Registrations as Contractor/ Vendor

Obtain a DUNS number

D-U-N-S Number assignment is FREE for all businesses required to register with the US Federal government for contracts or grants.

Request online: http://fedgov.dnb.com/webform/displayHomePage.do;jsessionid=81407B1F03F2BDB123DD47D19158B75F

Register business with Central Contractor Registration (CCR)

 http://www.ccr.gov/

Federal acquisitions regulations require all prospective vendors to be registered in CCR prior to the award of a contract.

Online Representations and Certifications Application (ORCA)

https://orca.bpn.gov/login.aspx

You need to provide additional information about your company and business activities here.  The Federal Acquisitions Regulations (FAR) section 52.212-3 Offeror Representations and Certifications-Commercial Items explains the information you will be asked on ORCA. (http://www.acqnet.gov/far/current/html/52_212_213.html#wp1179194?cm_sp=ExternalLink-_-Federal-_-GSA)

8a SBE Federal Government Certifications WBE (Women Owned Business); MBE (Minority Owned Business); DBE (Disadvantaged Business Certification; and VOSB  (Veterans and Service Disabled Certifications)

http://www.osdbu.dot.gov/Related/SBA.cfm

Optional certifications, but advantageous if your firm qualifies for any of the above certificiations.

 

Register with Federal Business Opportunities (FBO)

https://www.fbo.gov/index?cck=1&au=&ck=

Register and receive email notifications of business opportunities

Disaster Contracting

FEMA and the Army Corp of Engineers now require that firms register separately with the agencies.  The email changes for each agency’s department.

United Nations

http://www.ci.undp.org/ptd/venreg.htm

Also requires separate registration with PTU (Procurement Travel Unit).

World Health Organization:   Company Profile for Services Attached

http://new.paho.org/hq/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=186&Itemid=277&limit=1&limitstart=3

Registration with the United Also required for almost all contracts.

Aging in Place in the 21st Century

Aging in Place in the Information Economy v2 Presentation from 2/22/2011 webinar.

 

Wireless Home Health Resources

Wireless Health News

• mobilehealthnews
• FierceMobileHealthcare
• MobileHealthWatch
• Aging In Place Technology Watch
• Telecare Aware
• Healthcare IT News
• iHealthBeat
• Medgadget

Wireless Health Collaboratives

• Continua Health Alliance
• West Wireless Health Institute
• Center for Aging Services Technologies
• Digital He@lth Initiative
• Wireless Life-Sciences Alliance
• American Telemedicine Association

Wireless Health Research Groups

• 802.15 WPAN Task Group 6 Body Area Networks (BAN) @ IEEE
• Assisted-Living And Residential Monitoring Network (AlarmNet) @ UVA
• Body Sensor Networks @ ICL
• Efficient Computing Group @ Rice
• Embedded Systems and Signal Processing Lab @ UTD
• Integrated Networked Embedded Real-Time Technologies In Application (INERTIA) @ UVA
• Proactive Health Research Group @ Intel
• Responsive Environments Group @ MIT
• Wireless Communications Group @ ETHZ
• Wireless Health Community @ UCLA
• Wireless Sensor Networks for Medical Care (CodeBlue) @ Harvard
• AgeLab @ MIT
• Oregon Center for Aging and Technology (ORCATECH) @ OHSU
• Intelligent Assistive Technology and Systems Lab @ UofT

Wireless Health Platform Technology

• AMBER @ Visonic
• Body Sensor Network Node @ ICL
• Health @ Google
• HealthVault @ Microsoft
• QuietCare Systems @ GE
• Technology Enabled Medical Precision Observation (TEMPO) @ UVA
• Ultra Low Power Intelligent Sensor Interface and Transceiver Platform (Sensium) @ Toumaz

Wireless Health Market Research

• AARP Healthy@Home
• Parks Associates Digital Health
• Forrester Aging in Place
• Brookings Institute Customer-Driven Medicine: How To Create A New Health Care System
• Deloitte Technology-Enabled Care at Home
• Berg Insights mHealth and Home Monitoring Research Series Summary
• ALFA Largest Assisted Living Providers

Wireless Health Regulation

• FDA Device Advice
• FCC Rules and Regulations

Webinar: Home Care in the 21st Century

Space is limited. Reserve your Webinar seat now at: https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/549643654

Existing consumer electronics and networking technologies are being re-purposed to enable family caregivers with the ability to remain aware of a loved one’s health and safety. Perhaps the easiest way to think of these systems is as a “baby monitor times ten”. This is being heralded by pundits from the Consumer Electronics industry as the next big thing. Enabling a virtual presence in a home makes whole new levels of service and care that is affordable and available to almost everyone. The world of home care is about to change radically and rapidly. The presenter, Mark Shea, has over twenty years of experience with networking and internet technologies, ten years with Microsoft. He teaches Social Media at the University of Washington. Mark currently owns a Home Care agency in Mount Vernon. Washington, North Cascade Right at Home. Mark will be presenting his vision of how these technologies can be leveraged by the Home Care agency of the 21st Century. Title: Home Care in the 21st Century Date: Thursday, February 17, 2011 Time: 1:00 PM – 3:00 PM PST After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the Webinar. System Requirements PC-based attendees Required: Windows® 7, Vista, XP or 2003 Server Macintosh®-based attendees Required: Mac OS® X 10.4.11 (Tiger®) or newer

My Final Days, a Reverie

A vision for my future is to spend my final days in a hospital bed at home. In this dream, I would experience something very similar to what I experience now in a hospital or nursing home….but a little better. I would still be able to go to a hospital or skilled nursing facility if there was a reason to go there, for example, for surgery, but otherwise, why leave home? I press a call button and don’t have to wait 20 minutes to tell the nurse what I need. My overhead screen pops on and I talk to one of those nice kids in India. And lickety-split, in just a few minutes, a nurse shows up with the bed pan I needed. But I’m home. I don’t have to put up with the lame ass cable channels at the hospital. I’m home and I still get my Red Zone football channel. I can yell at the dog when it barks too much and feed him peanut butter like I’m not supposed to. Family and friends can come and go…..no visiting hours here. Just like in the hospital, aides and orderlies come and go to clean my room, change my linens, bathe me, and chastise my wife for bringing me milkshakes. I will be home. That is my dream.

The Home Care Agency of the 21st Century (Part 2)

By Mark Shea, MCDM

The Home Care Agency of the 21^st Century will be the same as it is now in very many ways and in the most important way. We provide human companionship, human care, human assistance, and most importantly, human touch. Humans will die without these things. We not only crave the companionship, care, and touch of others. We need it. Without it, we fail to thrive and this is particularly true for babies and the elderly. We know this at our core as humans. This is why solitary confinement is considered an extreme punishment. The work of a caregiver is to comfort, to assist, and to love, whatever may come and with any luck, it might be a healing. We are there to help people die too. We help them to die with dignity and as comfortably as we can manage. We soothe families. We laugh with them and cry with them. We cannot be replaced by machines. We are the human element that must remain.

The Home Care Agency of the 21st Century (Part 1)

By Mark Shea, MCDM

I try to think of every link that I create on the Web as a promise. Please don’t go away. This really is an essay about the Home Care Agency of the 21^st Century.

1/1/2011: The Beginning of the End for Healthcare as We Know It

By Mark Shea, MCDM

A wave of change has arrived for the health care industry. Even the most powerful representatives of health care, government and business will be unable to stop this incoming tide. I can say this with relative certainty because I am a Baby Boomer. 79 million people, 26% of the US population, are about to get old. According to Pew Research, as of January 1, 2011, 10,000 Baby Boomers per day are having their 65^th birthday. This will continue for the next 19 years.

Review of The Wealth of Networks

In “The Wealth of Networks,” published in 2006 Yale University Press, Harvard Professor Yochai Benkler describes a new model of economic production that he calls the networked information economy. He maintains that the declining price of computation, communication, and storage have placed the material means of information and cultural production in the hands of a significant fraction of the world’s population – on the order of a billion people around the world.

Tapping the Turk

I have $200.00 burning a hole in my pocket. Once it occurred to me that I could get 10,000 people to do something as inane as draw a sheep for me for the low, low price of .02 cents per sheep, my week has not been the same. It just seems like too much fun. But what will it be?