multiple states and systems.

The open source Developers Integration Lab (DIL) is the heart of Aegis' testing, according to Mario Hyland, senior vice president and founder of Rockville, Md.-based Aegis.Net Inc. Hyland spoke with Government Health IT while at the Oct. 17 conference of the Open Source Electronic Health Record Agent (OSEHRA), a non-profit organization formed to modernize VistA for open source and to contribute to the VA-Defense Department's integrated electronic health record (iEHR). Aegis.net is a participant.

By: Pamela Andrade

Hurricane Sandy has passed, but new information about the storm is still rolling in. Here are some of the most shocking numbers you should know.

The New York City Marathon was projected to generate $340 million before Mayor Michael R Bloomberg canceled the historic event on Friday. The race has taken place every year since 1970, and was even held in 2001 after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

$30 million in federal funds have been allocated for storm cleanup alone, with an additional $29 million going towards highway reconstruction. Lawmakers estimate that a full recovery from the storm will be a multibillion-dollar effort.

According to Twitter, people sent over 20 million tweets about the storm during the past week. Tweets mentioning the Red Cross increased by 30%.

As many as 20,000 flights were canceled due to the storm, leaving many tourists stranded at airports. Airlines have lost an estimated $200 million.

Eatons Neck, N.Y. reported wind gusts of 96 mph during the peak of the storm. Other areas in Long Island also experienced gusts over 90 mph.

The death toll in New York City reached 41 on Friday. The United States and Canada combined have seen almost 100 lives taken by the storm.

Richwood, W.V. experienced 36 inches of snow. At least three individuals died in weather-related accidents or during cleanup after the storm passed.

Staff members from NYU Langone Medical Center carried 20 babies down nine flights of stairs during an evacuation after the power went out. Nurses manually squeezed bags full of air into the mouths of four newborns who had been on respirators.

Storm surges reached as high as 14.38 feet at Kings Point, N.Y. Heights of 13.88 feet were reported from The Battery, Lower Manhattan.

At one point, 10 pictures per second with the hashtag #sandy were being uploaded to Instagram.