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Upcoming Events
American Society of Gene & Cell Therapy Annual Meeting
Date: May 15-18, 2013Location: Salt Lake City, UTSSS staff will present “Regulatory Requirements: Navigation is Easier with Assistance” as part of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s Gene Therapy Resource Program (GTRP) Symposium entitled “The GTRP: Perspectives of an Investigator and the Program Cores.” SSS is the Clinical Coordinating Center Core for the program.
Scientific Symposium 215 will be held on Thursday, May 16, 2013, from 10:30 a.m.-12:20 p.m.
The International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research (ISPOR) 18th Annual International Meeting
Date: May 18–22Location: New Orleans, LA
SSS researcher Dr. Zeynal Karaca will present four posters during Poster Presentations Session V on Wednesday, May 22. The papers were coauthored with Herbert Wong of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ):
- “Did Medical Litigation Against Physicians Increase Inpatient Hospital Cost?”
- “Determinants of Physician Practice Styles”
- “Racial Disparity in Duration of Patients’ Visits to the Emergency Department: Teaching versus Non-Teaching Hospitals”
- “Racial Disparity in Hospital Inpatient Cost: Homeless versus Non-Homeless Patients”
AcademyHealth 2013 Annual Research Meeting (ARM)
Date: June 23–25Location: Baltimore, MD
SSS researcher Dr. Zeynal Karaca will present four papers at this year’s AcademyHealth ARM. The papers were coauthored with Dr. Herbert Wong of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ).
Podium presentation: “Did Medical Litigation Against Physicians Increase Inpatient Hospital Cost?” (Monday, June 24)
Poster presentations (Sunday, June 23):
- “Racial Disparity in Hospital Inpatient Cost: Homeless versus Non-Homeless Patients”
- “Racial Disparity in Duration of Patients’ Visits to the Emergency Department: Teaching versus Non-Teaching Hospitals”
- “Determinants of Physician Practice Styles”
Latest Corporate News and Recognition
SSS on Development Team of Medicare Mapper, an iPad App that Brings Health Care Data to Life
The Medicare Mapper health information system quickly and easily illustrates geographic patterns in Medicare hospital utilization and expenditures to enhance consumer choice, increase insight by hospital administrators, and empower policymakers to make choices that improve health care. The free download from the Apple App Store applies GIS technology to publicly available data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Medicare Mapper displays hospital discharge data by facility or by ZIP code, including average lengths of stay, average costs, and, for ZIP code areas, average utilization rates. The development of the app was a team effort between SSS, as health care data experts; spatial systems integrator Critigen, who developed the app; and Esri, the company that developed the ArcInfo software used to map the hospital discharge data.
SSS Recognized for Leadership in Many Facets of Workplace Excellence
Social & Scientific Systems has been awarded the Alliance for Workplace Excellence's Seal of Approval for the past 14 years. Each year we have received this award in recognition of our efforts to support and facilitate health and well-being in all aspects of employee-owners' professional and personal lives. In 2013, for the sixth time, the Alliance for Workplace Excellence also awarded Social & Scientific Systems the "Health and Wellness Trailblazer" award in recognition of the company's innovative approach to employee health and wellness. Social & Scientific Systems was also selected as a 2013 Diversity Champion Award Winner and a 2013 EcoLeadership Award Winner in honor of our commitment to create an exceptional work environment.
SSS VP Honored for Promoting Good Sportsmanship in Local Athletics
Marc Berk, vice president of the Health Policy and Data Analysis Group at SSS and baseball coach in Gaithersburg, Maryland, was recently presented with the Dennis Callahan Good Sport Award by the Mid-Atlantic Recreation and Parks’ Sports Alliance. The award recognizes individuals who have modeled “good sports” actions and behaviors in local athletics. According to the City of Gaithersburg website, “Berk exemplifies the principles of character, good sportsmanship and all of the positive attributes of youth sports.” In 1997, Marc and his wife Helene created the Sam and Claire Rosen Sports Fund to help less-fortunate children in honor of his grandparents’ love of baseball.
SSS Wins Award of Excellence at the 2012 IABC/DC Metro Chapter Silver Inkwell Awards Gala
SSS' Center for Health Communications’ work on the 2011 Caribbean HIV Conference: Strengthening Evidence to Achieve Sustainable Action was a first place winner, receiving an Award of Excellence at the 2012 Silver Inkwell Awards Gala, sponsored by IABC/DC Metro Chapter. SSS’ award was in the Print, Conference, Training or Meeting Materials category. This annual distinction is awarded for high quality work in business communication.
SSS Ranked Among the Best Places To Work and Do Business in Maryland
SSS was recently ranked fourth best place to work and do business in Maryland in Maryland’s Gazette.net Politics & Business Top 53 Businesses in Maryland. The annual “Gazette P&B 53” program acknowledged the most “well rounded” companies among public, private, for-profit, and nonprofit entities. Financial success, innovation and creativity, business practices, positive work environment, and community service distinguish the winners.
Research Conducted by SSS Recognized by Director of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)
SSS researcher Zeynal Karaca, PhD, was the principal investigator and first author of a study that has been selected as the recipient of the AHRQ Director's Award for Outstanding Intramural Research Poster. Co-authored with award recipient Dr. Herbert Wong (AHRQ), the poster "Did Massachusetts Health Reform Lower Hospital Inpatient Cost?" analyzed data to explore the evidence behind competing hypotheses on the effects of that state's health reform legislation passed in 2006. The poster will be honored at the AHRQ Annual Meeting September 9–11, 2012, in Bethesda, Maryland.
Profiles in Success: Inspiration from Executive Leaders in the Washington, D.C., Area
SSS President and CEO Jim Lynch was profiled in Volume IV of Profiles in Success: Inspiration from Executive Leaders in the Washington D.C. Area, by Gordon J. Bernhardt. This publication provides profiles to inspire current and future small-business owners. This series of profiles contains highlights, personal stories, and words of wisdom from a diverse group of business leaders in and around the Washington, D.C., area.
RECENT SYMPOSIUMS
The Carl Morris Honorary Symposium on Large-Scale Data Inference
INTERSECTION OF STATISTICS AND DATA VISUALIZATION (2012)
The Brad Efron Honorary Symposium on LARGE-SCALE INFERENCE (2011)
- Brad Efron Presentation
- Brian Caffo Presentation
- Keith Baggerly Presentation
- Kathryn Roeder Presentation
- DuBois Bowman Presentation
Recent Events
Health Disparities Research at the Intersection of Race, Ethnicity, and Disability: A National Conference
Date: April 25–26, 2013Location: Washington, DC
SSS researcher Atlang Mompe presented a poster entitled “At the intersection of race and disability: Findings from the National Healthcare Quality and Disparities Report (NHQR-DR) on access to healthcare services for people with activity limitations.” The research was conducted with Karen Chaves (AHRQ) and Barbara Barton (DAS, Inc.).
The poster session was scheduled for 5:30–7:30 pm on April 25.
FDA Inspections Summit
Date: September 19-21, 2012Location: Bethesda, MD
Kenneth White, principal scientist in SSS’ Clinical Research and Bioscience Group, presented “Part 11 Compliance in the Cloud: Challenges and complexities of validated systems.” Topics included case studies of organizations moving regulated systems to cloud-based technology, lessons learned, and major myths and arguments for and against production cloud implementations (particularly around security, controls, and shared responsibility). The Inspections Summit provides an annual opportunity for the regulated community to learn of breaking news from senior FDA officials and thought leaders in global clinical development.
The Carl Morris Honorary Symposium on Large-Scale Data Inference
INTERSECTION OF STATISTICS AND DATA VISUALIZATION
Date: October 18, 2012Location: AFI Silver Theatre, Silver Spring, MD
This full-day symposium and poster session sponsored by SSS provided a forum for discussion on the role of statistics in data visualization with professionals from academia and industry on the forefront of statistics.
American Public Health Association (APHA) Annual Meeting
Date: October 27–31, 2012Location: San Francisco, CA
AcademyHealth Annual Research Meeting
Date: June 24–26, 2012
Location: Orlando, FL
SSS researcher Zeynal Karaca is the coauthor of the podium presentation, “Did Massachusetts health reform lower hospital inpatient cost?” and he will be the presenter at the State Health Research and Policy Interest Group Panel. Mr. Karaca is also the coauthor of the poster, “Are hospital inpatient costs lower for Medicare Advantage enrollees than Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries?”
SSS researchers Claudia Schur and Jennifer Lucado are coauthors of a poster entitled “Comparative Effectiveness Research Environment Survey” about a study of comparative effectiveness research, its use, and key issues related to its impact on decisionmaking in the future.
SSS researchers Janet Pagán-Sutton and Gregory Foster are coauthors of a poster session entitled “Job Quality of Home Health and Hospice Aides” about a study of the compensation and benefits of the home health workforce and how state policies impact the use of public benefits of home care workers.
American Society of Health Economists (ASHEcon) Biennial Conference
Date: June 10–13, 2012
Location: Minneapolis, MN
SSS researcher Zeynal Karaca is the coauthor and was the presenter of the podium presentation “Are hospital inpatient costs lower for Medicare Advantage enrollees than Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries?” He is also the coauthor of the podium presentation “Did Massachusetts health reform lower hospital inpatient cost?”
International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research (ISPOR) Annual International Meeting
Date: June 2–6, 2012
Location: Washington, DC
SSS researcher Zeynal Karaca coauthored of a poster entitled “Are hospital inpatient costs lower for Medicare Advantage enrollees than Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries?” and of a podium presentation entitled “Did Massachusetts health reform lower hospital inpatient cost?”
Blastoff: Encouraging Young People to Enter and Stay in the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) Fields
Date: June 6, 2012
Location: Capitol Hill, 2168 Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, DC
Time: 8:45 a.m. – 1:30 p.m.
SSS Executive Vice President Kevin Beverly was on the panel in this event about the challenges with building and maintaining a STEM workforce and how we can work together to close the STEM gap.
HITB Security Conference 2012
Date: May 21–25
Location: Amsterdam, The Netherlands
SSS staff Kenneth White presented “Amazon Web Services: A Deep Analysis of the Organization, Data Centers, Global Network and Technology.”
International Society for Biological and Environmental Repositories (ISBER) Annual Meeting
Date: May 15–18
Location: Vancouver, Canada
SSS staff Susan Baker, Mary Watson, and Pamela Schwingl, in collaboration with N. Beth Ragan (NIEHS), presented a poster on “Practical Tools for Managing the Quality of Biological and Environmental Specimens Collected from a Distance.”
Eastern Evaluation Research Society Conference
Date: April 29 – May 1, 2012
Location: Galloway, NJ
Susan Griffey, Vice President and Director of the Evaluation Center in SSS’ Public Health Research Group, presented “Standards-Based Performance Assessment: Good for Clients, Good for Implementers” on a panel at the Eastern Evaluation Research Society conference. The presentation describes a standards-based performance assessment methodology that provides clients and implementers with a rapid snapshot of program performance for focused remediation and correction.
National Pharmaceutical Council (NPC) Webinar: “Findings from Annual Survey of Health Care Stakeholders on Attitudes & Expectations for Comparative Effectiveness Research”
Date: March 27, 2012
Time: 11:30 am – noon (ET)
Dr. Claudia Schur (Director and Vice President, Center for Health Research and Policy at Social & Scientific Systems, Inc.) and Dan Leonard (President, NPC) discussed findings from the second in a series of surveys to gauge attitudes and expectations among key health care stakeholders, including researchers and thought leaders; government; insurers and health plans; employers; business coalitions and human resources specialists; and associations and trade groups and how opinions have evolved in the past year and the implications for key players.
NIEHS/Office for Human Research Protections (OHRP) South Atlantic National Research Conference (SANC)
Date: March 21-22, 2012
Location: Raleigh Convention Center, 500 South Salisbury Street, Raleigh, NC 27601
SSS Staff, Janet Archer and Mwenda Kudumu, participated in two discussion panels at this conference. SSS also had an exhibit booth at this event.
Date: Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Time: 4:00-5:30 p.m.
B4 - Panel: Working with Community Advisory Boards in Community Engaged Research
Sharon Elliott-Bynum, PhD, MA, RN, BSN (Executive Director, Healing with CAARE Inc.); Stella Kirkandale, MPH (Senior Community Program Manager in Behavioral and Social Sciences, FHI 360); Susan Newman, PhD, RN, CRRN (Assistant Professor and Junior Research Scientist in the College of Nursing, Medical University of South Carolina); Janet Archer, MS (Study Manager, Social & Scientific Systems, Inc.); Mwenda Kudumu (Study Manager, Social & Scientific Systems, Inc.)
Date: Thursday, March 22, 2012
Time: 2:15-3:45 p.m.
C5 - Panel: What is Ethics Training for Community Partners in National and International Studies?
Michael Sweat, PhD (Professor, Family Services Research Center, Medical University of South Carolina); David Borasky, MPH (RTI International); Janet Archer, MS (Study Manager, Social & Scientific Systems, Inc.); Mwenda Kudumu (Study Manager, Social & Scientific Systems, Inc.)
Partnerships in Clinical Trials
Date: March 4 - March 7, 2012
Location: Orlando, FL
SSS had an exhibit booth at this event.
ConFoo Conference
Date: February 29 – March 2, 2012
Location: Montreal, Canada
Paul Reinheimer presented a session entitled “Intro to Performant PHP Pages” about ways to make PHP-based websites perform better. Topics include finding low-hanging fruit, opcode caches, memcached, and other tricks for getting pages to load faster.
Molecular Med Tri-Con Conference
Date: February 19 – 23, 2012
Location: San Francisco, CA
Dr. James Zhou, SSS’ Director of Statistical Operations, gave a presentation entitled “Comparing Two Microarray Covariance Matrices Based on a Novel Conjugate Bayes Factor.” The talk described Dr. Zhou’s work with Harvard professor Dr. Giovanni Parmigiani to develop a novel conjugate Bayes factor to assess the equality of two multivariate normal covariance matrices in microarray gene expression data analysis. The presentation illustrates the test and implements it using prior parameters estimated empirically from a large collection of gene sets. The Molecular Med Tri-Con conference covers the latest trends, technologies, research breakthroughs, regulatory issues, and best practice examples of molecular and translational medicine advances.
Short Course Offering by the Learning Institute of the 139th Annual Meeting of the American Public Health Association (APHA)
Date: October 30, 2011
Location: Walter E. Washington Convention Center, Washington DC at the 2011 APHA Conference
Course Overview: This course addresses the need for practical knowledge of the nuts and bolts of public health research for those with limited field research experience. It combines lectures and small group case study discussions with a practical application to an actual protocol. Become familiar with a range of issues that confront research studies. Learn how to delineate the scope of work in a scientific protocol and determine the feasibility of a study. Build quality into the forefront of data collection and operations, identify key risks, develop a realistic budget, formulate study recruit and retention plans that maximize response rates, navigate Institutional Review Boards, and ensure quality after data collection.
Faculty Presenters: Pamela Schwingl, PhD; Christie Barker-Cummings, DrPH; Christina Makarushka, MPH; Elizabeth O’Connell, RN, BSN; and Polly Armsby, BA, Social & Scientific Systems, Inc.; Durham, NC
Symposium on Large-Scale Inference, hosted by SSS
Date: October 19, 2011
Location: Silver Spring, Maryland
Featured Speaker: Brad Efron, PhD
Topic: Discussion of emerging statistical challenges in large-scale inference, focusing on applications in genetics and biomedical imaging
About the featured speaker: Dr. Efron has held many leadership positions in the statistics community. His work in the field helped earn him a Presidential National Medal of Science. His most famous breakthrough, the “bootstrap” (1979), marked the start of statistics’ continuing computer-intensive age.
Recent Conference Presentations
APHA Annual Meeting
Dates: October 29–November 2, 2011
Location: Washington, DC
Presenters: Pam Schwingl, Christie Barker-Cummings, Christina Makarushka, Elizabeth O’Connell, Polly Armsby
Presentation: Performance assessment – objective and quantified results rapidly and ready when you need them, October 31, 12:30 p.m.
Presenter: Sue Griffey
Presentation: FDA Medical Product Safety Network (MedSun): Implementation of a Conceptual Framework to Improve Patient Safety through Voluntary Reporting, October 31, 12:30 p.m.
Presenter: Tina Powell
National Medical Association 2011 Annual Convention and Scientific Assembly
Dates: July 23–27, 2011
Location: Washington, DC
Presentation: Fighting Obesity in the United States of America: How advice about diet and exercise from health providers can help reduce the obesity disparity, July 23, 2011
Presenter: Atlang Mompe
3rd North American Congress of Epidemiology
Dates: June 21-24, 2011
Location: Montreal, Quebec, Canada
SSS staff authored two presentations at Poster Session 3 on June 23, 2011 at 12:15 p.m.
1: “Practical Tools for Managing the Quality of Biological and Environmental Specimens Collected from a Distance”
Authors: Susan Baker, Mary Watson, Novie Beth Ragan, Pam Schwingl
2: “An Innovative Approach to Cognitive Interviewing for Culturally Adapting Autism Screening Instruments”
Authors: Fikri Yucel, Mwenda Kudumu, Christie Barker-Cummings, and Amy Wetherby
U.S. Department of State’s Fourth Annual Conference on Program Evaluation: “Diplomacy, Development, and Defense: Working Together to Achieve Foreign Policy Goals”
Dates: June 7-8, 2011
Location: Washington, DC
Presentation: “Performance assessment – Objective and quantified results: Ready when you need them”
SSS Author: Susan J. Griffey, DrPH, BSN, FNP
Academy Health 2011 Annual Research Meeting
Date: June 12, 2011
Location: Seattle, WA
Podium Presentation: “To Admit or Not To Admit: The Financial Impact of Observation Services vs. Inpatient Admission on Medicare Beneficiaries”
SSS Authors: Lan Zhao, Kathy Paez, and Claudia Schur
Corporate News and Recognition
Research Conducted by SSS Recognized by Director of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)
SSS researcher Zeynal Karaca, PhD, was the principal investigator and first author of a study that has been selected as the recipient of the AHRQ Director's Award for Outstanding Intramural Research Poster. Co-authored with award recipient Dr. Herbert Wong (AHRQ), the poster "Did Massachusetts Health Reform Lower Hospital Inpatient Cost?" analyzed data to explore the evidence behind competing hypotheses on the effects of that state's health reform legislation passed in 2006. The poster will be honored at the AHRQ Annual Meeting September 9–11, 2012, in Bethesda, Maryland.
Montgomery County, Maryland Press Release
SSS President and CEO James Lynch was quoted in a press release entitled "Montgomery County Marks Two Year Anniversary of Green Business Certification Program" by Montgomery County, Maryland, about the county’s efforts in helping businesses become more sustainable.
Gazette Article Features SSS “Bucking the Trend”
“We are figuring out how to do more with less,” says Kevin Beverly
Two prominent articles in Maryland’s Business Gazette last week featured SSS as an example of local companies “bucking the trend” of downsizing in the face of Federal Government budget cuts. One article (“Amid Maryland’s job losses, some bucking the trend: Social & Scientific Systems among those beefing up work force”) cites SSS’ new offices in Rockville and in Indonesia, provides some details on SSS’ new contracts supporting the National Children’s Study and clinical trials in Southeast Asia, and notes that the company has had a net increase of about 60 employees this year. The second article (“Dim jobs forecast provides wake-up call to politicians”) focuses on Maryland’s declining employment figures and the role that Federal Government cuts have played, but notes that some companies, such as SSS, are diversifying.