What We Learned About Our Community

Today we heard from Amy Foley, Executive Director of NAMI – Clermont County (National Alliance on Mental Illness – Clermont County). NAMI is involved with A Phoenix Place and Amy talked about the support they provide for those living with mental illness.

1 out of 4 persons suffers from mental illness (MI) in a given year. NAMI helps sufferers and their families. MI is very common but STIGMA keeps people from talking about MI. Stigma is the biggest barrier to treatment.

Amy handed out a brochure on NAMI Education Programs. NAMI provides a forum, support, encouragement, treatment, monthly support meetings, a Family To Family 12-Week Class (for caregivers), and a Peer To Peer 10-Week Class for Individuals. NAMI is also working with the Sheriff to help persons with MI transition from jail to society. This is called, The "Double Trouble" group and is supported by the Sheriff for offenders with mental illness plus criminal behavior. There are forming and established support groups, including a Veteran's group.

Members of NAMI are families, friends and people living with mental illness such as major depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) , panic disorder, post traumatic disorder (PTSD) and borderline personality disorder.

Amy is the only paid staff and the organization relies on volunteers. The board is seeking new members of the board as well as volunteers that will be trained in Columbus or Cleveland. NAMI receives 50% of its funds from an annual walk in October and the rest from the State. For more, contact Amy at 513-528-5500 or www.nami-cc.org It was a pleasure to have Amy speak at our meeting. She is a delightful person and a passionate advocate.

What We Learned About Our Community

Today we heard from Clermont County Commissioner David Uible who spoke on some county projects on which he has been working.

Ivy Pointe Commerce Park – TQL expansion, Ivy Pointe Lofts will build a luxury apartment complex, Children's Hospital has purchased property, and 8 acre park called Ivy Pointe Park

Convention and visitors bureau – this organization, which gets around $500k per year in hotel sales tax is currently being redeveloped.

Reducing health care costs for county employees – creating savings and healthier employees. They will save about $500k in 2013.

Law library – The 1804 Ohio Revised Code requires every county to have a law library. Ours is housed in the Ohio Common Pleas Courthouse. With access to legal information online, our law library is not being utilized and also has 3 full-time employees.

Veteran's Services – over the years their directors have been paid six figure income. The board of directors also was also the highest paid board of directors in the State of Ohio.

The Clermont County Jail System – 70% of our county budget is spent on law enforcement. Half of our jail cannot be opened due to funding. Recently legislation was passed allowing non-violent, addicted offenders to be placed in certain counseling centers. Talbert house has agreed to open the other half through funds which are available to them. Warren, Butler and Brown counties will also pay to send people to this program. This will become a profitable venture for the county.

Next week we will hear from Amy Foley, President of NAMI who will speak about mental Health issues, early intervention techniques and treatment strategies.

What We Learned About Our Community

Today we heard from Tom Rocklin of Siemens.

Siemens provides software solutions to large and small companies to help them with their mechanical engineering and design operations. All 30 of the major vehicle manufacturers on the planet use their software to design their vehicles. In the 1970's, Siemens SDRC also developed a shake table to simulate an earthquake so they could evaluate the seismic concerns of the day.

This part of the company, established as SDRC of Fairfax, began in 1967; and Tom has been with them since 1972, which was the first year they had a computer on site. Many of the founders were teachers at the University of Cincinnati. It took 7 years to design their first car and get it into production which was way too long. Today, they can do it in about 18 months. Their first major shareholder was US Steel Corporation which provided funding for marketing and research. In 1973 they opened an office in Detroit, in 1975 in San Diego, in 1976 in London, in 1977 in Paris, in 1978 in Milford, OH, and in 1980 in Germany. In 1981 the began a joint venture with General Electric and became a publicly traded company in 1987. They opened an office in South Korea in 1989 and in India and Spain in1990. In 2001 SDRC was sold to EDS for $950 million and spun off to another company in 2004 and became UGS. Finally, in January of 2007, this company which was founded by a few guys from Clermont County was purchased by Siemens for $3.5 billion. They currently employ about 650 people in Clermont County.

Next week we will hear from Commissioner David Uible who will speak about county priorities and budget preview for 2013.

What We Learned About Our Community

Today we heard from Dave Swart, President of Health Chain Solutions. A copy of his power point presentation can be found here. 

Dave began by stating that many are confused about health care. There is a $2.7 trillion dollar marketplace which is projected to quickly grow to $3.4 trillion. Over 30 million people are without health insurance. We are currently filtering dollars into an ineffective, high cost system. The management principles are counter intuitive to good business practices. Unlike private business, technology is driving health care costs up and the health care industry is behind on use of information technology, lacking data analytics and business intelligence. The Congressional Budget Office says up to 20 million people will lost their insurance as Obama Care goes into effect next year and 10% of the hospitals will fail. Solutions will come by value based solutions, created by insightful data and critical thinking.

Population Health Management helps measure...

1. Population Health Strategy – pinpoint the cause of escalating workforce health cost

2. Productivity – performance metrics...quality, throughput, efficiency gains

3. Profit Trends – cost trends (margins), supply chain, profit target (+/-)

The benefits of population management are...Controls health care and vendor cost, increases workforce productivity and assists in maximizing profits.

Common sense is something we have to negotiate for in the U.S. We all need to become good health care consumers. At the end of the day it is up to individuals to do their part. It is about...Lifestyle, Lifestyle, Lifestyle...Exercise and diet, Smoking and Alcohol.

We know the problem:

-5% of the sick account for 50% of the costs

-More than 75% of health care costs are due to chronic conditions

-20-25% of employer health care costs are the result of non-compliance.

-70% of business expenses are related to payroll, payroll taxes and benefits yet management spends the bulk of its time on other areas.

Workforce productivity is the key. Of every 100 employees:

25 have cardiovascular disease

20 will have high blood pressure

38 will be overweight

21 will smoke

44 will suffer from stress and depression

The majority of executives lack a comprehensive strategic plan for controlling workforce benefit cost and lac cost accounting methods. There is a failure to connect workforce health to actual cost to the business (e.g. absence, disability, workers' comp).

The first step in addressing the problem is to for business to admit we are powerless over health insurers and government regulation and the cost has become unmanageable. A population health strategy needs to use data from the information systems business invests in to pinpoint the cause of escalating workforce health cost. Performance of employee productivity needs to be measured because business is making an investment and should expect a return. Several other options include individual health accountability, being an educated health consumer, adjust life style to be healthy, engaging business leaders in strategy development, understanding health impact cost, creating new strategies, measuring vendor performance and collaborating with your team to create measurement.

Next week we will hear from Tom Rocklin of Siemens.

What We Learned About Our Community

Today we heard from Rotary District 6670 Peter Weiglin who shared about our district.

Peter was accompanied by his wife of 49 years, Jean, and he has been a Rotarian in Cincinnati, Tucsan, AZ, California and now Batavia, OH. He has been visiting and presenting to our district's 50 clubs and joked, “If you've seen one Rotary club, you've seen one Rotary club”. They are all different. After sharing about a variety of Rotary's great aspects, including the near eradication of Polio worldwide, Peter presented our club with a small banner with this year's Rotary theme, “Peace Through Service”.

Peter encouraged each of us to give to the Rotary Foundation. He announced that next year the foundation will be giving 50% of the proceeds back to the districts. Additionally, Peter reminded us of the importance of new member recruitment. Rotary growth has become a bit stagnant over the past few years. We need to make every effort to rethink how we do Rotary in the 21^st century and discover creative ways to attract younger members. Part of this includes being willing to not do the same thing, the same way we always have.

Our world needs more Rotarians to lead the way in modeling “Service Above Self”. Peter encouraged each of us to be “amplifiers”, people who do good things and collectively make great things happen. Rotary “amplification” will get more done than any other individual or disorganized effort on the planet. He also encouraged us to think about, “Who will be the trigger to ignite our amplification?” Our district is also looking for fresh faces with fresh ideas to serve on district committees. Contact Peter if you are interested.

Next week we will hear from Dave Swart, President of Health Chain Solutions.