Ryn The Guardian Melberg

There are few tragedies that surpass bankruptcy, particularly one caused by medical bills. You leave the hospital, recover enough to return to work and discover the costs of your treatment are more than you can ever afford to pay. But the debt does not end at the hospital exit. The costs of health care are much more enmeshed in people’s lives than just the immediate issue of a hospital stay. The Bureau of Labor Statistics found that in January 2018, a single month, 4.2 million people missed work due to illness, meaning lost wages and, potentially, their jobs. The burden extends to other family members too: helping a family member both in and out of the hospital means missed hours at work, lower pay and the likelihood that patients will use credit cards to pay their bills. The payment by individuals in the U.S. adds up to an incredible expense to everyone society. To help us get a better idea of what the total price is to all of us is respected neurologist Dr. Steven Goldstein.

This week on the podcast Dr. Steven Goldstein will help us better understand the roles of managed care and the prices paid by all of us. How are prices determined and by whom? Is it the free market at work?www.houstonhealtcareinitiative.org.

This week our conversation is right out of the headlines, and that is Medicare for All. There are pros and cons for it and here to help us make sense of it all is respected neurologist Dr. Steven Goldstein. To learn more about Dr. Steven Goldstein and issues that affect the health and spending of people like you, please go to www.houstonhealthcareinitiative.org.

Earlier this year both houses of congress were debating legislation that would end practices that led to surprisingly large and unexpected hospital bills. It seemed that passage was all but done. But over the summer, special interests — specifically hospitals and the private-equity-backed companies that have largely taken over their emergency rooms — are standing in the way; spending piles of money on their advocacy ads sponsored under innocuous sounding names like Doctor Patient Unity. Respected neurologist Dr. Steven Goldstein explains how this practice exists and why big business is against it.

Who is behind all those ‘government rate setting ads’ and what should the public know about them or do differently? For that matter, what exactly are they advocating? In his latest podcast, respected neurologist and founder of the Houston Healthcare Initiative CO-OP, Dr. Steven Goldstein discusses the intent behind those government rate setting ads that are now on radio and television. Not knowing the source of these ads and who is paying for them, what positions they advocate, and what to know about them are all explained by Dr. Goldstein. After the wide acceptance of his locally focused podcast, the Houston Healthcare Initiative CO-OP podcast is now positioned to be useful and relevant to people all over the USA. The Houston Healthcare Initiative CO-OP podcast can be heard on iTunes, the Houston Healthcare Initiative CO-OP web site and other places around the Internet.

With so many different parts to the whole health insurance debate, this week noted Houston based neurologist and founder of the Houston Healthcare Initiative Dr. Steven Goldstein will take one piece of it and that is the pre-existing condition. If you want to learn more about the Houston Healthcare Initiative CO-OP please visit the web site at www.houstonhealthcareinitiative.org and of course please come back next time for another edition of the Houston Healthcare Initiative CO-OP podcast.

Patients may go to the hospital designated as in network by their insurance, but the doctors who treat them may not be part of that network. This is one of the main reasons for big bills even among those who have health insurance. Patients rarely have any say about who treats them, especially in the case of accidents where they are incapacitated. This is the message that Dr. Steven Goldstein has for podcast listeners this week. The Houston Healthcare Initiative CO-OP podcast can be heard on Soundcloud, Google Play, and iTunes. The podcast and much more information is available from the Houston Healthcare Initiative CO-OP website: www.houstonhealthcareinitiative.org.

What You Buy? Cost Control Of Healthcare. When looking for the best health insurance, it is a good idea to consider what are you buying and what value does it deliver. According to Dr. Steven Goldstein of the Houston Healthcare Initiative the highest costs of diseases caused by lifestyle are the most expensive and the most preventable. To learn more, visit www.houstonhealthcareinitiative.org.

What Did You Buy? Cost Control Of Healthcare by Dr. Steven Goldstein

‎Mark A. Langley of PMI; Are You Working on the Right Things? Mark A. Langley, president and CEO of Project Management Institute (PMI) is on this edition of The Guardian Podcast With Ryn Melberg. Ryn and Mark discuss ‘project agility and creating greater value.’ Mark A. Langley, president and CEO of Project Management Institute, or PMI, joins Ryn on the podcast for this edition. Mark acts as chief spokesperson and advocate for demonstrating the value of project management to businesses and governments worldwide. Mark has grown PMI’s ability to shape the future of the profession, in collaboration with world-leading organizations of the PMI Global Executive Council, to ensure alignment to the business value organizations need today and the strategies of tomorrow. Mark also leads PMI’s efforts to deliver value to some 3 million project professionals worldwide through the organization’s advocacy, Both he and his company are coming off a very busy time and are contributing a great deal to business via project m

In this edition of the Guardian podcast we will be talking with David Hussman. David is someone I know and worked with before and am very happy he is with us. Among other things, David now leads a company he founded called DevJam (http://devjam.com). But he is also involved with another effort called Product Agility, and founded Agile Twin Cities. The web site for that is www.agiletwincities.org. And like always, there is more information about the Guardian Podcast along with articles and other interesting and free material on my web site which is www.rynmelberg.com.

Agile’s emergence as a global movement extends beyond software development. Agile’s popularity is driven by the discovery that its benefits are not isolated to software developers. Among other things, Agile enables people in organizations to master continuous change, make smaller mistakes earlier on a smaller scale, and engage customers at the development level regardless of the product or service. It permits firms to flourish in a world that is increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous. That’s good. But one size does not fit all. Is industry taking Agile too far? What are the limits of Agile’s effectiveness and what are the warning signs that the Agile effort inside your organization is on the brink of failure?

On August 9, 2016 Delta Airlines experienced a computer network shutdown that caused the cancellation and/or delay of flights for three days. Can Agile project methods be used to repair a network and infrastructure with major components that are decades old? Ryn Melberg has the answers. For more information about Ryn, go to www.rynmelberg.com.

This week on The Guardian Podcast Ryn Melberg brings us all up to speed on the biggest mobile app game in history that is of course Pokémon. What are the potential cyber security vulnerabilities players are opening themselves up to? What other real world crimes could befall players? What can Pokemon Go enthusiasts do to protect themselves? Ryn has the answers. For more information on this and the news items in the podcast, go to www.rynmelberg.com.

This week on The Guardian Podcast With Ryn Melberg, Ryn helps us know whether Agile is a good fit for organizations and the individuals who work inside those organizations. The Guardian Podcast with Ryn Melberg is the only program of its kind devoted to Agile, Scrum, SAFe and governance. To learn more got to www.rynmelberg.com.

This week Ryn talks with Ross Clanton about Dev-Ops and Agile. Ross Clanton is an accomplished leader with over 16 years of IT experience in the retail industry. Ross is a DevOps enthusiast whose mission is to drive LEAN principles and extensive automation across technology service delivery. He has broad experience in IT operations, engineering, security and compliance, enterprise architecture, business intelligence, and data warehousing. Read more and see the articles from the news segment at www.rynmelberg.com.

This week on the podcast Ryn does the interview with guest Paul Ellarby as they discuss the need for and types of leadership for an Agile Transformation. Paul and Ryn share a lot of common experiences in this area. Paul is from the Scrum Alliance and has over 20 years experience in the information technology field. Among many other things, Paul is a Certified Scrum Professional, Certified Scrum Master, and a Certified Scrum Product Owner. To read more from the news segment go to www.rynmelberg.com.

This week during the interview segment we swing back to the world of Agile. To know where we are in terms of current project management methods and where we are headed there is no better way than to review where we have been with a brief review of the history project management? Did you know that project management dates all the way back to the pyramids and the Trans-Pacific Railroad? It's true. What would have happened if the railroad ended up with the two ends coming together miles apart? To read more and see the links mentioned in the news segment, please visit www.rynmelberg.com

This week during the interview segment with Ryn we discuss the practice of outsourcing. There are plenty of industries where this happens and it is not a coincidence that IT, web development, technical support and even content and manufacturing are all often outsourced. There are plenty of good reasons to outsource and most people believe it comes down to economics. Others believe that American workers are at a distinct disadvantage when it comes to cheaper labor in other part of the world and that we should adopt tariffs and ways to protect jobs here in the U.S. So like with so many other issues we will try and get to the bottom of this one with the Guardian herself, Ryn Melberg. For more information and to read the news articles referenced, go to www.rynmelberg.com.

Agile Practice or Business Practice? Can the two co-exist? It seems that there are places other than software products where the really good, sensible, useful, affordable solutions based on decades of social science combined with the lessons programmers and code writers have learned from Agile are merging to benefit other businesses. Software development practices such as working in short focused bursts, collaboration, and openness to change are now being applied everywhere. But Agile purists are losing their minds over the feat that all this inclusion will co-opt and ultimately dilute the Agile mindset. Can the two ever co-exist? Also, be sure to read the news segment from www.rynmelberg.com.