John W Rodat

NoSQL (Geek Stuff)

February 16, 2012 Computing

What we try to be about here is the intersection of information and organizational strategy and design and meeting complex challenges, both public and private. And sometimes, we get a bit caught up in single issues where policy and decision-making flies in the face of the data. So tonight we’re wading through a backlog of […]

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County Operated Health Services & How We Got Here

February 16, 2012 County

County operated nursing homes have a long history. They haven’t kept up with the changing environment. So even if a bit oversimplified, it’s worth taking a long view. First Generation. Non-Medical, Primarily County Funded Long before Medicare and Medicaid were established in the mid-1960s, county government provided classic public health and backstop services. Indeed, long […]

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Sell it Now!

February 14, 2012 County Government

So if New York does the right thing and tells Albany County that no, they cannot build a new money-losing nursing home, what happens next? And before the State acts, if the odds are say 50/50 or higher that the State will reject the application, what should be done in the meantime? Sell it. Sell […]

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Reader’s Digest Version on Albany County Nursing Home and Interactions of State Policies

February 13, 2012 County Government

Short version of previous posts, particularly here, on State Health Department practices and Albany County’s application to build a new nursing home that the County itself acknowledges is a money loser. The County’s own consultants projected a 52 percent operating loss in the third year of operation of a new facility. That’s $26 million per […]

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Albany County Nursing Home, Why New York Needs to Change How it Reviews Subsidized CON Applications

February 13, 2012 County Government

It’s time to end the practice by New York’s Department of Health of allowing county “commitments” to using local property tax increases to subsidize nursing home losses as a means to meet the financial feasibility criterion in the certificate-of-need process. This practice contradicts and undermines the State’s policy of slowing growth in property taxes. Such […]

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Dancing Along the Edge – In the Dark

February 9, 2012 Accounting

Dance too close to the edge … Well you know what happens. When things are tight is when to be most careful, but wanting to avoid public acknowledgement of trouble, some public officials get closer to the edge and then topple over. It’s even worse, when public officials avoid the bad news and operate in […]

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A More Accurate & Richer Way to Think about Economic Growth, Budgets, & Other Forecasts

February 9, 2012 Economics

In the past four years, Nate Silver has done more than anyone else I can think of to bring the world of probability and statistics to the realms of politics. Oh, everyone reads polls, but Silver introduced a wider audience to many subtleties and to how to combine multiple polls into richer and more reliable […]

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Remember “Stages of a Project”?

February 8, 2012 County Government

It appears that Schenectady County is moving ahead with building a new nursing home. Too bad. If it gets done, it will be just under the wire. The closer Schenectady has gotten to re-building, the more County leaders have made their discomfort explicit. Many will now say in private that it’s a mistake, but having […]

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Back at it

February 8, 2012 Site Administration

We’ve been offline for over a month. Initially it was due to the holidays. More recently, we’ve been buried in prototyping some very exciting information offerings and we should have something to show shortly. In the meantime, a backlog of interesting stuff has built up and we’ll start posting today. Thanks for your patience.

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We Don’t Hate the Rich

December 20, 2011 Economics

Joshua M. Brown, a financial advisor, responding to JPMorgan Chase & Co. chief executive officer, Jaime Dimon’s lament that Americans hate the rich: I am writing to profess my utter disbelief at how little you seem to understand the current mood of the nation. In a story at Bloomberg today, you and a handful of […]

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