Senior$afe Program Recruits Professionals to Help Fight Financial Abuse of Colorado Elders

The Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies (DORA) is offering a new training program that aims to educate investment advisers, broker-dealers, and financial institutions in Colorado on how to recognize the warning signs of financial exploitation of the senior population. 
 
Vulnerability to financial exploitation increases with age and Colorado’s senior population is growing: approximately 10,000 people a day in the United States. Many financial representatives have closer relationships with their clients and customers, and time is of the essence when fighting financial exploitation of seniors.
 
Enter Senior$afe. Senior$afe is a three-part program designed to educate financial representatives that are best positioned to identify red flags of abuse or exploitation early on and encourage reporting to state and federal agencies, including the Division of Securities at DORA and Adult Protective Services.
    
The training, which will be conducted statewide for financial firms and institutions, is a combined effort of DORA’s Securities, Banking, and Financial Services divisions. It involves recognizing and reporting the red flags of potential elder financial exploitation, such as sudden large withdrawals or uncharacteristic attempts to wire large sums of money.
 
Senior$afe also emphasizes a “no wrong door approach,” so that no matter which agency the report goes to (a DORA financial division, Adult Protective Services, or a law enforcement agency), there is a commitment to make sure the report gets into the hands of the correct agency or community resource.
 
Senior$afe was originally created by the Maine Office of Securities, for use by banks and credit unions, in order to increase identification and reporting of suspected cases of elder financial exploitation. The North American Securities Administrators Association (NASAA), of which the Division of Securities is a member, has collaborated with the Maine Council for Elder Abuse Prevention to introduce the Senior$afe program for use with other members of the financial services industry.
 
For more information regarding the Senior$afe initiative or to request a presentation at your firm or institution, contact DORA by calling Jillian Sarmo at (303) 894-2878 or via email at [email protected]


You can also learn more about DORA with this recent podcast from Connect & Collaborate on May 31, 2016.  We talk with Rebecca Laurie from DORA, who introduces us to Patty Salazar, Financial Services Commissioner. We discuss her role and the role of the Division of Financial Services to protect consumers through regulation and supervision of state-chartered Credit Unions and Savings and Loan Associations as well as some of the financial activities of life care institutions.

We also discuss World Elder Abuse Awareness day on June 15 and share strategies for protecting elderly friends and family from financial predators. 

Listen to the podcast to learn more about services available and how the Division of Financial Services can assist you. 

Creative "Healing Garden" Gives Hospitalized Children a New Way to Recuperate

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact:  Birgit Whitelaw                                                                                             
Cell Phone: 720-936-4830                                                                                             
Email:  [email protected]

CREATIVE “HEALING GARDEN” GIVES HOSPITALIZED CHILDREN A NEW WAY TO RECUPERATE

Athenahealth Employs Denver Art Firm to Create Imagination-Inspiring Play Areas for Dell Children’s Medical Center as Trend Toward Using Art for Health and Healing Grows  

Austin, TX.  – Kids at Dell Children’s Medical Center in Austin got an early Christmas present last year. But it wasn’t delivered by Santa. Instead, athenahealth partnered with Denver’s The Art Connection and New Angle Consulting and built colorful and interactive installations in the hospital’s Healing Garden. Stations with names such as Butterfly MigrationDrum Session, and Regatta were created right on hospital grounds for patients and their siblings to enjoy.  (Siblings are not allowed in the hospital to protect against infection.) Inside, young patients were given creativity kits and superhero capes lovingly made by athenahealth volunteers. Designed to inspire creative expression and peaceful meditation, these changes are just the latest example of the trend toward using art for health and healing.

“This is just wonderful. These installations are the most creative gift the hospital could have received", said Gail Gorman, the Volunteer Coordinator at Dell Children’s Medical Center.  "What an amazing, delightful addition to the Healing Garden.  And inside, our sad, dark patient transport hallways now have a bright and cheerful mural.”

Dell Children’s Medical Center is not the first to incorporate art to promote healing.  Boston Children’s Hospital introduced its Creative Arts Program in 2009 which utilizes the arts as a positive resource during hospital stays and incorporates music for therapeutic intervention.  According to their website, a recent evaluation of this program yielded positive findings: 75% of parents surveyed reported their child had reduced anxiety and 71% of patients surveyed reported less perceived pain.

These findings were no surprise to Birgit Whitelaw and Renata Dolz, two artists (and mothers) who founded The Art Connection in Denver, CO.  Igniting children’s creative expression was at the heart of their Healing Garden proposal.  “We first identified the elements we felt would inspire creativity and imagination in children – musical instruments, animals, water, butterflies,” Birgit recalls.  “Then we set out to develop the individual Healing Garden concepts.  New Angle Consulting and athenahealth were open to our ideas.”

Those ideas included the Butterfly Migration – a grassy area where 30 brightly painted steel butterflies appear to land and take flight; the Drum Session – a series of bongo-style drums in a variety of shapes and sounds; Regatta – colorful sailboats ready to sail down a little stream; and Birdhood – a showcase of beautifully decorated wooden birdhouses, each filled with information cards about a particular native Texas bird, ready for children to collect.

The installations were completed in just 5 hours by the hands of over 250 athenahealth volunteers on December 9, 2015. “It was quite a collaboration and coordinated effort,” says Renata Dolz, “but the smiles on those children’s faces said it all!” That afternoon, one five-year-old patient, recuperating from a major brain surgery, took one of the sail boats for its maiden voyage down the hospital’s little stream.

The Art Connection is a privately-held Denver, CO. firm specializing in creating team building events for their clients utilizing creative thinking and artful methods of engagement.  They approach corporate team building by connecting art to specific business goals or core values and then customizing a program focused on those goals. In many cases, the culmination of a project results in collaborative, one-of-a-kind masterpieces that grace the halls of the company’s offices. For information on how The Art Connection can help your business, please visit www.connectwithart.net, or email Birgit Whitelaw at [email protected].


Click thumbnails below for a slideshow of the butterfly migration, drum session, patient transport hallway mural and Wally the Healing Dog.

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If you’d like more information on the Healing Garden, or to schedule an interview with Birgit Whitelaw and Renata Dolz, please feel free to call:  303-718-7657 or 720-936-4830; or email:[email protected]

CereScan Receives Colorado Advanced Industries Accelerator Grant

**COBRT was thrilled to have CereScan on our Connect and Collaborate radio show on February 3, 2016. Check out the podcast, CereScan Goes to the Super Bowl.** 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
February 18, 2016

CereScan was recently awarded a $250,000 grant from the State of Colorado, which will be used to further develop the capabilities of its patented CereMetrix™ Brain Diagnostic System. The grant will allow the company to commercialize CereMetrix™ for use by hospitals, clinics, physicians, and other healthcare practitioners as an advanced utility for diagnosis, treatment and research into most neurological disorders.

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CereMetrix is a unique brain diagnostic system and ever-expanding data warehouse that today includes 6,600 scan encounters including patients’ medical histories, family histories, symptoms, prior treatments, incoming diagnoses, outgoing diagnoses, and brain scans. Each scan is composed of over 262,000 data points that measure perfusion levels in up to 160 brain regions derived from comparisons to normative data.

The commercialization of CereMetrix™ is expected to create high-paying, professional job opportunities in the state and long-term economic gains as the system progresses through its development and eventual licensure to domestic and international users. CereMetrix™ will become a software-as-a-service system that will assist healthcare practitioners in the diagnosis of complex brain disorders.

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“We are excited to receive such a strong endorsement from the state of Colorado for the work we are doing and the vision we are pursuing,” said Dr. Rick Fort, Chief Science Officer at CereScan. “CereMetrix™ will become a clinical decision support system that doctors will be able to use in the diagnosis of their patients’ brain dysfunctions anytime, anywhere.”

The vision of CereMetrix™ is a machine learning ecosystem that provides doctors with the most likely diagnoses and treatment regimens for their patient’s brain health. Each new patient’s data will be compared to a library of patients with similar brain patterns, medical histories, and clinical symptoms.

CereScan, is the nation’s leader in providing statistically measured brain diagnostics based on a new generation of imaging software, PET/CT (Positron Emission Tomography/Computed Tomography) and qSPECT (quantitative Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography) neuroimaging technologies. Referring and treating medical experts can rely on CereScan to offer differentiated diagnoses on a wide array of brain-based disorders including: 

  •     Traumatic Brain Injury
  •     Toxic Brain Injury
  •     Alzheimer’s Disease
  •     Mild Cognitive Impairment
  •     Other Dementias
  •     Parkinson’s Disease
  •     Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
  •     Bipolar Disorder
  •     ADD/ADHD
  •     Anxiety Disorder

About CereScan
CereScan combines state-of-the-art qSPECT and PET/CT brain imaging technologies with a patient centered model of care to provide the highest level of neurodiagnostics anywhere. Using quantitative functional brain imaging, advanced imaging software, and an extensive library of clinical data, the CereScan medical team provides physicians with unmatched objective diagnostic information. CereScan helps patients and their physicians better understand the neurological basis of their conditions. In a variety of legal settings, CereScan provides objective evidence to attorneys and their clients regarding traumatic and toxic brain injuries. For researchers, CereScan provides independent pre- and post-treatment measures of organic changes in the brain along with measures of symptoms related to the brain disorder of interest. For more information, please call (866) 722-4806 or visit http://www.CereScan.com. Connect with CereScan on Twitter @CereScan and on Facebook at Facebook.com/CereScan.

 

Colorado Launches First-Ever Statewide Open Innovation Challenge

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Office of Gov. John Hickenlooper
Office of Economic Development & International Trade

Holly Shrewsbury, 303-892-3847
[email protected]

Colorado launches first-ever statewide open innovation challenge

"Imagine Colorado" asks Coloradans to submit their best ideas to make kids healthier in exchange for $25,000 in prizes

DENVER - Gov. John Hickenlooper, the Colorado Innovation Network (COIN) and LiveWell Colorado launched on February 1, 2016 Imagine Colorado, the nation's first-ever statewide open innovation challenge. Imagine Colorado is seeking bold ideas from Colorado residents in response to the challenge question: How would you connect Colorado's youth to a healthier lifestyle?

Used throughout the world by business, government and higher education institutions, innovation challenges shine a spotlight on a problem or opportunity and ask communities to provide ideas that can help build a better tomorrow. Imagine Colorado's aim is to engage all residents to come up with big ideas on how to ensure our kids have access to a healthy lifestyle. In exchange, $25,000 in prizes will be awarded to winning individuals and teams.

"We believe in the power of the collective wisdom of Coloradans to address tough challenges in our communities," said Hickenlooper. "We want to harness this energy and ingenuity through the Imagine Colorado platform. We know that solving tough problems requires collaboration, and we look forward to the innovative ideas that will be submitted that will help make our state the healthiest in the nation."

Challenge partner LiveWell Colorado is a statewide organization focused on increasing access to physical activity and affordable, healthy food for all Coloradans to prevent obesity and other chronic health conditions.

"Imagine Colorado is an exciting opportunity to tap into the state's entrepreneurial and technology sectors and the creativity of our residents toward making Colorado a healthier place for everyone," said LiveWell Colorado CEO Shepard Nevel. "We know that a person's health status is primarily determined by his or her social circumstances, environmental conditions and behavioral choices, so we can meaningfully increase the health of our state's youngest residents by improving opportunities to eat well and be more physically active."

From Feb. 1-March 31, 2016, Coloradans, ages 7 and up, can submit their best ideas at www.imagineco.us. Ideas should focus on one of two categories:

 

Physical Activity: ideas that get our kids moving and that engage our outdoor spaces differently
Nutrition: ideas that provide our kids access to healthy foods and the education to make good choices


Finalists will be judged through an online community voting process as well as through a panel of experts. The top ten finalists will be invited to participate in a live event in April where they will pitch their idea to a panel of celebrity judges, and live audience polling will determine the grand prize winners. In addition to the prize money, Unreasonable Institute will provide each of the five adult finalists the opportunity to interview for the 2016 Unreasonable Institute accelerator program focused on early childhood. Winning ideas will be distributed to statewide partners and the Colorado community so that appropriate champions can stimulate further action.

Preparation for Imagine Colorado's public launch began several months ago at the 2015 COIN Summit, where key subject matter experts were invited to participate in two "think tank" sessions regarding a challenge question for Coloradans. The sessions were facilitated by Jenn Gustetic, Assistant Director for Open Innovation for The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and head of Challenge.gov. This challenge question was selected because while Colorado touted the "healthiest state," the reality is that one in four Colorado kids is overweight or obese, one in three lives in neighborhoods without a safe place to play and 90% don't get enough fruits and veggies each day. Additionally, Colorado is one of only four states where physical education is not a required part of the state's public school curriculum at any grade level. Better health is not just good for individuals and families; it has positive outcomes for our workforce, reducing costs of government and improving the quality of life in our communities.

"As a state, we need to ensure our innovation pipeline is overflowing with good ideas," said Sean Kuusinen, Program Manager of Unreasonable Institute. "We support entrepreneurs with the potential to address major problems at scale, and through Imagine Colorado we can engage all Coloradans in this process." 

Imagine Colorado is produced in partnership with The Colorado Health Foundation, Gary Community Investments, Unreasonable Institute, SkipsoLabs, Entravision and Comcast, and it is also supported by more than 30 engagement partners from throughout the state. For more information, please visit www.imagineco.us.

ABOUT The Colorado Innovation Network (COIN)
COIN is a public-private partnership launched by Gov. John Hickenlooper in 2011 and is the leading global platform for innovative networks. COIN provides access to convene, connect and foster circles of exchange around ideas, talent, capital and the entrepreneurial spirit to strengthen economic development and diversity with the mission to make Colorado the most innovative state in the nation. COIN has a robust and highly engaged statewide network of innovation leaders in education, industry, startups, government and research. Learn more at www.coloradoinnovationnetwork.com.

ABOUT LiveWell Colorado
LiveWell Colorado is a statewide organization committed to reducing obesity and other chronic health conditions by promoting healthy eating and active living. LiveWell reaches more than one million Coloradans through partnerships with communities, the private sector, local governments and school districts. In addition to educating and inspiring people to make healthy choices, LiveWell Colorado focuses on policy, environmental and lifestyle changes that remove barriers and increase access to healthy behaviors. LiveWell Colorado aims to provide every Coloradan with access to healthy foods and opportunities for physical activity in their communities and where they work. Learn more at www.livewellcolorado.org.

 

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www.advancecolorado.com