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The days of filing out forms in the doctor’s office could soon be over.
Satyam announced last week they are investing one million dollars in a new applied innovation project at Mohawk College involving electronic health records. The goal is that no matter what doctor’s office you happen to go to they will already have your medical information so you will not have to fill out any paperwork.
This is the world’s first initiative to develop an electronic system for healthcare records, and as the Senior Vice President a project that could make lives easier for Canadians. The prototype will allow for online transfer of your medical information between hospitals, family physicians and home care providers.
“This will mean that you will be universally known wherever you go for healthcare. No matter where you go to there will already be your information in the computer database. The hope is that we will be able to produce the first prototype in three months,” said Gary Teelucksingh, Senior Vice President of Satyam Computer Services.
Satyam programmers in India along with a team of Mohawk faculty and students are working at the Satyam iEHR Centre to work on this new healthcare project. Also included with Satyam new one million dollar investment is a research centre located in the I-Wing of Fennell Campus here at Mohawk College.
This type of project could help save lives, as one person describes maybe the difference between life and death..
“ I just moved here from Vancouver a few months ago and have not had the time to find a family physician. It just so happened I got into a car accident and was unconscious when I was rushed to hospital, I am severely allergic to penicillin which the doctors didn’t know because I don’t wear a medical alert bracelet. Luckily a friend who was with me, but not hurt as bad as I was, was able to tell the doctors about it. God only knows what would happen if he wasn’t with me, because if the doctor’s gave me even the smallest dose of penicillin, I probably wouldn’t be here,” said Becky Sinclair.
You may wonder why this type of thing has not been already done. The Minister of Innovation says that the technology just was not there in the past to develop this project.
“Our ability to develop the hardware to be able to support the things we were needing to do, to electronically link healthcare records is now just getting up to the point that we can truly look at it and say we can do this,” said Bob Delaney, Assistant to Minister of Innovation.
There are approximately 2,000 healthcare transactions every minute in Canada requiring documentation and personal information.
It was a day that 25 people and their families will probably remember for the rest of their lives.
For these 25 people last Tuesday marked the day that they received their Canadian Citizenship at Mohawk College. Mohawk is the first college in Ontario and the second college in Canada to partner up with the Institute for Canadian Citizenship and getting new Canadians their citizenship.
One of the guests who were invited in to join on this event was MPP of Hamilton Mountain, Sophia Aggelonitis. Aggelonitis family who immigrated here many years ago said she knew how this experience must feel for the 25 people.
“My family immigrated from Greece almost 60 years ago and have absolutely loved living here in Canada. My parents have told me that becoming a Canadian Citizen has become a major highlight of their life. When I was invited to attend this event I was thrilled and very honored, because for these 25 individuals, their lives will be changed forever. This is truly a very special day and Mohawk College should be very proud of themselves for hosting this event,” said MPP Hamilton Mountain, Sophia Aggelonitis.
It was also a memorable day for the judge who presided over this ceremony.
“This is a big moment in the lives of these 25 individuals and their families. It is a big honor for me when I do these events and when I see the smile on their faces when they receive their certificates of Citizenship, I know it means a lot to them as well. Hopefully this will be a life changing experience for them and they can take the opportunities they will now have here in Canada and be able to do what they can to change their lives for the better. I am very proud to be here at Mohawk College today to preside over this event,” said Judge Robert M. Morrow.
The Institute for Canadian Citizenship (ICC) was established in 2006 by former Governor General, Adrienne Clarkson, and John Ralston Saul. The ICC is a national non-profit organization that institutes projects to foster discussion and understanding of the values associated with Canadian Citizenship and to bridge the gap between new and established citizens. One of the ICC’s main projects is the Community Citizenship Initiative aimed at creating more personable and memorable citizenship ceremonies.
Mohawk College hosts citizenship ceremonies twice a year.
As the season will soon be over in the N.B.A. the Raptors will soon be set for an even greater challenge: trying to win in the playoffs.
As it stands right now it looks like the Raptors will be facing either the Orlando Magic or the Detroit Pistons. Neither option looks very promising for the Raptors in postseason play.
In the Pistons you have one of the best teams in the league, led by Chauncey Billups and Richard Hamilton, they have one of the best backcourts in the entire league. Add Tayshaun Prince, and who I think is the defensive player of the year in Rasheed Wallace and this could spell doom for the Raptor’s Nation. The biggest problem for the Raptor’s if they face Detroit will be Wallace’s defense on Chris Bosh. Most plays will revolve Bosh getting the ball anywhere on the court, Wallace has the range to cover him anywhere, and make Bosh give up the ball. The big problem is the Raps don’t have a consistent second scoring option. Sometimes it’s Anthony Parker sometimes it T.J. Ford or Jose Calderon, but none of these players motioned can be counted on to score 25 points a night. Also, Wallace is well known for hitting long range jumpers or three’s, Bosh will have to guard him very closely so Wallace does not get an open look. This will lead to easy offensive rebounds for the Pistons as Bosh is clearly the best rebounded on the team by far. If you try to switch Bosh off Wallace will just blow by any other defender the Raptors put in front of him.
The back court will also be a tough challenge for the Raptors to deal with as Chauncey Billups is much stronger than either T.J Ford or Jose Calderon. Billups will be able to back down his defenders in the paint to score easy buckets or pass the ball over to a wide open teammate.
If they face the Orlando Magic the most obvious problem is Dwight Howard. No team in the league can really stop this guy, the only hope is to slow him down. The Raptor’s do have a glimmer of hope in Rasho Nesterovic, he has been in the league a long time, and knows how to win. He has been playing some of his best basketball in the last few months and is not intimidated by Howard. If Nesterovic gets in foul trouble early, then the Raps are in trouble. Andrea Bargnani has looked lost all year long, and has never gotten his confidence back from his rookie season. The Raptors will also have to contend with guarding Hedo Turkoqlu and sweet-shooting Rashard Lewis. Even though Lewis is not nearly worth the money he got in the off season he is still a dangerous threat and when he is hot and make his shot from anywhere on the court. Jamario Moon will have his hands full all day trying to guards these players closely. The Raps will have an advantage on the backcourt and neither Jameer Nelson or Carlos Arroyo are N.B.A starters.
With countries like Kandahar and Afghanistan in severe crisis due to their lack of clean water, will there ever be a time where Canada is in the same situation as well? Has Canada done enough to preserve this water situation?
This is a short blog about Richard Giles’ situation, he is a teacher at Mohawk College who helped with the Satellite newspaper. He used to write a column for the Satellite, and a few weeks ago he stopped. There was some controversy as to why he has stopped.
First of all let me state that I’m an old school type of guy, since I’m the oldest student in the class by 15 to 20 years. I remember the good old days, when I wanted to talk to somebody I used to call them. Or even something crazy like visit them. I know, especially being a journalist, I have to change with the times, and hey I’ll even admit it I like word-press. I enjoy the fact that I am learning more about how to write a proper webblog. I think it is important that we learn how to do those things. But when is it too much?
That day for me came about two and a half weeks ago when I was in Advanced Social Journalism class. We were forced to add websites like Delicious, Digg and Twitter. That was the end of my demise. As a small part of me died inside I tried to link these websites together so I could learn something about them.
The first kick in the stomach came in the form of Twitter. Some call it the next great thing in web 2.0 as you can see in this clip.
Listen its great that people like this website, me I just don’t get it. What’s it’s real purpose? To me it doesn’t do anything differently than what a cell phone can do for you. Also a major problem with this website was that having a terrible time to log into it and search for people. Which led to my terrible mental state, which I am in right now.
Next up was Del.icio.us. What does this website do that Facebook doesn’t do ten times better? I look at this website as the ugly step sister to Facebook, and believe me Facebook has become a way for people to stalk others online, which isn’t so good. But still I’d use that website over del.icio.us any day of the week.
Is web 2.0 the way of the future? Regretibly I’d have to say yes on this answer. But are these websites like del.icio.us going to be the next best thing, I don’t think so. Every single day there’s going to be improvements or new websites that are going to capture people’s imaginations. Look at Facebook for example, three years ago no one had even heard of this website, and now look every man, woman and child has it. Except for Andy Baker. But he will succomb to the tempations sooner or later. But it might not matter soon what people think of web 2.0, because as we all know about technology, change is always around the corner.
As I turn on the news once again and have to hear another Heath Ledger report done, not in the entertainment section but at the top of the news hour I start asking myself is this the type of field I’ll be working in? Don’t get me wrong it’s terrible that Heath Ledger died, I feel sorry for his family and especially his young daughter. But common how many of thousands of people die each day from drug overdoses and don’t get any mention of them whatsoever? I have no problem with this sort of stuff being on the entertainment section of the newscast, but personally I would rather hear about what’s going on in Afghanistan.
There are so much other real news going on in the world, do we really need to focus this much time on Ledger’s death? I mean some stations are devoting 10-15mins of their entire show on this one person’s tragedy. Let shows like Entertainment Tonight or The Insider deal with this subject. I don’t want to keep listening to this on stations like CNN.
The news it seems today is more focused on what’s going on in Hollywood than what’s the actual real news. I’m not going to lie I like to know what’s going on in entertainment, but I believe there is a time and place for this sort of thing. I mean do people really care that much about where Heath Ledger is having his funeral take place? I have a hard time believing that so many people would be that interested in that.
Even as I turn on the news this morning, a couple of days after his death, it is still one of the top stories. I got so bored listening to the same thing I just decided to turn off the T.V and start blogging. The question I keep asking myself is how much is too much?
My goals for this course is mainly to learn more about computers and the internet. I am not very strong in this field so hopefully by the time this course is over with I will be a lot stronger.
THUD! And with that I am thrown on the floor of my father’s boat by a crashing wave. As I look up and stare into the sky I see a seagull looking back at me and I truly believe he’s laughing at my situation. I stumbled back only to have another wave smack the boat and have the cold Atlantic Ocean spray bone chilling water on my face. A friendly reminder that I am not in Ontario anymore.
Only 48 hours before this I was finishing up the last newscast of 2007, for my Journalism program. I was relieved to have finished for the semester as I knew in two days I would be back home, in Nova Scotia, lobstering for my father.
As I walked off the airplane into the bitter coldness I knew I’d be in for one hell of a ride this year. The weather this winter has been the worst most people living here have ever seen. There is a part of me regretting coming home, knowing that for the next 3 weeks I’d be freezing my ass off. My fears turned to reality the next day as we start hauling the traps at about 5 o’clock in the morning. I kept saying to myself, is the weather really this bad or am I getting soft? Probably because the answer is somewhere in between.
As the first day finished up I was ever so grateful to be going home for the night. I was just inches away from just falling over the boat as I slipped on some ice almost falling overboard. I figured out years ago if I were ever to fall overboard I would be swimming with the fishes for a long time, as I would probably drown. This is one of the most dangerous jobs in the world and you always need to pay attention. I did it for a split second and almost paid the ultimate price.
It is now a week into lobstering and I’m starting to get into the groove, but my back is killing me so badly that I crawl into bed as soon as I get home taking four Tylenol to try and get some sleep. I fall asleep knowing that in two days its Christmas and I will be getting come much needed rest. The next day I awake to find it a beautiful day as we start hauling our lobster traps we see the sun come out and no wind at all, what a perfect sight. I would almost say this was close to a perfect day as one could get for this time of year. Lobstering can get extremely brutal, there’s the long hours, back braking work, the threat of falling overboard, the loneliness of being stuck with one person for 14 hours a day – and than there’s the bad parts.
But none of these things matter on day like today, these days reminds me of the good things like having peace and quiet, making money and not thinking about assignments and homework.
The holidays have now come and went. Every year it seems to go by quicker and quicker as the day’s role by I start to miss my class mates a little more. My back has started getting better but the weather has started getting worse. It really shouldn’t be a surprise now that it is January. The lobstering season has been a successful one as all the boats have caught a good number of lobsters this season and no one has died.
As I get my things packed and than my father for my pay I take one last look at the Atlantic Ocean, ever thankful that I am going back to Hamilton in one piece. I am reminded of the people that weren’t as lucky in years past whose bodies sleep in the Ocean, and am thankful for at least one more year to be out of the dead zone.
