She did it again ..

The little voice did it again. She gave me an idea, and that idea made it possible to do the job in only 1 day. Where have you been all my life? ..

Three Cookies and A Brand New Apartment

Miracles do happen.
Sometimes all we have to do
is just stop trying so hard,
and listen to what that little voice
inside our hearts
tells us to do.
~~

Happiness is
being taken by surprise
with little sparks of love
from places you least expect
at moments when you expect none at all,

is feeling The Father's embrace
through the smiles and helping hands of friends,
and even strangers,

is knowing that we receive
not because we have earned,
but because we are loved.
~~

I had a very nice weekend. All through the weekend I had this nice feeling, this little voice inside my heart, that just refuses to remain silent.

The voice is sweet, it's comforting, it's all around. It makes me feel more at ease, more at home, I smile more, and people can see that the voice is in me.

The girl at Delifrance gave me three cookies for my coffee for the first time - I didn't know what I did, but she laughed, and kept smiling while she was giving me those cookies. I smiled too. It was a very nice and warm feeling, in contrast with the weather outside, which was very cold and wet with the summer rain.

I went to the Holland Village VCD/DVD Rental for the first time, and had a good time talking to Ling Ling - the sales girl there. It was kinda funny the way she insisted that I should rent horror and sci-fi movies while I was there actually to rent "Love Actually". I thought sales people are supposed to listen more and talk less. But she's really fun. I got to know a bit about her, how she came from a local polytechnic, worked for a bank, and didn't really like it. And at the end, I gave in to her 'gentle persuasion' and rented one horror sci-fi that she recommended.

This little voice seems be with me everywhere, even in my dreams.

I had a dream Thursday evening. I dreamt of Aunt Patricia, the property agent that I've been in contact with. I dreamt that I met her and she showed me four names on a piece of paper. The first three are names of people I do not know, and the last was mine. All the names were circled out except for mine. So on Friday, I gave her a call, and arranged to view a unit on Saturday. It turned out to be a very good call. The unit was beautiful. It was on the 17th floor (the top floor). It has a very nice view. The bedrooms were beautiful with the wooden finishing and wood-tiled floors. The living room and kitchen were spacious. I heard that voice again saying "Joey, this is the one."

Aunt Patricia said that the owner wanted 1800 - a price that I know is too high for my buddies and I. But then the voice told me to try to negotiate, and it gave me the words to say. At the end, we got a 2 year contract, for a price that is much lower than the other unit that we've seen that is not as beautiful as this. Aunt Patricia contacted the owners of the unit and they agreed rightaway.

There's one problem though - the unit doesn't come with furnitures. But, the little voice remained calm, and there's this strange sensation that everything will be okay, it's the kind of peace that you get when you listen to the rain on a cloudy summer afternoon.

I called up Auntie Angeline, our current agent, to tell her that we have found a new place and we want to move out. I told her how beautiful the new place is. I told her of the view, how spacious it is, and she was very happy for me. Then suddenly, the little voice in me spoke up, it wanted me to tell Auntie Angeline that the new place doesn't come with furnitures.. and so I did. And to my surprise, Auntie Angeline offered me to have the furnitures that we have in our current unit, at a bargain price.

So everything was settled and concluded in just one weekend. It's amazing when I think about it. A few weeks ago, I received notice that I have to move out because the owners of the unit that I'm staying in want to take the unit back to sell it. I was slightly worried that my buddies and I couldn't find a new place in such a short time. But here we go, everything was done just in the nick of time, at the end of May, in just one weekend, and we have room for the one month's notice, so that we can move out in time, by end of June.

At that moment, I can't help feeling as though I'm in the middle of a play, with that little voice being the director and the script writer, and all I have to do is listen to it, and follow it to the best of my ability.

I completed my weekend watching Love Actually on VCD, and went out with my little brother to grab some sushi, see Shrek 2, and The Day After Tomorrow. But I cannot help feeling this little voice, and thinking about it. It's as though I've known it all my life. I know its sweetness and the soothing comfort that it brings. I don't think I will ever want to let it go.

Living a Dream

I just had lunch with an old old friend of mine. I haven't been in touch with her for eons. It felt awkward at first. I just didn't know where to start. So, I started asking her about work, what she's doin. She returned the favour by asking me about work, what I was doin.

I heard her say about how she's working for a boarding school now and doing IT stuff, but that was just plain information. It remained akward until she asked a different kind of question: how have I been doing?. Then things turned alive because I got to tell her how I feel about my work, why i'm doing what I do, and she returned the favour by telling me about why she is working at the boarding school.

It turns out that my friend has been working as IT tech support for some time and eventually realized that it wasn't for her and she has to move on. She gave a lot of thought to this and came down to two things that suited her. Guess which two ? education and healthcare. My two pet domains :-)

She believed that education and healthcare are right for her because they match her core-capabilities. She actually is thinking of running a school one day. A school that teaches things outside the national curriculum. A school that teaches values and builds character - not maths and numbers and figures and general knowledge. So it turns out that God gave her the opportunity to start working towards that dream.

This friend of mine is unique because I wouldn't have guessed that she has an honours degree in computer science. She has a heart of gold, and her core-capability is not IT, it's people-skills. And she's one of the humblest nicest friendliest most caring person I know. She never runs out of nice things to say to brighten up anyone's day. I worked with her when I was still in the university before and I loved that time - she was a great boss .. *hee hee*.

Her portfolio in the school involves building an IT masterplan. Right now the boarding school is too manual, and there're lots of room for simple solutions that work. And this is wonderful for her because it seemed as though God has given her a job where she can utilize her core-strengths, i.e. people skills, and also the 4 years of training she has gotten in the university.

The IT masterplan thingy is one huge thing - I would love to be given that kind of work. So, I offered her my assistance, I even told her I don't mind doing it for free. I just want to go to the boarding school, and learn about how things are done there, and contribute back by designing a roadmap full of simple things that work that can be useful to staff and students of that boarding school. And guess what ? she loved the idea and will want to discuss with me the ideas that she has :-)

I haven't been in touch with her for quite some time. It turns out that she's living a dream. and I'm very happy for her!

One of my strengths, and also my weakness, has always been my inability to let go, to say no, to back down, to give people space. Combine this weakness with having a knack for crazy ideas, being so easily excited with them, and the stubbornness to squeeze everything out of anything until there's nothing left, and I have a recipe for self-destruction in hand.

I remember that when I was in the university, I took up everything that comes my way. I felt sorry for students who take modules because they are easier because I instead aimed for the toughest hardest modules. I believed limitations exists, of course, but it is not for us to decide, setting limits is God's business. Our job is to push and push and push until we succeed, or until God says no, when He does, you've found your limits.

I used to say opportunities come probably only once in a lifetime, so I should take them with both hands, and jump straight in, and that if it's not meant to be, God will pull me out of it. I may be pulled out kicking and screaming, but I know with God's help I can be strong enough to rise back and start jumping into the next opportunity that comes by.

Thus, I had 6 and 7 modules a semester while most kids have only 5. I took up projects and assignments and ECAs like junk food. I even graduated with too many credits, and that was with 1st class honours and half a year left to spare. I was pretty okay being the over-achiever until the moment came that my grandfather passed away.

Back then I was so ingrained into wanting to break limits, achieve my fullest, and be the best that I can be, that I was basically tied down - all work, no time to just *poof* and leave the responsibilities I had just like that. So I decided that it may be best to not go home for grandpa's funeral.

Instead, I called home to send my condolences. Then that moment happened, when I got grandma on the phone and she was too weak, too sad, to even speak, she sobbed slightly, and she handed the phone over to my aunt.That's the moment when guilt sank in and I realized how wrong I've been living my life.

That was also when I promised to myself and everyone that my number one is God, my number two is _always_ family, and work comes last. And in a way, that was also when I dropped my passion for world conquest and ultimate learning, and instead decided to pursue work related to education and healthcare.

These fields are the kind of work that gives me satisfaction, knowing that I am contributing to the better fulfillment of the basic needs of others. And besides that, I'm also hoping that I can still be in touch with my family, despite doing my work.

Did I tell you ? my father has been an educator all his life, his father before him was also an educator, and my mom's side of the family has been pretty much in the medical profession all the while. They're professionals, but you can say in a way that education and healthcare are the family businesses.

Anyway, I guess I've learned a bit since my university days, I still naturally respond to challenges with 'escalating commitment', but I try to make a conscious effort to give people around me some space; I guess I learned that not everyone shares my passion for 'getting that gold at the end of the rainbow', for it may not be gold for them at all.

Anyway, I wrote this blog entry because I was reading this article at Christianity Today. It talks of Phil Vischer, who seems to be similar to yours truly here. He's a natural introvert with big dreams, big ideas, and the stubborness and unwillingness to let go of these dreams.

The article ends with this, and I love it very much:

What does it mean when God gives you a dream and the dream comes to life, and then the dream dies? Porter said God wants to see if you can live without the dream, depending only on Him for meaning.

Current "Christianity Today - Campus Life: "I feel blessed to have friends and to have the chance to be a friend to others. Friends are a way that God shows us how much he, our ultimate friend, loves us."

Mendokterkan Internet, Menginternetkan Dokter

Pusat Data & Informasi PERSI: "... Rasio jumlah dokter dengan jumlah penduduk Indonesia yang saat ini masih jauh dari kisaran ideal... Jika mau jujur, kebanyakan pasien di Indonesia masih mengeluhkan kekurangan informasi mengenai dunia kesehatan terutama menyangkut penyakit.

... dokter@itb.ac.id [adalah] media interface antara dokter dengan koleganya, maupun antara masyarakat umum dengan dokter... beranggotakan tak kurang sejumlah 146 dokter ahli serta tenaga medis lainnya, yang tak segan-segan membagi ilmunya melalui dunia maya.

... Internet bisa digunakan untuk riset, juga komunikasi. Yang penting bisa saling komunikasi. Cuma, internet juga ada bahayanya. Bohong-bohongnya juga banyak. Selentingan juga banyak. Harus ada situs yang dapat berguna untuk dokter syaratnya harus bisa dipercaya. Kita mesti bikin sesuatu hal yang jadi referensi jadi bukan berita bohong.

... Sebenarnya itu kendala di Indonesia saat kita memperkenalkan dunia kedokteran kita dengan internet. Itu kendala yang cukup besar. Content yang berbobot (kedokteran) dengan ciri khas Indonesia masih sangat kurang."

Comments: when i read the article, the techie guy in me langsung mikir www.dokter.com!!!, portal kesehatan indonesia - sumber utama untuk informasi relevan dan terkini mengenai kesehatan! .. then it came to me that technical issues is only the easier part of the equation to be solved - the major part of the challenge is the people, i.e. the dokter2 and other users of the portal. Banyak kendala mulai dari the culture of not used to communicating via email, not used to surfing and communicating online.

We need something simple that works (hence investmentya ga perlu banyak2, tapi return on investment-nya bisa cepet). The dokter@itb.ac.id mailing list is one such example. It's simple (it's just a mailing list), barrier-to-use-nya minimal (all ppl need to need to know is email, and how to subscribe - this can be trained easily, and behaviour can be encouraged through experiences that give positive feedback). Tentu kendalanya juga ada, yakni bagaimana cara mengkontrol content yang ada di mailing list-nya. But at this initial stage, this is not that critical.

What my techie mind usually do not instinctively understand is that there is no quick fix to human-related problems - some things have to be developed, grown, nurtured, naturally - gak bisa maksa. So the dokter.com portal quick-fix won't solve anything, because we need to grow a community of healthcare-aware and healthcare-interested people into a size that is of critical-mass enough to be self-sustainable, only then having a portal makes sense, the community portal is merely a facilitator.

Who was it who said: first make it work, then make it work well, then make it cheap ? The mailing list thingy works. It's not good enough but we need to wait until it grows into something that can be made to work well (probably with the introduction of a portal), then we make it work cheap, so that everyone can have access to it.

Jual Obat Kadaluarsa, RSUD Gambiran Kediri Dituntut RP 1 Milliar

Pusat Data & Informasi PERSI: "Rumah Sakit Umum Daerah (RSUD) Gambiran Kediri Jawa Timur digugat pasiennya senilai Rp 1 miliar karena dituding menjual obat yang sudah melewati batas waktu atau kadaluwarsa. Gugatan itu diajukan Wahid Darta Pangaribuan (51) yang mengaku menderita rabun mata setelah menggunakan obat mata kadaluwarsa yang dikeluarkan Instalasi Farmasi "

Report Finds High Rate of Preventable Medical Errors in Canada

iHealthBeat.org -: "Preventable medical errors contribute to as many as 24,000 deaths in Canada each year, according to a study released this week by the Canadian Medical Association Journal, the Globe and Mail reports.

The study, which examined patient records in 20 hospitals in five provinces, is the 'first comprehensive look at medical errors in Canada,' the Globe and Mail reports (McIlroy, Globe and Mail, 5/25). The study found that one in 13 patients who received care in hospitals suffered an adverse event in 2000, and 37% of these errors were preventable (Branswell, Canadian Press/Yahoo News, 5/22). Adverse events found in the study included drug overdoses, inadequate or faulty equipment or devices, insufficient monitoring by medical personnel and communication errors (Palmer, Toronto Star, 5/23).

Ross Baker, an associate medical professor at the University of Toronto and one of the study's lead authors, said medical errors are often the result of several small mistakes, which technology can easily remedy. For example, electronic medical records can reduce errors from misread handwriting.

Baker said a similar report by the U.S. Institute of Medicine in 1999, which found that 98,000 people die in the United States each year as a result of medical errors, 'created a huge force for change.' Baker also noted technological advances of U.S. Veterans Affairs Department hospitals, which have implemented medical error reporting systems that enable facilities to figure out how to improve their processes. "

"It's a long, long journey
Till I know where I'm supposed to be
It's a long, long journey
and I don't know if I can believe
When shadows fall and block my eyes
I am lost and know that I must hide
It's a long, long journey
Till I find my way home to you

Many days I've spent
Drifting on through empty shores
Wondering what's my purpose
Wondering how to make me strong
I know I will falter I know I will cry
I know you'll be standing by my side
It's a long, long journey
And I need to be close to you

Sometimes it seems no one understands
I don't even know why
I do the things I do
When pride builds me up till I can't see my soul
Will you break down these walls and pull me through?

'Cause it's a long, long journey
Till I feel that I am worth the price
You paid for me on calvary
Beneath those stormy skies
When Satan mocks and friends turn to foes
It feels like everything is out to make me lose control
It's a long, long journey
Till I find my way home to you"

~ Journey - Corrinne May

Doa Siang Hari

Dear God,

I started this prayer thinking about.. You know ..
what I think I need from You right now.
because there have been happenings lately yang ..
istilah kerennya "mengiris hati" gitu.

but then I realize... koq sebenarnya
You've given me more than I could ever ask
from anyone in the world..

First, I want to thank You for giving me the chance
to have...a heart yang sedikit lebih besar,

*elus2 dada*

jadi sedikit lebih sabar gitu..
dimana no matter what happens,
no matter how I feel,
aku masih bisa bilang "Puji Tuhan!, woohoo!"

I figure that's probably why you gave me ten seasons of Friends.. *chuckles*

You know ... how Chandler and Ross and Rachel and gang seems to go through all that messy stuff and still be able to joke about and stick together till the end ? Well, I've learned to laugh all this off too, knowing that You are in control Mr. G, sir - I know things will be okay.

So i've been going woohoo! a lot, and been singing more often too.

I also want to apologize for being such a jerk.. there're times when things go wrong and I don't understand them that I do things that hurts You. Please forgive me.

One other thing that I also want to thank you for ... is for sending me friends (dalam arti yang sebenarnya) when I really need them most. Ada yang spared her time padahal she's swamped with work, ada yang tiba2 nongol bawa mpek2, ada yang tiba2 bump into me and decided to do lunch, ada yang even mere presence nya remind me of the relationship I once had with You - yang regretfully I have neglected.

I want to thank you for a new way of seeing the world too. I don't know how I got to think this way, but ... now I see life as both a prayer and a dance - and this view really inspires me.

So.. I see Hidup as sebuah doa.. yang sebenarnya for You (who else? :-]) Everything I say, do, think, touch, go through, is an expression of myself yang ditujukan buat Kamu seorang.

I mentioned life is also like a dance .. the common understanding of 'prayer' is that it's a personal thing, by saying Hidup is also a dance, I got to see the importance of other people in my life, i.e. in dances, we usually have dancing partners.

So, Life is like a dance because there are other people around me yang juga lagi 'berdoa' to You. Whether the guy behind my back yang lagi wondering why aren't I working (koq si JP ini blogging all day long yach?), or even that girl in Columbus girl yang thinks I'm crazy, my brother yang lagi ngurusin exchange program to UC Davis, and even others yang not as fortunate as the people I see everyday.

I don't dance at all actually - the last dance I had was pretty traumatic, You know what happened, I don't have to recite that in a public blog yah?. But I figure when dancing, we take cues from other dancers, and we also listen to the beat, i.e. the ryhthm.

When we live, we dance to Your Rhtyhm, Lord, but that's not enough, we have to take cues from all the other guys and gals yang juga lagi dancing out there.

Cues come in many forms: the sigh at the end of their sentence, the spark You put in their eyes, the warmth of their embrace, or even their insistance the mpek2 and linguini go great together. ;p

There are also 'solo dancers'.. Maybe You want them to dance that way maybe not; I only wish that they don't bump into other dancers so frequently that they hurt not only themselves but others too. I remember that I once was a 'solo dancer' myself too, and I guess I still was until a few days ago.

Anyway..

I guess life is always full of ups and downs, hey there's time for sunshine and there's time for stormy skies! And I want to thank You for both the sunshine and the storms.

As I said, I started this prayer thinking I need something to get me going again, only to realize what I need ... You've already given to me before I even asked - I guess Joey emang agak telmi juga kadang2.. *hee hee*

Oh well.. okay.. If I continue talking to You this way, I can't get that provider module up by end of this week. Gotta go dulu yah Mr. G, sir ? Joey pamit dulu.

so, let me end this "verbal" prayer by saying..

Thanks again, I really Love You lots.. (honest, I'm not exaggerating this time), and I really really can't wait till the day I get to see You face-to-face.

Cheers,

Just me.

Early in the morning,
when I see Your shining star
And late in the evening
You whisper to my heart
I call Your name, and You are there

With each day that passing,
I know Your love for me
In the moments when I stand tall
In the seasons when I'm weak
I call Your name, and You are there

...

No matter the battles,
that may come my way
You promised a victory
I'll not be afraid

O, I call Your name, and You are there

~ Bob Fitts - Constant Companion

Ku Mau SepertiMu Yesus

"Bagaikan bejana siap dibentuk
Demikian hidupku di tanganMu
Dengan urapan kuasa RohMu
Ku dibaharui selalu

Jadikan ku alat dalam rumahMu
Inilah hidupku di tanganMu
Bentuklah s'turut kehendakMu
Pakailah sesuai rencanaMu

Ku mau sepertiMu YESUS
Disempurnakan selalu
Dalam segenap jalanku
Memuliakan namaMu"

~ another of my favourite songs ;-]

Toyota's PM Car

From Howstuffworks "How the Toyota PM Concept Car Works".

You guys should really check this out. The Toyota PM is a car for one. It looks more like a StarTrek shuttle craft than a car. But it sure is awesome!

It is highly maneuverable, i.e. it can tilt its back so you can go through tight corners in urvan environments, it can also recline to its lowest posture to increase stability in high-speed travel. (can you imagine it?)

Toyota PMs can communicate to one another, locating each other, and drivers can also surrender of their vehicle to another PM Driver. (Darling, can you drive me home ?). PMs can team up where one PM gets to be the lead-vehicle and the rest goes on autopilot.

It's beautiful.

An Oyster and a Pearl

An oyster saw a loose pearl that has fallen into a small crack in the ocean bed. Painstakingly she retrieved the pearl and placed it on a leaf near her side.

She knows humans search for pearls and thought, "This pearl will tempt them, so they will take it and let me be."

When a pearl diver showed up, his eyes were conditioned to look for oysters and not for pearls resting on leaves.

So he grabbed an oyster which did not happen to have a pearl and allowed the real pearl to fall back into the crack in the ocean bed.

We know exactly where to look
That is why we fail to find what we seek

Health Insurance Coverages (Personal Notes)

The seven types of Health Insurance Coverages:

1. Short Term Indemnity Coverage:

• not fee-for-service (i.e. risk-based)
  
• Lasts one to six months, renewable upto 12 months
  
• Typically minimal coverage only - no maternity, pregnancy coverage
  
• With per-injury or per-illness deductibles to offset potentially high premiums, staged co-insurance (i.e. 80% for first $5000 after deductible, 100% for the rest)
  
• Strict eligibility requirements
  
• No restrictions on choice of providers

Notes: short-term health insurance coverages are really expensive - definitely not value for money. it's designed for people who really needs the minimal yet routine coverage - people who has just dropped out of a previous plan and realized there's no short-term coverage before the next long-term coverage kicks in, i.e. the rebound girlfriend or boyfriend.

2. Catastrophic Health Insurance

• not fee-for-service (i.e. risk-based)
  
• for major hospital and medical expenses
  
• high maximum benefit payment (millions of $$$)
  
• high deductibles (up to $15,000) to prevent abuse and to offset potentially high premiums.

3. Traditional Health Insurance

• a.k.a. traditional indemnity or free-for-service
  
• no restriction on choice of providers
  
• typically with deductibles and co-insurance
  
• lots of out-of-pocket expenditures
  
• insurer approval required before certain medical services are rendered

Notes: providers may over charge, or even over-perscribe, and the insured has to pay the penalty. the insurer just becomes 'hated gatekeeper' because they decide what are necessary medical services and what are appropriate service charges.

4. Preferred Provider Organizations (PPOs)

• Fee-for-service
  
• offers health plans and incentives for use of service from a selected set of 'preferred providers'.
  
• incentives can be financial or administrative ease
  
• e.g. $20 copay if you go to clinics A, B, and C, but you have 80% co-insurance with $100 deductible which you have to claim via filing reimbursement forms if you go to other clinics.
  
• typically no prior approval is required for referrals to providers within the network.
  
• gives freedom for plan members/insured to leave network if necessary - at a cost

Notes: PPOs are best understood from a 'business sense'. The set of 'preffered providers' in reality, are also the ones offering the health insurance - either the network of providers 'owns' the health insurer, or there is an agreement that prioritizes these providers for a negotiated lower servicerates; thus, it is within the health insurer's interest to ensure that these network of providers get most if not all of the patients. This explains the incentives offered for the insured to stay 'within the network'. A special type of PPO, the Exclusive Provider Network (EPO), does not even cover medical expenses incurred from providers outside its network.

5. Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs)

• monthly premiums
  
• restricted to "in-network" providers unless in emergency cases
  
• two models: Staff-Model (doctors are employees of HMOs), IPA (Individual Practice Associations - HMO has contracts with private doctors)
  
• HMOs requires insured to choose a Primary Care Physician (PCP) as a chief medical officer - referrals must come from the chosen PCP

Notes: HMO-provider contracts can take many forms. A common model is capitation - where the doctor is prepaid (up front) a lumpsum based on the plan members/insured that has been allocated to him.

6. Point of Service (POS)

• POS is a HMO/PPO hybrid.
  
• Contracts have been negotiated with network of providers to ensure lower costs
  
• Plan Members have flexibility of leaving the network when necessary (like in PPO)
  
• but POS have gatekeepers, i.e. PCPs (like in HMO)
  
• Plan Members/Insured need to get approval from an in-network PCP before you can see a specialist
  
• The flexibility comes at a price - the monthly premiums of POS plans are higher than that of HMO plans.

7. Hybrids

• Any combination of the above
  
• Mixed plans where monthly premiums and fee-for-service components are included.

On Truth

From Anthony de Mello's "Prayer of the Frog":

The great Gensha once invited a court official to tea. After the customary gretings the official said, "I do not wish to squander this opportunity of spending some time in the presence of so great a Master. Tell me, what does it mean when they say that in spite of our having it in our daily life we do not see it?"

Gensha offered the man a piece of cake. Then he served him his tea. After eating and drinking, the official thinking that the Master had not heard his first sentence, repeated the question. "Yes, of course," said the Master. "This is what it means: that we do not see it even though we have it in our daily life."

Those who know, do not say
those who say, do not know.
The wise are therefore silent.
The clever speak - the stupid argue.

Blue Cross Blue Shield, Kaiser Permanente

The history of Blue Cross Blue Shild and Kaiser Permanente, is the history of health insurance in America. They were born out of necessity more than anything else.

Blue Cross was a concept created in 1929 by a pioneering businessman, Justin Ford Kimball, who offered a way for 1,300 school teachers in Dallas to finance 21 days of hospital care by making small monthly payments. Blue Shield grew out the need for medical coverage for the serious injuries and chronic ilness that were common in hazardous jobs such as lumber and mining.

In just 10 years, enrollment in Blue health plans grow from 1,300 to over 3 million. BSBC was also responsible for providing the infrastructure for the Federal Medicare and Medicaid programmes during its launch in 1965. A massive program like Medicare would have not been possible without the established Blue Cross and Blue Shield infrastructure. In the five years following Medicare's inception, Blue Cross processed 63.4 million claims totaling approximately $19.2 billion. In 2001, the Blue System continued to process the overwhelming majority of Medicare claims totaling $163 billion.

Today, Blue Cross and Blue Shield System-wide enrollment reaches all-time high. More than 88 million Americans -- nearly one-in-three --have BCBS coverage.

Kaiser Permanente also began at the heights of the Great Depression when an inventive young surgeon, Sidney R. Garfield, MD, teamed up with Harod Hatch, an engineer-turned-insurance-agent.

They saw the opportunity to provide healthcare to workers building the Los Angeles aqueduct. Dr. Garfield borrowed money to build Contractors General Hospital, and began treating sick and injured workers. Garfield and Hatch had problems getting insurance companies to cover the medical bills, and not all workers have insurance. So Harold proposed an idea: get insurance companies to pay a fixed amount per day per covered worker, up front, and focus on preventive care, i.e. keeping people healthy and treating them early on to prevent serious problems later.

And so, along with preventive care, prepayment was born. For only 5 cents per day, workers received this new form of health coverage. For an additional 5 cents per day, workers could also receive coverage for non-job-related medical problems. Thousands of workers enrolled, and Dr. Garfield's hospital became a financial success.

However, as the dam neared completion in 1941 and workers left the project, it seemed that prepaid, preventive health care was coming to an end as well. But history intervened.

As America enters World War II, tens of thousands of workers -- many of them in poor health -- poured into the Kaiser Shipyards in Richmon, California. Henry Kaiser, then, approached Dr. Garfield to provide care for these workers. The organization that was formed out of this collaboration continue to grow into the Kaiser Permanente of today.

Today, Kaiser Permanente is America's largest nonprofit health plan, serving 8.2 million members. Besides prepaid insurance, Kaiser Permanente has also brought to American healthcare: physician group practice to maximize care, preventive care, and the organized delivery system - putting as many services as possible under one roof.

Brochures/Pamphlets 101

The fundamental principle is the same regardless of what it is you are marketing: yourself to the person you have a crush on, your house-special grilled chicken to the visitors of your restaurant, or an IT solution to potential corporate clients.

No guy ever got lucky because his object of attraction likes what she reads about the guy; brochures/pamphlets or even menus for that matter, are not any better in closing deals.

The trick is in what we call the teaser principle.

Brochures/pamphlets or menus are meant to attract people, no less and no more - definitely not to get the person to hand you his check. They are only teasers. They're meant to show what's good about what you are selling, and they purposely have holes and gaps so that your potential clients will want to ask you questions.

The last thing you want is for your potential clients to think they know everything about you and what you offer without even giving you the chance to explain yourself.

To keep this simple, just think of brochures/pamphlets as sexy outfits. They are meant to reveal just enough to get your potential clients excited and interested, but no more - the real action comes afterwards, after you and your clients are more comfortable with each other.

And this, is Brochures/Pamphlets 101.

Here Come e-Pills

Barron's Online: " e-prescribing's time has at long last come, that is welcome news for little firms like Allscripts Healthcare Solutions, a Chicago-based company that has been diligently pitching electronic prescribing systems since 1999. Health insurers and prescription benefit managers (PBMs) -- like CareMark Rx, Express Scripts and Medco Health Solutions -- will also win big, because e-prescribing systems nudge doctors into prescribing less-expensive branded drugs and generics.

Paper prescriptions could use a computer fix. Two million patients fall ill every year because of scribbled prescriptions or misunderstood phone calls that lead them to get the wrong medicine. Over 10% of the 3.4 billion prescriptions dispensed annually require doctor-authorized refills -- chewing up valuable time for pharmacists, nurses and doctors, if patients don't neglect their refills altogether.

'Many people can't afford to refill the medication that their doctor prescribes,' says Dr. Frisse, "and if you talk to the doctors, they say 'I never realized what this medication costs.'" Since the 1990s, therefore, blue-ribbon committees and software industry marketers have urged doctors to computerize their patient records, and to send prescriptions by e-mail. Just last month, a study by a group of medical and industry experts called the eHealth Initiative concluded that e-prescribing could save the nation $27 billion a year.

--
Comments: The initiative and technology have existed since the 1990s. It took a government intervention in the form of a Medicare revamp to turn the effort in the right direction - despite the benefits that everyone all know about e-prescribing (i.e. enforcement of generics and additional safety/quality). This is almost a decade later.

Why do we have to move so slow ?

Prayer of The Frog

When Brother Bruno was at prayer one night he was disturbed by the croaking of a bullfrog. All his attempts to disregard the sound were unsuccessful so he shouted from his window, "Quiet! I'm at my prayers."

Now Brother Bruno was a saint so his command was instantly obeyed. Every living creature held its voice so as to create a silence that would be favorable to prayer.

But now another sound intruded on Bruno's worship - an inner voice that said, "Maybe God is as pleased with the croaking of that frog as with the chanting of your psalms." "What can please the ears of God in the croak of a frog?" was Bruno's scornful rejoinder. But the voice refused to give up: "Why would you think God invented the sound?"

Bruno decided to find out why. He leaned out of his window and gave the order, "Sing!" The bullfrog's measured croaking filled the air to the ludicrous accompaniment of all the frogs in the vicinity. And as Bruno attended to the sound, their voices ceased to jar for he discovered that, if he stopped resisting them, they actually enriched the silence of the night.

With that discovery Bruno's heart became harmonious with the universe and, for the first time in his life he understood what it means to pray.

on Love

A man offered to pay a sum of money to his twelve year-old daughter if she mowed the lawn. The girl went at the task with great zest and by evening the whole lawn had been beautifully mowed - well, everything except a large uncut patch of grass in one corner.

When the man said he couldn't pay the sum agreed upon because the whole lawn hadn't been mowed, the girl said she was ready to forego the money, but would not cut the grass in the patch.

Curious to find out why, he checked the uncut patch. There, right in the centre of the patch, sat a large toad. The girl had been too tender-hearted to run over it with the lawn-mower.

Where there is love, there is disorder
Perfect order would make the world a graveyard.

DidTheyReadIt.com

From USATODAY.com: "DidTheyReadIt.com, which will launch Monday, allows anyone to secretly track e-mails they send. You'll see whether someone opens your e-mail, how long the recipient keeps it open - even where geographically the recipient is reading it."

I think I may know how they did it. It won't take much work to build a prototype of the same thing they've built. It'll work on Pine, Outlook, and HTTP-friendly email client. It's so simple technically I couldn't believe i didn't think of this before *<8)

It's an interesting business idea; they prey on people's insecurities.. (i.e. you want to know whether what you've sent has been read). Actually with this setup, you can do more than that, you can "recall", i.e. take back, an email before it's read, or even modify email contents before they're read. Remember the last time you sent a boo boo email ? :-]

Or do a workflow kind of system where you can send a follow-up email based on the recipients reading behaviour. This is very useful in email marketing.

For example, if your recipient took a long time to read, the guy may be interested, so your system can automatically send nother email to follow up. If your recipeient only briefly browsed through, your system can automatically send another email that's simpler, etc.

I say these guys are only touching the tip of the ice-berg, because with what they have, they can really offer a tool that revolutionize email marketing.

Customizability vs. Configurability

We started out with a neat schedule. 6 Months, revamp the entire system. Everything will be up and running by October. But, then changes happened. A team member got pulled-out, new tasks come in, and what makes matters worse, we now have changes in the direction of the business development that changes how we design the system.

The previous system design was meant for high-customizability across multiple deployments where each deployment is a customized system, i.e. I've identified possible points of customizations and have taken them out so developers need not search through tonnes of code just to find that one liner that he has to customize.

The new system design is meant to be for high-configurability across multiple deployments where every deployment is actually the same system - just the configurations are different.

The business motivations and even implications of the two systems differ. High-customizable systems are meant to get the biggest buck for the bang. We go out and tell clients "we'll do everything you want us to as long as you pay." This translates to high development costs and requiring at least a team to maintain the system for as long as
that one client remains your client.

High-configurable systems are meant to get the biggest bang for the buck. We go out and tell clients that we have a product, that they can use what we have if they want to, if they need more, too bad. Lower costs for us, lower costs for the clients, and since we have one system for all clients, we don't have to bleed ourselves dry in maintaining a different system for every client.

High-customizable systems are perfect for market with big players with complex needs and also the money to get customized solutions. We won't mind having high development costs because the maintenance fees for this behemoth of customized systems are very profitable. For some large IT consulting companies (I won't mention any names), this is their livelihood. Imagine a 7 digit implementation fees and the 10 to 15% annual maintenance fees for as long as your client is in business. That's good money.

High-configurable systems are better suited for markets with many small-medium sized players whose needs are not complex enough to warrant a customized solution - any thing that works would be good enough for them. Money isn't made from maintenance. Money is made from selling quality products to as many of these guys as possible, and making sure they keep buying your product upgrades.

How you sell these systems differ too. When you sell things that are custom-tailored, whether it's a suite, a plate of fried rice, or a health insurance claims processing system, you don't go out showing "the real thing"; instead, you go around carrying a catalogue of what you can build. Tailors have their own big black book of fashion, restaurants have menus, and we have our HTML prototypes. And since we have not sown, cooked, or programmed what we wish to sell, most of time, energy, resources is spent on gathering requirements, whether it is measuring your clients torso size, asking whether he wants his chicken spicy, or whether he wants the button on the top of the screen instead of at the bottom.

Selling highly-configurable products is a different ball-game. You already have the real-thing. So instead of going around carrying a catalogue or a menu, you go around showing what you have in the form of a live demo, or even a scaled-down version of the real thing which your client can download and play around with. Time and resources won't be spent on gathering requirements, but instead will be spent on showing your clients that what they need can be done on your system.

Most software systems start out as highly-customizable systems, then they slowly evolve into highly-configurable systems. The reason being that only after you gather enough knowledge about your clients and enough experience in solving their specific problems that you can confidently build a product that is generic enough to solve everyone's
common problems.

Okay, enough rambling from me for this morning. Gotta get back to work.

Protest over ID card pilot scheme

From BBC NEWS | Scotland:

Campaigners in Glasgow have shown their opposition to the new national identity card pilot scheme.

Volunteers are being invited to sign up to have their irises, fingerprints and facial biometrics recorded as part of the UK Passport Service (UKPS) trial.

It's not new. We've had ID cards before, we have ID cards now. The difference with the new cards is that it is now all too possible to store more than just our names DOBs, gender and addresses. These cards are linked to a huge database where infos such as our medical history, our allergies, to even our purchasing and communication habits can be stored. Think of the places where you've had to show your ID, think of what you do there, and think of the possibility of that action, that place, that time, recorded by the government for "future use."

The governments have their own reasons. Such degree of police powers is required to combat crime, prevent tax evasion and frauds, provide better healthcare service. But stiil, there's an alarm ringing in my head screaming that this ID card thingy may not be all good.

Other nations have certainly already started their programs before the UK. Taiwan has completed its deployment of a Java-based ID card last year to store health information for its 22 million citizens. Thailand, has also started using Java-based National ID cards for its 61 million citizens. Brazil is another country that has used Java-card based systems for their national healthcare system.

Janji Yang Manis

Janji yang manis: 'Kau tak Kulupakan',
tak terombang-ambing lagi jiwaku;
Walau lembah hidupku penuh awan,
nanti 'kan cerahlah langit diatasku.

Refrein:
'Kau tidak 'kan Aku lupakan,
Aku memimpinmu, Aku membimbingmu;
Kau tidak 'kan Aku lupakan,
Aku penolongmu, yakinlah teguh'.

Yakin 'kan janji: 'Kau tak Kulupakan',
dengan sukacita aku jalan t'rus;
Dunia dan kawan tiada kuharapkan,
satu yang setia: Yesus, Penebus.

Dan bila pintu sorga dibukakan,
selesailah sudah susah dan lelah;
'Kan kudengarlah suara mengatakan:
'Hamba yang setiawan, mari masuklah'.

Weird.

Last week, all my evenings were booked with some appointment or another, and I spent all my lunches in the office doing work. This week, it's my lunches tht are all booked with meetings..

The Office on Weekends

I've always loved the idea of having a private getaway, whether it is hiding away in a cafe, or a park, or a library, a tree house in the yard, or even in my own bedroom late at nights doing my readings. There's something special about being away from people for a moment and being able to focus on what is important.

I get that special feeling working in the office on weekends. This place is practically deserted. The only guys who are here are those who have tight deadlines and requirements breathing down their backs, and these are guys from the other team. Guys from my team are nowhere to be seen, I'm the only one.

If you're wondering, I'm not in the office because I have tight deadlines and requirements breathing down my back. There's always a Monday for me you see. I come to the office because it's my little getaway. I deliberately plan work for me to do on the weekends knowing that I'll enjoy doing it. It's almost like planning to meet a sweet-heart after a week of being busy everywhere else.

And so I'll be sitting tight in my own cubicle with the fans on (no Air Conditioning unless there're more than 7 ppl on the same floor). It's quiet, and there's no one else, so I can play any music as loud as I can. And I can really really work without any interruptions. The office on weekends is really like a summer getaway, and I love it.

KnackerFactor

Scientists have released a tool to help the 12 million UK workers suffering the everyday nightmare of coping with tiredness in the workplace.

Pro Plus® have taken time management to another level today by providing a new mathematical formula to predict the time of day when we will feel most tired. All you have to do is HONESTLY answer the following questions to find out the exact time you will feel tired at work and get a profile of your alertness throughout the day.

Readings for Joey:

You will start to feel noticeably tired at 13:15 and you will feel most tired at 14:15

GMail Swaps

Those of us with GMail accounts... we're the lucky ones.

There're are lots of people out there who'd trade anything for a google account.

There's a guy who says he'll give you his kidney for a GMail account: "Kidney will be delivered in cooler (yours to keep!) on a date specified by you. You pay shipping," wrote the poster.

There's even a girl who'd be your online girlfriend for a month.

Hundreds of Gmail accounts and invitations are up for sale on eBay. As of Friday, nearly 300 Gmail accounts were listed on the online auction site. Earlier auctions of Gmail accounts have closed at more than $150.

From the Four Loves: Need-Love

Divine Love is Gift-Love. It is the love which moves a man to work and plan and save for the future well-being of his family which he will die without seeing or sharing; Need-Love, on the other hand, is one which sends a lonely and freightened child into his mother's arms.

The human love as we know it is Need-Love, or the craving for love. We are born helpless. As soon as we are fully conscious we discover loneliness. We need others physically, emotionally, intellectually; we need them to know anything, even ourselves.

Make no mistake. Need-Love is not selfishness. Need-Love can be wrongly and selfishly indulged, but in real life no one calls a child selfish for seeking affection from his mother, nor an adult who seeks his fellow "for company." The absence of Need-Love, on the other hand, can be seen as a symptom of a severe condition. Just as a man lacking in appetite for days may be suffering from medical condition, a man who refuses to acknowledge that he needs others may also be suffering from a different kind of illness.

Need-Love is not only essential but is also the main ingredient of a healthy spiritual life. The awareness that our whole being is naturally one vast need; incomplete, prepatory, empty yet cluttered, crying out for Him to untie things that are knotted together and tie up things that are still dangling loose.

Need-Love is delicate and fragile. The same Need-Love that can bring us closer to God may also be the Demons that destroy us. The voice of Need-Love may immitate the sound of God and instruct us to not count the costs; it tells us to give total commitment for "love's sake" regardless of everything else.

It all starts innocently, in the form of friendship, erotic love, family love, or even love for country. Then we start to mistake Like for Same. We see our Need-Love as equal to that of Gift-Love, then we start to give our human loves the same unconditional allegiance which we owe only to God. Then these human loves become our gods; then they become demons; then they will destroy us, destroy themselves, and may even turn into hatred.

Need-Loves are main ingredients for a healthy spiritual life, but they are not meant to be our gods. Human loves may be divine images of Divine Love, no less, but also no more; they are not divine loves.

New Blog Comments

Blogger comments sucks because if you're not a blogger member, you can only post anonymously. And my squawkbox account is expiring in June 2004, I can only extend it if I pay then.. *shrugs*...

So I chose CommentThis.com.. let's hope they stay "free" for me..

If he's not crazy, he's not Joey.

I'm supposed to "translate" the codes from the "old design" to the "new design".

"Translate" is a high-level concept that helps top-managment have a handle on the "amount of work required" to get the job done.

It shouldn't be difficult right, we're only translating. The old codes are there, you don't have to write from scratch, you only have to translate.

In reality, "translate" means:

1. copy-and-pasting old codes into the new design templates, and tweaking method calls, class names, and import statements until they compile correctly. (Did I tell you there are about 1040++ classes and the former developers was under too much pressure that modularity was not high on priority back then?)

2. read line by line the codes and identify sections of the code that can be "taken out" and remodeled as a "customization point" using my plugin architecture.

3. test all this so that we still have the same functionality as the old system.

4. document all this so that those who are new to the system will know what we've done

The old system took 6 developers nearly a year to build, and me and my buddy are going to "translate" all that in 2 months.

A certain someone just told me recently that I'm crazy.

Well, she's right. If he's not crazy, he's not Joey.

Why Health Care Has No Wal-Mart

BW Online | April 21, 2004 | Why Health Care Has No Wal-Mart: "The Wal-Mart Effect: Huge retailers use their buying power to force suppliers to cut costs, then the retailers pass some of those savings on to their customers. Forced to stay competitive, other retailers follow suit. The result: The price of, say, a DVD player, plunges from $1,000 to $50 in just a few years. It is, for consumers at least, the sort of virtuous cycle that economists dream about.

And it has worked for everything from gizmos to food. But it hasn't worked in one corner of the market -- health care, which accounts for 15% of the U.S. economy and is growing. Why don't the same market forces that drive price competition for DVD players keep health costs from rising at double-digit rates? "

Health Care for All? Not in America

BW Online | April 21, 2004 | Health Care for All? Not in America: "Why can't the richest nation in the world provide health-care coverage to all its people? It's the question that hangs over all debates about medical care and insurance -- particularly in an election year when jobs -- and the employer-based health system that ties insurance to work -- are a key voter concern. "

Pakailah Waktu Anugrah Tuhanmu

Pakailah waktu anugrah Tuhanmu
Hidupmu singkat bagaikan kembang
Mana benda yang kekal dihidupmu?
Hanyalah kasih tak akan lekang

Tiada yang baka didalam dunia
S'gala yang indahpun akan lenyap
Namun kasihMu demi Tuhan Yesus
Sunggu bernilai dan tinggal tetap

Jangan menyia-nyiakan waktumu
Hibur dan tolonglah yang berkeluh
Biarlah lampumu t'rus bercahaya
Muliakanlah Tuhan dihidupmu

KAU YANG TERINDAH

Kau yang terindah di dalam hidup ini
Tiada Allah Tuhan yang seperti Engkau
Besar perkasa penuh kemuliaan

Kau yang termanis di dalam hidup ini
Ku cinta Kau lebih dari segalanya
Besar kasih setiaMu kepadaku

Ku sembah Kau ya Allahku
Ku tinggikan namaMu selalu
Tiada lutut tak bertelut
Menyembah Yesus Tuhan Rajaku

Ku sembah Kau ya Allahku
Kutinggikan namaMu selalu
Tiada lidah tak mengaku
Engkaulah Yesus Tuhan Rajaku


** one of my favourite songs ;-]

Tech Update

From Deloitte's 2004 Global Security Survey:

Eighty-three percent of respondents ... acknowledged that their systems had been compromised in the past year, compared to only 39% in 2002.

But even with security attacks on the rise, the largest number of respondents (25%) reported flat security budget growth.

that's 83% my dear friends..

What's the world coming to.

His Voice

Remembering the past
where I've been; who
I was; gives me a sense of
accomplishment

Looking at the present
where I am now; what
I do; who I am; gives me
self-assurence

Imagining the future
the places I'll be
the things I'll do
the people I'll touch
gives me the confidence
that I can always be
more than I am

But it is hearing His Voice
that guides my path; gives me hope,
comfort, and peace.

that gives me the knowledge,
reassurance and confidence
that no matter what happens

no matter how dark the sky
nor how violent the storm
nor how painful it is

He's there with me
He knows my pain
He knows my sorrows
He knows my burden

and with a whisper of His Voice,
a glimpse of heaven
is what I see.

Counter-intuitive

Sometimes the best course of action is to not take action at all.

 

Counter-intuitive ?

 

Yes, especially if you're an action-oriented, goal-oriented person.

 

I believe in getting things done, and letting things linger unresolved, sweeping dust under the carpet, is an act of cowardice to me.

 

I believe in keeping comprehensive check-lists, todos, schedules, plans, control mechanisms.

 

I believe in exerting influence where it matters to get all the pieces moving in the right direction.

 

I thrive in chaos because I know what needs to be done to put a system, a structure, and create organization from the mayhem.

 

I do that in chess games, bridge games, basket ball games, presentations, interviews, negotiations, software development, anything and everything.

 

But sometimes we don't have the luxury of that. Resources are scarce. So to win war you gotta deliberately not win a few battles, especially battles where victories are useful only to your own ego.

 

And so... that's that. I gotta do what I gotta do.

 

Even if it is counter-intuitive.

The Dark Arts

Today I've witnessed another display of unbelievable finesse in the management of information and impression.

 

I've seen such exquisite techniques several times before; they're rare and when you see them you cannot help but wonder in astonishment.

 

They're dark art, some say.

 

Some say they're a mix of psychology, quick-wits, knowledge of hard facts, intellect, or even the ability to simply put on a show.

 

But they're truly beautiful, and I'm definitely tempted.

 

So It seems ... I've begun my discipleship in mastering these techniques.

 

Techniques of the dark arts.

 

 

Zooming in to Cost Components.

If a restaurants bills you for SGD 2,000 for a dinner buffet party of 20, the only "knowledge" you can get is that each person is probably costing you SGD 100.

 

If you can zoom into the bills and identify that one person ordered a caviar omelette that costs 1000, you can control your costs better by removing the omellete from the menu, and removing the person from your guest list.

 

In some organizations, millions of dollars move through them periodically. For these organizations, it is important to be able to zoom in to cost components at various levels, identify these components and control them.

 

This is the case for health insurance companies. At times they receive huge bills not knowing which procedure is costing them the bucks, sometimes they don't know which healthcare service provider is cheating them by ordering procedures that are unnecessary.

 

 

Bleached, cleaned, fan-dried, crisped and ironed white shirt, SGD 40.

 

Blue tie, conservative pattern to give sense of trustworthy-ness, SGD 20

 

A nice warm greeting at the beginning of the day to "prep-up" your confidence, priceless. :-)

 

 

A Taste of Heaven (A Reflection)

There are moments in life where things happen so fast. Grief turn to sorrow turn to joy turn to laughter and happiness. You realized you've changed so much that you can barely recognize what the changes are, you can barely recognize who you were anymore.

Suddenly, you just know you're different.

and it's good.

You know you've been "upgraded."
You know you're one version up.
and it's not some fancy security patch applied to your old kernel codes.

You're reborn.

A new creation.

You're version 2.0

Ready to see the world with new eyes, new spirit, and new conviction.

This doesn't happen just once you see, it happens repeatedly, continuously. It's His will that will be perfect in the end. All this is His will.

And when this happens often enough, you start to realize that it's pointless to be arrogant, it's pointless to think that we know everything and everyone else are not good enough.

When this happens often enough, you start to realize that it's pointless to blame anyone. You know the world is not perfect, and it's perfectly ok. You realize that we do what we can in the best way we know how and that's good enough because that's all that we can do.

When this happens often enough, you spend each waking hour anticipating new inputs, new people, new opportunities for growth, and new opportunities to help others grow. We treat each new day as a fresh new chance of life, for us and those around us, a gift from God to cherish and adore.

When this happens often enough, you start to realize the grace of God, the beauty of love and faith, the true meaning of sacrifice, especially His sacrifice on the cross.

When this happens often enough, you get a slight taste of heaven.

And you cannot help but thirst for more.

God will make a way

Come on boys and girls, time to sing a long.. now sing it with me ! :)

God will make a way
Where there seems to be no way
He works in ways we cannot see
He will make a way for me
He will be my guide
Hold me closely to His side
With love and strength for each new day
He will make a way He will make a way

By a roadway in the wilderness
He'll lead me
And rivers in the desert will I see
Heaven and earth will fade
But His word will still remain
He will do something new today.

He will do something new today! :)

Day by day and with each passing moment,
Strength I find to meet my trials here;
Trusting in my Father's wise bestowment,
I've no cause for worry or for fear. —Berg

A Time for Everything (From Ecclesiastes 3: 1-15)

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven:

a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,

a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain,

a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
a time to tear and a time to mend,

a time to be silent and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.

What does the worker gain from his toil? I have seen the burden God has laid on men. He has made everything beautiful in its time.

He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end. I know that there is nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they live. That everyone may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all his toil-this is the gift of God.

I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that men will revere him.

ANGEL OF THE MORNING

There'll be no strings to bind your hands
Not if my love can't bind your heart
There's no need to take a stand
For it was I who chose a start
I see no need to take me home
I'm old enough to face the dawn

Just call me angel of the morning angel
Just touch my cheek before you leave me baby
Just call me angel of the morning angel
Then slowly turn away from me

May be the sun's light will be dim
And it won't matter anyhow
If morning's echoes say we've sinned
Well it was what I wanted now
And if we're victims of the night
I won't be blinded by the light

Just call me angel of the morning angel
Just touch my cheek before you leave me baby
Just call me angel of the morning angel
Then slowly turn away from me
Through the tears of the day, of the years baby

Just call me angel of the morning angel
Just touch my cheek before you leave me baby

On Purpose (A Reflection)

In my long conversation with Paul (the new business manager at the office), I got to ask him about how he knows what God wants him to do with his life.

Paul made it simple by saying: that's between you and God.

I told him about my insistence on doing things that are worthwhile, i.e. things that are uniquely mine, that no other person can be hired or bought to do. I told him that I want to have a purpose in life, and I've been searching for that purpose.

He rightaway shot me down by saying: "Now that.. is faulty thinking."

I was a little bit stunned by his remark. I've never met anyone who responds to my "insistence on purpose" so negatively. (I'm brought up in an environment where "purpose" has to be clearly defined).

Paul then continued, "God's vision is not the earthly kind, it is of the heavenly kind. and us, as believers, we are not part of this earth, although we are on this earth. we are pilgrims on our journey home to God."

"But while we're on the journey, we do His bidding, which is also of the heavenly kind."

Paul then shared with me how he lives his life. He shared how he always try to "add Christian value" to the workplace that he's in, to encourage and strengthen fellow believers, but most of all to bring in more people into the kingdom of God. He told us that he took a paycut to join us, and that's because he felt he has done "his work" at his previous company, where he has managed to link-up heart-to-heart even to his superiors and share the Gospel with them. He's now with us because he felt God was telling him that it was time for him to move on, and so he did.

This conversation with Paul happened a few days ago, but all this came back to me when I was reading "Our Daily Bread" for today. The message is a crystalization of what Paul was saying:

1. "Don't worry too much about your investments on earth, we are pilgrims on this earth, we're here only for a short time, so do investments of the heavenly kind."

2. "Heavenly kind of investments means doing your current work the best that you can, and using this as a vehicle to bring more people to God, and to encourage your fellow brothers and sisters in Christ."

I guess purpose/objectives are OK when we're doing projects or running operations. But as for lives, the purpose has already been clearly stated: it's the heavenly kind! :-)


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He Is A Fire
Read: Hebrews 12:25-29

Let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. For our God is a consuming fire. —Hebrews 12:28-29

Bible In One Year: 2 Kings 19-21; John 4:1-30

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On December 5, 2002, the headline announced:


Ring Of Fire Encircles Sydney


A firestorm was raging outside the Australian city. Many people feared that this bushfire would prove to be Sydney's worst in decades. Fanned by strong winds, high temperatures, and low humidity, the fire jumped across roads and rivers, consuming everything in its path.

When we think about the destructive power of that kind of inferno, we gain a better understanding of the startling words of Hebrews 12:29, "Our God is a consuming fire."

Why did the author of Hebrews use such graphic imagery to describe the Lord? In his letter he was dealing with spiritual life-and-death issues—what his readers believed and the reality of their faith. Their response would reveal whether they were investing their lives in the kingdom that will last forever, or in the one destined for destruction.

We too need to remember that this world and all we possess are only temporary. If our faith and hope are in Jesus Christ, we are part of a kingdom that cannot be destroyed (v.28). Knowing that our days on earth are numbered and that "our God is a consuming fire," let us serve Him and invest in things that are imperishable. —Albert Lee


Our God is a consuming fire
And will destroy earth's temporal things;
He seeks to purify our lives
For service to the King of kings. —D. De Haan

Hold tightly to what is eternal and loosely to what is temporal.

Healthcare Cost Containment - An Introduction

In most industries, increased sales is good news because it indicates growth of the industry. The flow of revenue makes more room for investments in techniques and approaches that can reduce costs, making the industry more efficient, or even improve the quality or quantity of services and products produced, thus, making the industry more productive. This is a basic mechanism of the free economy.

This is not the case for the healthcare industry, however. It is universally accepted that increase in healthcare sales is a bad thing (TM). Governments believe that quality healthcare is too important to be left uncontrolled in the hands of the free economy. If millions of people have no access to good cars, they can afford to wait for market forces to give birth to suppliers of good cars. If millions of people are dying from cancer yearly, we cannot afford to wait a few years for market forces to make it profitable for hospitals to supply good cancer treatments.

Despite all our achievements in telecommunications, nanotechnology, and other high-tech discoveries, the human race have not found a efficient and productive system to ensure that basic quality healthcare is accessible to all of its members. This is obviously true on a global scale, but it is also true on a national scale.

There are two concerns: the role of private, for-profit organizations in the healthcare delivery system of a nation, and the role of the government in regulating the industry to ensure that basic quality healthcare is accessible to all citizens.

For-profit organizations will always attempt to maximize profit within the constraints of economic forces. Though this profit maximization activity can be seen as not in line with the national objective of providing basic quality healthcare for all citizens, the industry can still benefit from the distributed, dynamic, innovative, and enterprising nature of these organizations in becoming a delivery infrastructure for healthcare services. In other words, if all healthcare service providing organization has to be initiated, founded, and run by the government, it will be very slow, inefficient, and painful to have a nation-wide healthcare service delivery network.

Government efforts to increase productivity and efficiency of the nation's healthcare industry is offen reffered to as healthcare cost containment. There are different approaches. From a truly social system where government funds, runs, and owns all healthcare service providers, to a hybrid system where government does the funding, but healthcare services are provided by both public and private organizations.

A number of efforts using the hybrid approach exist worldwide: Askes/Jamsostek in Indonesia, Medicare/Medicaid in USA, Medibank/Medicare in Australia, and Medicare-like systems in the UK, Sweden, Finland, and many other countries. The government funding come in various forms, from taxation, to national insurance programs, to government-controlled provident funds.

These efforts, though have been in existence for quite some time, are fragmented, and lack a solid strategy for achieving the containment of healthcare costs. The US healthcare expenditures have risen from only 4.4% of GNP in 1950 to 11.2% of GNP in 1987. The average hospital stay in 1950 is USD127, in 1986 the same stay had increased to USD3,527. The same trend is found in other countries.

Healthcare cost containment is definitely a huge challenge for all of us. All nations are facing it, those who aren't, will eventually face it. What's the state of today's healthcare cost containment efforts ? what are the challenges that they face ? who are the thought-leaders of these efforts ? and what do they think ?

Check this blog for other articles on this topic. I'll write more in the future.

Pelangi KasihNya

Apa yang kau alami kini
Mungkin tak dapat engkau mengerti
Satu hal tanamkan di hati
Indah semua yang Tuhan b'ri

Tuhanmu tak akan memberi
Ular beracun pada yang minta roti
Cobaan yang engkau alami
Tak melebihi kekuatanmu

Tangan Tuhan sedang merenda
Suatu karya yang agung mulia
Saatnya kan tiba nanti
Kau lihat pelangi kasih-Nya

>> For those of us yang lagi mengalami pencobaan masing2... inget Tuhan yach ? He loves you.

Psalm 6 (NIV)

2 Be merciful to me, LORD , for I am faint;
O LORD , heal me, for my bones are in agony.
3 My soul is in anguish.
How long, O LORD , how long?

4 Turn, O LORD , and deliver me;
save me because of your unfailing love.

...

6 I am worn out from groaning;
all night long I flood my bed with weeping
and drench my couch with tears.
7 My eyes grow weak with sorrow;
they fail because of all my foes.

...

So many things cloud my mind
So many things consume my time
Day after day, these anxious thoughts
My head I bow and to You I call

Peace of God, rule my heart.
Peace of God, guard my mind.

Too much I say, Too much I do
Lord, I need to be near to you
A gentle rest comes from Your hand
This peace You give,
I just don’t understand

Peace of Jesus, rule my heart.
Peace of Jesus, guard my mind.

"Peace of God" by Conspiracy Among Friends

Freedom

Freedom is the experience of waking up in the morning only asking yourself what God wants to teach you that day.

Freedom is being able to connect to anyone anywhere anytime regardless of who they are, and show them who God is and how important He is in your life.

Freedom is the feeling that you're doing something for a purpose, a reason, though you may not be so clear to what it is.

Freedom is knowing you can be anywhere anyplace right now.. and yet decide to let God direct your path.

Back to blogging again

Dear readers,

my apologies for having 'neglected' my blog for quite some time.

I'm back to blogger again.

Cheers,

JPG.