THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 2008
NEWS
3A
HEALTH
Watkins streamlines with Web
Jessica Sain-Baird/KANSAN
Lannie Hubbel, administrative associate at Watkins Memorial Health Center, performs a check-in Aug. 26. The health center has started using an electronic health system for doctors, nurses and administrators that simplifies its patient database, according to Mai Do, marketing coordinator for Watkins, "It took a wear and a half for a committee to pick one electronic system to use." Do said
BY JOE PREINER
jpreiner@kansan.com
The system, called Point and Click Solutions, will help make the appointment process quicker for both students and staff at Watkins.
Waiting in line at Watkins Memorial Health Center will be a thing of the past when the installation of a new electronic health record system is complete.
While the transition from the current paper system to an electronic one will be slow, Joe Gillespie, associate director of student health services, said he hoped to see the program fully functional within a year.
One goal of the new system will be to provide a Web portal element through the Kyou portal. The portal will allow new options for students seeking medical care: Students will be able to make appointments online, request prescription refills, view bills, communicate with doctors and receive lab results on the secure network
Student Health Services will also be able to send appointment reminders to students online.
"Students have busy schedules," Gillespie said. "You're writing papers at 1 or 2 in the morning. We can see how you could space out on an appointment."
Gillespie said there were about 2,600 missed appointments at Watkins each year and that each missed appointment comes with a $15 fee. That amounts to nearly $40,000 collected from students each year just for missed appointments. Gillespie said he hoped the system would help reduce that number because every missed appointment meant someone wasn't getting help.
Eventually, a self check-in kiosk for students will allow students to skip waiting in line. Instead of checking in at the front desk, students would swipe their KUIDs and go directly to the waiting area.
This would have helped Chris Porto, Lawrence non-degree seeking student, last week. Porto was stuck in a two-person line for more than 10 minutes. He said he was
skeptical about the benefits of the new system.
"I think it will really depend on how well it works," Porto said.
"It would definitely save me this hassle. I guess I'll know when I try it."
Gillespie said that people weren't always willing to change the way they do things, but with the new system that was not the case.
The system would notify doctors when students were ready for their appointments and automatically match students with their health records. Gillespie said the check-in process would speed up the entire process.
Patricia Denning, senior student health physician at Watkins, is one of several doctors currently using
"The staff is actually excited about this," Gillespie said. "Everyone here is ready for a change."
the new systems. She said there had already been more appointments than usual for the beginning of the school year. Denning said the increase, along with the transition between the old and new system, was keeping the staff busy
Edited by Becka Cremer
CHICAGO — Fans began lining up at 6 a.m. Saturday for a chance to snag free tickets to "The Oprah Winfrey Show" season premiere featuring 150 U.S. Olympic athletes.
By noon, the line of Winfrey fans and U.S. Olympic supporters stretched nearly six city blocks in Chicago's Millennium Park.The
show will air Sept. 8 and include appearances by gold medalists Michael Phelps, Nastia Liukin and Kobe Brvant.
Tickets for the Winfrey's tapings are usually available only by phone and nearly impossible to get, so fans were itching for the 2,000 seats up for grabs for Wednesday's taping.
"We do love Oprah," said 20-year-old Loyola University student Grace Sutherland, who
Fans line up, snag tickets to see Oprah. Olympians
Winfrey's Harpo Productions said the show is a "welcome home celebration" for the athletes and a chance to feature Chicago in the city's bid for the 2016 Summer Olympics.
left her apartment at 4 a.m. to wait in line. "But the Olympic athletes, they are real role models. This is the America we like to see."
Organizers began passing out tickets at noon Saturday.
For those unable to get tickets Saturday, approximately 7,000 festival-style lawn seats would be available Wednesday, said Monica Cebula, special events coordinator for Millennium Park.
Another,2,000 seats have been set aside for the Olympians' families and friends.
The International Olympic Committee will choose the 2016 host next year.
Associated Press
CAMPUS
Warmer buildings reduce utility costs
BY HALEY JONES
hjones@kansan.com
Rising energy prices aren't just a hot topic in the presidential campaign they are a growing concern for the University of Kansas. As a result, Facilities Operations is raising the temperature in buildings around campus.
Utility costs for the University totaled more than $10 million in 2006. Don Steeple, senior vice provost, said skyrocketing utility rates could add almost $2 million to expenses at the Lawrence campus next year.
Steeples said in an e-mail to
Steeple sae University professors that fuel surcharge rates had increased to 3.9 and 4.1 cents per kilowatt-hour in July and August, respectively.
In an effort to conserve energy, Facilities Operations adjusted thermostats to 78 degrees between the end of the summer semester and last week.
"A building typically will warm up a few degrees in a few minutes,but since it's only a few minutes,people don't notice the discomfort."
"A building typically will warm up a few degrees in a few minutes, but since it's only a few minutes, people don't notice the discomfort." Steeples said.
Jack Martin, deputy director of University Communications, said the recent increases in building temperature were designed to address the high energy demand.
Facilities Operations also set the valves to stop the flow of cooled water to air conditioners in various buildings for 10 percent to 12 percent of each day.
in there," said David Mills, Rapid City, S.D., junior.
Steeples said in the e-mail that the demand for electricity is the greatest on campus between the first day of fall classes and the second week in September, especially between the hours of 11 a.m. and 7 p.m.
Steepsle said he expected the move to save the University at least $3,000 a week in energy costs.
"They're making these adjustments, and they're going to continue and monitor it and make sure there's no spike in temperature,"
The increase in temperature left some students and professors a little too warm in their classrooms last week when outdoor temperatures reached 97 degrees.
DON STEEPLES
Senior vice provost
"Fraser was really hot last week,
I was sweating both days I was
Martin said.
Doug Riat, director of Facilities Operations, said many buildings on campus had automated control systems, which regulated temperature.
Riat said most of the
automated systems were controlled from the Facilities Operations building on West Campus.
He said when people tampered with the thermostat in buildings controlled by an automated system, it got the system out of calibration or ruined it entirely.
Riat said if people contacted a facilities technician when they felt discomfort, problems and extra costs could be avoided and time could be saved.
Steeples said people were welcome to contact Facilities Operations if the temperature in their building rose above 80 degrees.
- Edited by Jennifer Torline
INTERNATIONAL
EU leaders warn Russia of delayed talks
ASSOCIATED PRESS
ASSOCIATED PRESS
BRUSSELS, Belgium European Union leaders warned Russia on Monday that talks on a wide-ranging political and economic agreement would be postponed unless Russian troops pull back from positions in Georgia.
Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili greets people at a rally against Russia on Monday in Georgia. Huge crowds of Georgians surged into the capital's streets Monday to demonstrate against Russia. People held hands to form "human chains" in an echo of the so-called Baltic Chain of 1989, in which residents of then-Soviet Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia stretched the length of their homelands to protest Soviet occupation.
The threat to delay talks set for this month on the "partnership and cooperation agreement" with Russia came after Britain and eastern European nations held out for a tougher line. But Europe's dependence on Russian oil and natural gas deterred stronger sanctions.
"I think we found an excellent compromise (by) not going back to business as usual, but still making clear that we want to maintain contact with Russia," said German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
At a four-hour meeting, the leaders ordered EU bureaucrats to study alternative energy sources to reverse growing dependence on Russia, which supplies a third of the EU's oil and 40 percent of its natural gas.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy said he plans to travel to Moscow next Monday for talks with the Russian leadership. A cease-fire he brokered to end fighting between Russian and Georgia calls for forces to be withdrawn to their positions before the war.
"This extraordinary EU summit demonstrates that Europe and the United States are united in standing firm behind Georgia's territorial integrity, sovereignty and reconstruction," White House press secretary Dana Perino said in a statement.
The Bush administration welcomed the EU's move.
Earlier, Russia warned the West against supporting Georgia's leadership, suggesting that the United States delivered weapons as well as aid to the former Soviet republic and calling for an arms embargo.
"If instead of choosing their national interests and the interests of the Georgian people, the United States and its allies choose
the Saakashvili regime, this will be a mistake of truly historic proportions." Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said.
Without naming a specific country, Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko said there were "suppositions" that the cargo of military ships bringing aid to Georgia may also have included "military components that will be used for the rearmament" of Georgia's military. He provided no evidence, but said such suspicions were a reason for Russia's call for an arms embargo.
Hours after Lavrov's comments, the spokesman for the Foreign Ministry suggested U.S. ships that carried humanitarian aid to Georgia's Black Sea coast may also have delivered weapons.
Lavrov reserved particular criticism for the United States, which has trained Georgian troops, saying such aid had failed to give Washington sufficient leverage to restrain the Georgian government. Instead, he said, "It encouraged the irresponsible and unpredictable regime in its gambles."
Human Rights Watch said Monday that Georgia — as well as Russia — dropped cluster bombs during the conflict. The rights group said Georgia's government has admitted it, while Russia continues with denials.
Neither the State Department nor the Pentagon had immediate comment.
"These indiscriminate attacks violate international humanitarian law," said Bonnie Docherty, arms division researcher at the New York-based body, who said the casualty toll in only four Georgia villages from cluster bombs and was 14 dead and dozens wounded.
The revelation could provide fuel for Russia, which has traded allegations with Georgia over weapon usage, human rights violations and disinformation.
On Aug. 7, Georgian forces attacked South Ossetia, hoping to retake the province, which broke away from Georgia in the early 1990s. Russian forces repelled the offensive and pushed into Georgia. Both sides signed a cease-fire deal in mid-August, but Russia has ignored its requirement for all forces to return to prewar positions.
Moscow has insisted the cease-fire accord lets it run checkpoints in security zones of up to 4 miles into Georgian territory.
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