News

Successful Ke Alahele Education Fund Benefit Dinner

September 3rd, 2010 · Education, Featured, Ke Alahele

U.S. Senator Daniel Inouye and his wife Irene Hirano

This past Saturday, our Maui County community scored an A+ during the MEDB Ke Alahele Education Fund Benefit Dinner held at the Grand Wailea Resort Hotel & Spa. Perhaps, numbers speak louder than words… over 560 people attended this awesome event, including Distinguished Educators U.S. Senator Daniel Inouye, his wife Irene Hirano, and Maui County Mayor Charmaine Tavares.

Over 95 Silent and Live Auction items/packages were donated this year. And, drum roll please, over $230,000 was raised for a very worthy cause—Maui County’s students. Mahalo to all the sponsors, supporters, volunteers and attendees for making a difference!

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Being a Good Neighbor Pharmacist is a simple matter of service

August 23rd, 2010 · Business Profile

Les Krenk

Les Krenk

Maui pharmacist Les Krenk has a simple formula for succeeding in a business dominated by a few major chain stores that discount prices on high-demand medications and health-care products through bulk buying.

Understand what the patient wants. Know what the patient needs. Provide the service.

It’s simple but can be hard to do. It takes time, effort and composure to treat someone with a medical problem as a patient, not a customer. With a customer, you make the sale and move on to the next. With a patient, you provide service.

“We want to look at how we can improve our procedures for patients to help them optimize their outcomes by correctly taking their pills and understanding the consequences of non adherence. If we can do that, we can help to reduce health care costs,” Krenk said.

The pharmacy business has been moving in the opposite direction but Krenk is sticking to his formula because being a pharmacist isn’t just a business. It’s a way of life.

The career started 40 years ago, he said, when he worked for pharmacies on Oahu, moved on to Castle & Cooke Merchandising operating the Holiday Mart stores, eventually starting his own business on the North Shore. Then 21 years ago, he moved to Maui and took over ownership of Maui Clinic Pharmacy.

“It was a place to take a vacation that wasn’t on Oahu,” he smiles. “Been on vacation ever since, seven days a week, although my wife has me down to six days a week (that’s six days of work).

“It’s both a business and a profession and I love them both.”

While other independent pharmacists on Maui have shut down, Krenk has expanded his Pharmacy Group to three shops, at the Maui Clinic in Kahului, in Makawao and in the old Nagata Store in Paia. They’re all clean and friendly in the tradition of the family drug store. They’re also busy.

“My distributor tells me at the Maui Clinic I’m the second busiest independently owned outlet he has. I’ve got the only independent pharmacy where there’s every one of the major chains within a mile of the store and we’re the second busiest pharmacy in Hawaii. What does that tell you?

“We’ve got the most complete and the busiest independent pharmacy on the island.”

Krenk alludes to the effects of the chain pharmacies on the marketplace. For him as a medical provider, the bigger impact is reimbursement rates set by Medicare and Medicaid plans.

It can be a test of accounting skills to keep up with what the government supported plans will and won’t cover and how much they will pay, he says.

“We need to be able to know what is covered and how much is covered, but when we ask, we’re told go look it up. When you go on the website, it’s 300 pages long. It’s not easy to find what you need to know and sometimes you just want to give up.”

With the chain pharmacies, he said, there can be benefits for a patient in lower costs if the patient is using high volume products.

“There is a lot of good with the big guys coming in. They can cut the costs for a patient. The negative to it is they take the provider out of the picture.”

The service that draws patients to Krenk’s pharmacies includes his relationship with providers and patients.

“They know if they walk in and we find a problem with the prescription, we’ll take care of it. We’ll call the doctor and talk to them and get it fixed,” he said. “We are able to provide the service.”

There is another element that forces an independent who wants to take care of patients’ needs to wrestle with costs and potential losses.

“Pharmacies used to carry medical products from A to Z, but when the big chains came in, they moved their product mix from E to X. They stopped carrying medical products that had small markets and low reimbursements. Like ostomy bags. The patients need them, but Medicaid reimbursements don’t cover the cost of them so they just don’t carry them.”

Then the costs fall on the small independent who doesn’t have the benefits of high-volume purchasing power, having to weigh what patients need and what they can realistically afford to pay.

“That’s part of it. We have to look closely at what we are doing and ask why are we doing it? Is this the best way?”

Then he repeats, again, that he provides for patients, not customers.

It’s why he’s looking forward to a pilot program set up by the University of Hawaii College of Pharmacy assigning a resident pharmacist to his operations for a year. Another resident is assigned to Maui Memorial Medical Center.

The pharmacist will follow up with patients, making phone calls or setting up appointments for the patient to discuss the effects of a medication, whether there were side effects, and how it worked on the ailment being treated.

They will also be able to do what Krenk advocates for any pharmacist: Take time to talk to a patient about the medication being prescribed and counsel them on whether there is potential for interactions with other drugs or with the patient’s diet, and the proper way to take the medication.

The goal of the program is to determine what benefits there may be to active intervention with patients on medications. The ultimate goal is to reduce time in hospitals.

“If we can keep them out of the hospital, reduce the frequency of hospital days, we’ve done something positive,” he said.

“It’s about service. You’ve got to take the time to talk to the patient. It’s not just about the medication. It’s about their health and what they can do. If the patient has rheumatoid arthritis, you can talk about other factors that affect their rheumatoid arthritis.

“If they need help with their diabetes medication, you can talk to them about the right procedures and tell them what they need to do with their diet and their activities. I can do that because I’m a diabetes educator as well.

“If you let the patient know you’re available to them and back that up by letting them talk to you, you can help them with their health.

“If you can help them with their health, help them to feel better or get the most out of a medication, that’s the greatest thing in the world.”

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Pacific Disaster Center – Preparing for the Worst

August 11th, 2010 · Business Profile, Technology

When an emergency occurs, getting fast, accurate information on the nature and scope of a hazard is a key to protecting lives and property.

Pacific Disaster Center is making its disaster and hazard data available as immediate information through multiple media platforms including now with a new Disaster Alert application for iPhones and iPads.

Pacific Disaster Center Alerts

Pacific Disaster Center Alerts

Disaster alerts also are issued through PDC’s Twitter and Facebook connections, emanating from the PDC site, www.pdc.org. Immediate updates on hazardous events occurring worldwide are posted on the Natural Hazards and Vulnerabilities Atlas, an interactive map at the top of the PDC home page.

The free iPhone/iPad application provides access to the PDC Active Hazards site, which posts phenomena – storms, earthquakes, volcanoes, wildfires and marine events – designated “potentially hazardous to people, property or assets” by the PDC DisasterAWARE decision support system and disaster management professionals.

For Hawaii residents, the Active Hazards list gives special attention to threats to the Islands from high surf, high wind, tropical cyclones and other weather hazards. That’s because the PDC gets immediate information about threats to Hawaii from the National Weather Service Honolulu office, says Ray Shirkhodai, PDC Executive Director.

Globally, Disaster Alert and the Hazards Atlas provide instant access to updated visualized data on 12 types of natural threats: Drought, earthquakes, floods, man-made events, marine incidents, storms, cyclones, tsunami, volcanoes, wildfires, as well as high surf and high wind events in Hawaii. Other kinds of hazards will be added as the system expands and information updates will be posted on the Atlas and through the Disaster Alert systems, he said.

He said PDC saw the mobile platforms as a means of getting information on hazards to the public more quickly and contracted to have the application developed and implemented with the Apple systems.

“We are very pleased with this new app and we consider its publication an important milestone,” he said. “Disaster Alert puts the latest reliable hazard and disaster information in the hands of the public anywhere in the world.”

There was an immediate public response as well. Shirkhodai reported there were 633 uploads of Disaster Alert the first day it was available at the Apple/iTunes store on July 15.

While the Apple systems are the first smart phone-based mobile platforms to be provided an application, he said the initial success is prompting further review on other smart phone systems. Funding is a constraint but the immediacy allowed by smart phone applications is making the devices strategic priorities for dispensing emergency information, he said.

Information on natural disasters is updated 24/7 at the PDC site as agencies provide data. With agencies such as the U.S. Geological Survey and the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, there are real-time updates on earthquake and tsunami threats.

“We generally pick up updates within minutes of the main agency reports,” he said.

Data is provided by multiple agencies in the United States and around the globe. Managed by the University of Hawaii, PDC was established in the wake of the devastation of Hurricane Iniki, which swept over the Island of Kauai in 1992 causing $3 billion in damages on all of the islands. The hurricane caught emergency management agencies by surprise when it shifted course unexpectedly, generating an appreciation of the need for better information management when a natural disaster threatens an area.

For more online:

Pacific Disaster Center

iTunes Store

Disaster Alert app

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Software firm moves Homeland Security development work to Maui R & T Park

August 5th, 2010 · Business Development, Business Profile, Featured, Technology

Virginia-based software development group Ardent Management Consulting today announced the opening of its Maui Geospatial Software Development Center at the Ke Alahele Center in the Maui Research & Technology Park.

The ArdentMC Maui facility will be involved in competitively awarded software development work related to U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Geospatial Mapping Initiatives. Software developed in Maui will provide Homeland Security leadership with geospatial situational awareness regarding natural and man-made disasters. The Maui GSDC also will support U.S. Department of Justice software development, enabling geospatial visualization and criminal activity analysis.

“ArdentMC is pleased to put down roots in Maui, and to work with the Maui Economic Development Board (MEDB), to bring federal contracting dollars to Hawaii,” said Brandon LaBonte, ArdentMC CEO.

“We have been impressed with the local leadership, available technical talent, investment in key IT infrastructure, and, of course, the local hospitality provided to us.”

In selecting Maui for the GSDC, ArdentMC researched locations across the country with consideration for the Small Business Administration’s (SBA) HUBZone program. The HUBZone program provides incentives to qualified small businesses that bring federal work to historically underutilized business zones. The Maui GSDC will provide a location for ongoing software development supporting federal mission systems with dependencies on complex geospatial mapping analytics.

Geospatial mapping is a geographic information system that integrates basic geographic information including terrain, transportation systems, structures and demographics with real-time data on events affecting the area. When flooding occurs, for example, a geospatial system will depict vulnerable buildings, homes, populations and facilities such as roads and wastewater systems, combined with real-time information on storm movements and rainfall.

“The fact that ArdentMC explored several alternatives before settling on the Maui site is a validation of the efforts of the Maui Economic Development Board to establish the R&T Park as an option for high technology companies seeking operational sites,” said MEDB President/CEO Jeanne Unemori Skog.

“The park is designed to support technology companies like ArdentMC who are able to locate in the R&T Park while they test the viability of their research and development programs. We appreciate the results of the examination by the ArdentMC team, which determined there are strategic advantages to a mid-Pacific location, as well as the company’s effort to recruit Hawaii residents for its Maui operations.”

ArdentMC officials said they expect to utilize the Maui GSDC to extend the software development day by combining resources in Washington, D.C. and Hawaii.

“In managing software development cycles, our workday grows to 14 hours, enabling our integrated development team to accomplish more each day, thanks to the time difference” says Jim Correll, ArdentMC Software Solutions Architect.

One of the first software developers in the new Maui office is a former Hawaii resident who was seeking opportunities in his home state. LaBonte said ArdentMC will continue to recruit qualified Hawaii residents for the Maui office which is expected to expand to six personnel by the end of the year.

“There’s no reason that this type of high-tech work shouldn’t be in Hawaii,” he said. “The combination of the unique culture, the climate, the quality of life, and the strong sense of community provide the ideal location for some of the most sophisticated work in geospatial development.”

ArdentMC has supported the U.S. Department of Homeland Security since 2006. Pushing federal work outside the Washington beltway, ArdentMC augments project offices near Washington, D.C., with its principal office in the Virginia Shenandoah Valley, and now in the Maui R&T Park.

About ArdentMC

Ardent Management Consulting is a results-oriented, program management and IT consulting firm specializing in large scale program management, business process consulting and complex systems integration for clients ranging from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to Fortune 500 entities within the private sector. As a small business HUBZone, ArdentMC focuses on delivering excellence for clients while supporting local, underutilized communities that have tremendous value to offer. ArdentMC was founded on the principle that serving our clients is a privilege – and that meeting our clients’ missions requires superior, highly dedicated resources, a focus on execution, and a never ending commitment to excellence. For more information about ArdentMC, please visit www.ardentmc.com.

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Robotics Grants Application Deadlines

August 4th, 2010 · Ke Alahele, Robotics

Requests for Ke Alahele First Lego League (FLL) and VEX Robotics grants are due into the MEDB office by August 20, 2010 at 4:30 pm. Botball and FIRST Robotic applications are due by October 15, 2010 at 4:30 pm.

robotics-logosRobotics programs and competitions give our students a chance to explore the various dimensions of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics through an engaging and hands-on course of instruction. Maui Economic Development Board, Inc. (MEDB) supports these programs (e.g., First Lego League (FLL), VEX, Botball, and FIRST League) as important avenues for economic diversification and the inclusion of young women and other underserved populations who historically have been under-represented in STEM education and careers. MEDB welcomes our grant applicants’ participation in robotics and hopes your experience will be fun and a substantive learning endeavor.

Download the Ke Alahele Robotics Guidelines.

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