Fidelity Bank Ghana Saves Time, Reduces Meetings and Improves Security With Google Apps

Posted by Suresh K L, Chief Information Officer at Fidelity Bank Ghana Limited

Editor's note: Today’s guest blogger is Suresh K L, Chief Information Officer at Fidelity Bank Ghana Limited, a Ghanaian bank serving 450,000 customers across 45 branches. See what other organizations that have gone Google have to say.

Established in 2006, Fidelity Bank Ghana is the sixth largest commercial bank in Ghana—employing 1,200 people and serving 450,000 customers across the country. As the banking industry in west Africa continues to evolve, we’re seeing growth due to our aim to provide customers with a faster, simpler banking solution so they can focus on building their businesses and living their lives. We decided to move to Google Apps in March of 2013 because of the guaranteed uptime, high security, low operating costs, and the opportunity for better collaboration among our employees.

Our legacy email system would be down for countless hours—wasting time, decreasing performance, and compromising security. As a result of the unresolvable server outages before switching, employees started using their personal email addresses for official communication, which was against company policy. Our old system operated at 30 to 40 percent more downtime than Google Apps and I personally was losing about six hours a week from downtime.

Since Google Apps is cloud-based and updates automatically, we’re now saving 30 percent in operating costs per year versus our previous environment. The legacy email system required frequent costly upgrades and hardware maintenance. And, like many banks, the security of our account holders’ information is very important to us so we were impressed by the SAS 70 security certification for Google Apps Vault and we were comfortable with making the switch.

Employee collaboration from any device, regardless of location, was a big driver in our move to Google Apps. Many of our employees don’t have desk phones, so Hangouts—with the instant chat feature—have really helped the team stay connected. I’ve seen employees with 12 different chats open at once! Hangouts have reduced the number of meetings we have, allowing different stakeholders to collaborate without having a formal meeting. Before moving to Google Apps, we had major issues trying to access our email during trips abroad. We returned home with hundreds of emails and spent days just reading through them. With Google Apps accessible from anywhere, we can check our email inbox from virtually any device, boosting productivity and time savings.

Google Drive is helping our employees be more productive, and the transition was seamless. Since each user has 30GB of space, there’s plenty of room to have all of our documents and we can access our Docs, Sheets, and Slides from anywhere. We use Drive as our intranet—uploading everything from HR policies to compliance documents. We’re also creating microsites to serve as collaborative hubs for individual departments. For example, we have Google Sheets shared across branches and teams to manage our sales activity, our private and executive banking sales activity, our future business pipeline reports and collating weekly operational reports. Company-wide, we can attribute about 15 percent of time savings directly to Google Apps, but some individuals are saving even more time. Our head of ATM card management is now saving two days per week using Google Forms. Previously, she received 44 separate email attachments each week from various branches that she had to manually input into a master document. Now, those updates are collected using an automated Google Form that auto-populates the master Google Sheet.

Overall, I love seeing all the innovative ways in which employees are proactively using Google Apps to be more efficient and productive. We continue to explore new opportunities to leverage Google Apps to make employee collaboration and productivity better.

READ MORE - Fidelity Bank Ghana Saves Time, Reduces Meetings and Improves Security With Google Apps

Google Maps Coordinate Opens Doors for Aussie SMBs

Posted by James Anderson, CEO of Architectural Windows & Doors, Brisbane Australia

Editor's note: Our guest blogger today is James Anderson, CEO of Architectural Windows & Doors, a small family run business that supplies and creates “upmarket” windows and doors for residential properties across Queensland and Northern New South Wales. See what other organizations that have gone Google have to say.

At Architectural Windows & Doors we supply and install windows and doors. But we take true pride in the work we do with our customers as design consultants to turn architectural concepts into reality. We’ve been in business in Brisbane for over ten years and employ around 20 staff.

Many parts of Queensland are prone to cyclones and extreme weather so we not only work to find the right look when customising designs, but also the highest safety features. No strangers to disaster ourselves, our store was severely damaged during the Queensland Flood in 2010-2011. And like many small businesses, we felt the heat during the financial crisis, so we are always looking for ways to keep costs down while still delivering the same top quality products and customer service.

Our delivery and installation team are always out on-the-go in meetings with clients, doing installations, or picking up materials at the factory. So having a good workforce management tool to see where our mobile workers are is critical; not only to manage jobs and productivity, but also so we can ensure their safety.

We started using Google Maps Coordinate in September last year. Before that, we used a solution which cost $100 per month per vehicle. Since moving to Google we’ve noticed major productivity and service improvements as well as cost benefits. For a start we’re saving about $400 a month.

The productivity and safety benefits have been big too. Because Google Maps Coordinate integrates mapping, scheduling and job detail functions into the one handset based system, we can create jobs and assign staff based on their locations all in one go. We no longer have to worry about duplicating data either. Our team members can look up client information and update their records seamlessly, eliminating pointless trips back to the office. We were a Google Apps customer for three years before moving to Coordinate, so our email, documents and scheduling apps are also accessible from our phones. This means our team can access everything it needs while on the road.

As Google Maps Coordinate is handset rather than vehicle based, we now also have accurate data on where our guys actually are at any given time. Previously we only knew where they parked their vehicle, which could have been a couple of blocks down the road from a client’s house. This would pose a problem for health and safety. Because our teams always have their phones on them, we now have peace of mind knowing where they are when they’re on the job. And they can turn that function off when they’re not working or heading home for the day.

Additionally, some of our site-staff don’t return to our factory to clock in or out, so Coordinate helps us accurately record their hours worked and ensure they have their required breaks (by using the visibility feature) in the absence of a timecard unit.

Google Maps Coordinate is an ideal solution for an SMB like us. It provides us with a world-class mapping and technology solution and scales for our budget and needs. Small businesses should be able to access the same technology solutions as the big boys and by bringing Google’s mapping technologies to modern smartphones, Google Maps Coordinate does just that.

READ MORE - Google Maps Coordinate Opens Doors for Aussie SMBs

Google Apps keeps JUST EAT employees around the world connected

Posted Martin Russell, Head of IT Services at JUST EAT

Editor's note: Today’s guest blogger is Martin Russell, Head of IT Services at JUST EAT, a UK-based leading online takeaway ordering service. The company has over 1,000 employees worldwide and partners with more than 38,000 restaurants around the world. See what other organizations that have gone Google have to say.

JUST EAT connects local hungry consumers all over the world with local takeaway restaurants that they love. Through our online and mobile app service, we enable consumers across 13 countries to get their favorite dishes delivered to them with our quick and easy online ordering system.

Since I joined JUST EAT in November 2010, our business has grown from 200 employees to more than 1,000 in a span of two and a half years. But with this incredible pace of growth, our IT services were strained. I needed to give our employees the basic tools they needed to get their jobs done that would scale at our rapid pace, while keeping our data and the data of our customers secure. Since we expanded internationally, giving them ways to collaborate regardless of location was of the utmost importance.

When I first joined the team, we were in the middle of one too many IT outages. The time and resources we wasted dealing with the upkeep of our email solution was getting out of control. I started exploring email alternatives and the cloud was a secure and scalable solution. When I looked into Google Apps, I was really excited about how collaborative, flexible and secure all the tools were. At £33 per user, Google Apps was also the most cost-efficient solution.

We now use the entire Google Apps suite. Initially, we were most interested in Gmail, but adoption of the rest of the apps spread organically across our company. Hangouts have completely changed the way we communicate. Video chat connects our globally dispersed staff, and now I can manage my entire team remotely via Hangouts. Google+ quickly gained popularity within our company for internal conversations—it’s essentially taken the place of our internal social network. As we grow, it becomes more difficult to maintain relationships but tools like Hangouts and Google+ have really kept us connected.

Google Apps has removed a lot of the stress that is traditionally associated with my job. I don’t have to wake up at 5 a.m. anymore to make sure our email is up and running or rush to restart the server because the system is down. Now, if an employee loses a work laptop, I don’t have to worry about lost or stolen files. Having the assurance that all our documents are securely stored on Drive is a relief.

The one thing I recommend to businesses switching over to Google Apps is to do the migration quickly. I wish we had migrated faster as the transition was much smoother than expected and most of our employees were eager to switch. Google Apps have saved us massive amounts of time, made our work environment much more collaborative and flexible, and have taken a lot of the stress out of my job.

READ MORE - Google Apps keeps JUST EAT employees around the world connected

New online tool shows you what individual health insurance costs next year in WA

We've built a new online tool to help you find out what health care plans will cost next year. Simply click on the map -- premiums vary by where you live -- and it will tell you which insurance carriers are offering coverage in your area. You can click on each company to see its rates, which vary based on your age.

A couple of caveats: These rates are mainly for the individual market, meaning people who have to buy insurance for themselves, and don't get it through an employer, Medicare, etc.

Also, the rates do factor in the subsidies that will be available to some people. Those subsidies will reduce the cost of coverage substantially for many people. You can estimate how much you'll pay, with subsidies taken into account, by using this online calculator from the Washington HealthPlanFinder.

Lastly, the list of health plans is likely to grow over the next couple of months. We are still reviewing plans, for example, for multiple insurance carriers that have filed to sell coverage outside the state exchange. And some plans that were rejected for the Exchange have filed appeals. So stay tuned.

READ MORE - New online tool shows you what individual health insurance costs next year in WA

An open letter from Mike Kreidler about insurance plans filed for Washington's exchange

An open letter from Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler

In January, the biggest changes under health care reform – or “Obamacare” – will take effect. Many health plans, which now have to comply with federal standards, will be significantly better. And hundreds of thousands of low- and middle-income Washingtonians will qualify for subsidies to help pay for coverage.

This fall, Washington’s new Health Benefit Exchange will open for business, giving consumers an easy way to compare health plans, sign up, and see if they qualify for the subsidies.

Many kinds of insurance policies, before they can be sold, must be reviewed and approved by my office. This is a very important consumer protection, designed to ensure that prices are fair and that insurers can deliver on their promises.

I’m pleased to report that based on state and federal law, we were able to approve 31 health insurance plans, from four carriers, for the Exchange. People shopping on the Exchange will have broad choice and significantly better coverage, starting Jan. 1, 2014.

Unfortunately, we had to reject applications from five other insurance carriers. These were not decisions I made lightly. I am a strong supporter of competition and consumer choice, and a longtime supporter of health care reform.

As the state’s insurance regulator, however, I have a duty to protect consumers and to hold all insurers to the same standards. There were substantial problems in the plans we rejected.

Health insurers must have adequate networks of doctors and other health care providers. And there were major problems with the networks of most of the rejected plans. One didn’t offer any pediatric hospital.

Another had no approved retail pharmacy. Certain plans didn’t have adequate access to transplant surgeons, or to HIV/AIDS specialists.

One network would have required people to drive more than 45 miles to see a cardiologist, and more than 120 miles to see a gastroenterologist. That would be like living in Tacoma but having to see a doctor in Bellingham.

These were not minor technicalities. They were major problems.

Some people have pointed out that three of the carriers whose plans were rejected are currently serving people on Medicaid. They worry that people whose incomes rise, making them ineligible for Medicaid, will have difficulty moving to a regular commercial plan, or would lose important continuity of care offered by the community clinics. Many of these community clinics offer important services, such as language assistance or transportation.

Rest assured: The plans I approved for the Exchange include a substantial number of community clinics throughout the state. In many cases, Medicaid patients who want to remain with the same clinic will be able to.

The Affordable Care Act requires all carriers participating in the Exchange to contract with an adequate number of “Essential Community Providers,” or ECPs. These are defined as health care providers that serve high-risk, special needs and underserved individuals. Many Sea Mar clinics, for example, have contracts with the commercial carriers who were approved for the Exchange.

My staff and I worked very hard to try to get all carriers and all plans across the finish line in time. We had dozens of meetings, and 14 webinars to try to walk them through the process. I called one CEO after another, laying out the key issues and timelines. On the final night, July 31, we had staff waiting at their desks until midnight, in order to give the companies every possible minute to succeed.

But some carriers – particularly those new to the commercial insurance market -- simply couldn’t meet the standards this time.

We knew this first big year of health reform implementation would be a bumpy ride, and it has been. But I remain optimistic about the future. We will continue to work with all carriers to help them get ready for the next year, when I fully expect more insurers to succeed.

In the meantime, consumers have a broad number of choices. The insurance is meaningful, the networks robust, the subsidies significant. Again, the process has been bumpy. But it’s a very promising start.

Mike Kreidler

Insurance Commissioner

READ MORE - An open letter from Mike Kreidler about insurance plans filed for Washington's exchange

Khan Academy builds scalable education site on Google Cloud Platform

Posted by Ben Kamens, Lead Developer at Khan Academy

(Cross-posted on the Google Cloud Platform Blog)

Editor's note: Today’s guest post is from Ben Kamens, Lead Developer at Khan Academy, a not-for-profit that provides a free education available for anyone. See what other organizations that have gone Google have to say.

Khan Academy has an audacious mission: to provide a free world class education to anyone anywhere. With less than fifty full-time employees at the company, our small team has to take special care to work on whatever’s most critical. So we’re building a culture that relentlessly focuses on shipping code that improves students’ lives. Our team of developers relies on three simple principles that guide all the work we do:

1. Shipping beats perfection.
2. Be open. Share your work.
3. Anybody can fix anything.
 

Google Cloud Platform provides a flexible and reliable environment to put these principles into practice. With Google App Engine in particular, we get a big, enormous, whopper of a benefit — consistent Datastore performance no matter how big the product gets. Even if we have a query that returns 10 items from a set of 10,000, we can relax. We know that as our company grows over time, we’ll get the exact same speed when pulling 10 items from a set of 10,000,000,000. 

Lots of people ask, “How will you know if Khan Academy is really successful?” My answer is always the same: we of course care about data, analytics, and metrics that demonstrate provable, real learning. But in the back of my mind I’m most persuaded by the personal stories that people send us literally every day. Those stories of real lives being changed for the better are the reason why we believe a free educational resource like Khan Academy simply must exist.

READ MORE - Khan Academy builds scalable education site on Google Cloud Platform

Georgia puts health care facilities and data on Google Maps

Posted by Matt Jarrard, Health Planning Director, Georgia Department of Community Health

Editor's note: Today’s guest blogger is Matt Jarrard, Deputy Director of the Healthcare Facility Regulation Division and Health Planning Director of Georgia’s Department of Community Health, which licenses and regulates health care facilities for the state. Tune into today’s webinar at 11:00am PST to hear more about how GaMap2Care is making a difference. See what other organizations that have gone Google have to say.


While the State of Georgia is known for its peaches and the Atlanta Braves, it also takes pride in finding ways to make life easier for its citizens. The Georgia Department of Community Health oversees programs that serve 10 million people and regulates 7,000 health care facilities, including nearly 2,000 personal care homes. In keeping with our goals of being lean and responsive, we found a cost-effective way to serve the community with GaMap2Care, an application built on Google Maps. The app helps the public and government officials locate, visualize and monitor all the state’s licensed health care facilities.

Using the app, people can locate facilities such as hospitals and personal care homes based on specialty, location, size and number of beds. They can also see satellite views or zoom in on street views. The app shows inspection reports for many facilities and other information which had previously required an open record request. Virtual tours let families quickly see if a facility meets their needs.

GaMap2Care is intuitive to use because of widespread familiarity with Google Maps. The app’s rich features allow us to help people in a variety of ways. For example, lawmakers have often asked for the number of nursing homes in their district. Staff would have needed to manually compare lists prepared in a separate report to district boundaries. Now, GaMap2Care provides this information all on one map that allows lawmakers to easily determine which district the facilities belong to.

GaMap2Care is also helping state workers and officials serve the community better. Analysts setting health care policy can now more easily identify underserved areas. In addition, the state’s 165 health care facility surveyors investigating complaints or non-compliance issues can calculate distances and plan trips before they hit the road, saving time and improving efficiency. We also added additional map layers, such as populations and weather, that let officials see what facilities might be affected before a natural disaster.

The app was designed and developed internally by existing staff. The ease of Google Maps’ customization enabled a programmer with no previous Geographic Information System (GIS) experience to integrate data from different sources into the map. Compared to other solutions, we found Google Maps to be easier to use, faster to load and offering more customization. A license from a traditional Geographic Information System would have required extensive user training and was expected to be considerably more than a Google Maps license.

With GaMap2Care, state workers can be productive and efficient, and citizens have access to information that saves them time and helps them make critical informed health care decisions. We look forward to making GaMap2Care even more useful with the launch of the mobile version of the application in the near future, and will continue to enhance and expand features and functionality.

READ MORE - Georgia puts health care facilities and data on Google Maps

Standard Parking Adds Capacity with Google Apps

Posted by Keith Evans, EVP Strategy & Process at Standard Parking

Editor's note: Our guest blogger today is Keith Evans, EVP Strategy & Process at Standard Parking, the leading national provider of parking facility management services. See what other organizations that have gone Google have to say.

At Standard Parking, we help people park their cars safely and quickly. We employ over 23,000 people across 4,200 facilities – that amounts to over 2 million parking spaces – across the country. To help serve our clients and customers better, we merged with Central Parking nine months ago to become the largest parking management company. In order to manage this large scale operation, we use Google Apps for Business to stay connected and consistent across our company.

Last year, we decided to replace our old Microsoft Exchange Server 2003. We needed a solution that focused on mobile and collaboration, and was cost effective and scalable. We looked at Google Apps and Microsoft Office 365, but never seriously considered 365 because of the cost alone. Upgrading our current on-premise system would’ve been nearly four times more expensive than going Google. Our CEO demonstrated his commitment and helped with our change management efforts when he told the pilot group during a training session, “If I can do this, you can do this.” With the help of Google Apps reseller MavenWave, we made the initial switch for Standard Parking in February of 2012.

After our merger with Central Parking in October of 2012, we had a highly distributed organization with employees at headquarters in Chicago and Nashville, as well as at thousands of facilities across the country. Google Apps let us move the entire Central Parking organization off of Exchange and on to our domain quickly – it was like we simply flipped a switch. We also created an intranet using Google Sites that became the company’s primary means of communication to employees, both old and new, during the merger. All departments have pages on the site for policies, procedures and other documentation. We also created an "Operations Playbook" that outlines the company processes. It's a great resource for employees, managers, and executives.

Google Apps gave the company a single platform for our 4,200 users to communicate with each other, maintain personal and shared calendars, and the flexibility and access that they didn’t have before. We’re a field-based organization, but remotely connecting to our old email system was incredibly hard. Employees had to connect to a VPN or use a non-intuitive Outlook web interface. Google Apps lets anyone log in to their email on any device at any time.

We want our business to be as simple and efficient as possible, so that our customers’ only worry is about getting their car in between the lines. We’ve gone through a lot of changes and growth over the past year, but Google Apps has helped us turn two companies into one, and keep thousands of garages under one technology roof.

READ MORE - Standard Parking Adds Capacity with Google Apps

Globe Telecom connects in the cloud

Posted by Ernest L. Cu, President and CEO of Globe Telecom

Editor's note: Today’s post comes from guest blogger Ernest L. Cu, President and CEO of Globe Telecom, a telecommunications company in The Philippines. See what other organizations that have gone Google have to say.

At Globe Telecom we work to quickly and easily connect people to one another and to the information they need. As one of the country’s largest telecommunications companies, we have a vast network of mobile, fixed line, and broadband Internet services that connect 36 million customers across over 7,000 islands of the archipelago.

Filipinos love technology. In fact, we have the highest rate of smartphone adoption in South East Asia. The country is experiencing an exciting time of economic growth, and to support this growth and provide our customers with the great service they expect, Globe is going through its own process of transformation and innovation. We’re upgrading our network and systems as well as moving our headquarters to Fort Bonifacio.

To manage this change and give our customers great service, our internal communication systems need to be fast and reliable. This is why we’ve decided to make the switch to Google Apps. Moving to a cloud-based set of tools and being able to access information from any device at any time means that everyone from the head office, to store employees, to call center staff and vendors will be able to connect more easily. This will ultimately improve our customer service, as well.

By finding new ways to collaborate, we’ll not only be able to improve our customers service, but it will also help us focus on innovation. Managing projects is a large part of everyone’s work life at Globe, and now our teams will be able to coordinate their projects more efficiently with Google Calendar and Google Sites. When we ran a test with Google Apps it took just a few hours for 50 of our non-technical staff to set up team sites, add their calendars, agendas and profiles and start working together on campaigns collaboratively. This is much faster than any system we’ve used before and will open up lots of avenues to be more innovative.

A big part of our culture is having face-to-face meetings, so Google+ Hangouts will be a great way for us to connect face-to-face with our colleagues around the country instead of flying or driving everywhere. Using consumer tools like Gmail and Google Docs have other benefits too — staff are familiar with these tools from their personal lives and when given choice, 73% of our employees voted to use Google Apps.

As a company focused on driving innovation and collaboration to give our customers a great experience, we’re looking forward to undertaking this journey with Google Apps.

READ MORE - Globe Telecom connects in the cloud

Mobile updates and a new API for using Google+ at work

Posted by Joël Kalmanowicz, Product Manager, Google Apps Team

If you're a Google Apps for Business, Government or Education customer, today we're releasing a few new features designed to make it even easier for you to get things done with Google+. Over the next few days new business-focused features for the Google+ app on Android and general availability of the Google+ Domains API will be rolling out.

Share with coworkers on the go
First, the Google+ app on Android now supports multiple accounts, so you can log in to both a personal and a work account, and easily switch between them as you can in other apps such as Gmail.

Next, you can now create restricted posts from the Google+ app on Android. Restricted posts can’t be shared outside your organization, so your private conversations are only visible to your coworkers.

Finally, new domain labels in both the mobile app and on the web help you quickly identify your coworkers’ profiles so you’re connecting and sharing with the right people.

Develop business apps that integrate with Google+
At Google I/O in May we announced a limited preview of the Google+ Domains API. Starting today the Google+ Domains API is available to all Google Apps customers. The API allows Apps customers to integrate Google+ into their existing tools and processes, and allows enterprise software vendors to access Google+ from their products.

For example Ocado, a Google Apps customer, is using the Google+ Domains API to sync Active Directory teams with employees’ circles. This will ensure that every employee always has an up-to-date circle containing all the other members of their team.

Cloudlock, an enterprise software vendor in the Google Apps Marketplace, is using the Google+ Domains API to add support for Google+ to its suite of data loss prevention, governance and compliance applications.

Learn more about the Google+ Domains API on the Google Apps Developer Blog and read the documentation on the Google+ developers site.

These changes will be rolling out to Google Apps customers over the next several days. To use the new mobile features, download the Google+ app from the Google Play Store. Stay tuned for more Google+ features built for businesses.

READ MORE - Mobile updates and a new API for using Google+ at work

Auto insurance and pizza delivery

We get a lot of calls from parents -- and usually those calls are after the fact, unfortunately -- about whether their child delivering pizzas needs additional auto coverage.

Sorry, but the answer's usually yes. Most personal auto insurance policies won't cover you if you're getting paid to use your own car to transport people or property for business purposes.

In general, you'll need to buy a business or commercial auto insurance policy if you are a health care worker who occasionally uses your own car to take clients to appointments. The same is true if you use your own car to deliver flowers, newspapers, pizzas, etc.

If you have questions about your coverage -- and policies do differ -- contact your agent or insurance company directly.

READ MORE - Auto insurance and pizza delivery

Health insurance questions: Preventive colonoscopies and polyps

Until fairly recently, when consumers had routine preventive colonoscopies, they often faced a substantial bill for surgery if a polyp was discovered and removed during the procedure. But current guidelines from the U.S. Department of Labor, under the Affordable Care Act, protect consumers from these extra charges for polyp removal.

Q5: If a colonoscopy is scheduled and performed as a screening procedure pursuant to the USPSTF recommendation, is it permissible for a plan or issuer to impose cost-sharing for the cost of a polyp removal during the colonoscopy? 

No. Based on clinical practice and comments received from the American College of Gastroenterology, American Gastroenterological Association, American Society of Gastrointestinal Endoscopy, and the Society for Gastroenterology Nurses and Associates, polyp removal is an integral part of a colonoscopy. Accordingly, the plan or issuer may not impose cost-sharing with respect to a polyp removal during a colonoscopy performed as a screening procedure. On the other hand, a plan or issuer may impose cost-sharing for a treatment that is not a recommended preventive service, even if the treatment results from a recommended preventive service.

In addition, the federal guidelines help people with a family history that put them in a high risk group for certain diseases. They will now be able to get more frequent preventive care without additional costs.

Q7: Some USPSTF recommendations apply to certain populations identified as high-risk. Some individuals, for example, are at increased risk for certain diseases because they have a family or personal history of the disease. It is not clear, however, how a plan or issuer would identify individuals who belong to a high-risk population. How can a plan or issuer determine when a service should or should not be covered without cost-sharing? 

Identification of "high-risk" individuals is determined by clinical expertise. Decisions regarding whether an individual is part of a high-risk population, and should therefore receive a specific preventive item or service identified for those at high-risk, should be made by the attending provider. Therefore, if the attending provider determines that a patient belongs to a high-risk population and a USPSTF recommendation applies to that high-risk population, that service is required to be covered in accordance with the requirements of the interim final regulations (that is, without cost-sharing, subject to reasonable medical management).

If you're having problems with your health insurer over these sorts of issues and you live in Washington state, feel free to contact our consumer hotline at 1-800-562-6900 or email us. 

READ MORE - Health insurance questions: Preventive colonoscopies and polyps

Email alerts for admins

Posted by Rishi Dhand, Product Manager, Google Apps

If you’re a Google Apps for Business administrator—or if you know one—you know it’s not just about managing users, services and devices. It’s also about keeping users secure and productive—and, after receiving some great feedback from our customers, we’ve found a way to make that easier.

Now, admins can elect to receive customizable email alerts when certain events of interest occur. By subscribing to alerts, admins can stay informed and, when needed, take prompt corrective action. These alerts are also helpful when multiple admins work together and want to stay informed on these changes.

There are two kind of alerts:

• User Alerts: Generated when our systems detect suspicious or unusual login events as well as on user-level administrator actions such as additions, deletions or suspensions. Real-time alerts allow admins to review the changes and take corrective action.
• Settings Alerts: These alerts are automatically generated when any change by administrators to applications, device management or service settings is detected.

To see the latest alerts – and to subscribe to emailed alerts – simply login to your Admin console (admin.google.com) and go to Reports > Alerts. Questions? To learn more, visit the help center or contact our support team that is available by phone or email 24/7.

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WA Supreme Court: Insurer can be held liable for agent's actions

In a case that’s been closely watched by the insurance industry, Washington’s State Supreme Court on Thursday affirmedthat insurers are liable for the illegal actions of their agents.

“The ruling is a big win for consumers,” said Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler, whose decision the case was challenging. “If you allow someone to do business on your behalf, it only stands to reason that you can be held responsible for what they do.”

The case involved violations of the state’s insurance laws in 2006 and 2007 by an insurance agency appointed by Chicago Title Insurance Company. That agency, Land Title Co. of Kitsap County, Inc. repeatedly offered illegal inducements to get business. The violations included illegally “wining and dining” real estate agents, builders and mortgage lenders with free meals, donations for a golf tournament, monthly advertising, and Seattle Seahawks playoff game tickets.

Although Land Title was Chicago Title’s exclusive agent in the Washington counties at issue in the case, Chicago Title argued that it was not responsible for its agent’s actions. In a consent order signed in 2009, the company agreed to pay a $48,334 fine if it did not prevail in court.

“Chicago Title’s arguments were contrary to a century of insurance law,” said Kreidler. “In order to effectively regulate insurers and protect consumers, it’s important to hold insurers responsible for the actions of their agents.”

Title insurance practices have long been a concern to Kreidler, whose office in 2005 scrutinized 18 months of employee expense reports and ledgers for the largest title companies in King, Pierce and Snohomish counties. The examination found many cases in which the companies were providing gifts, golf tournament sponsorships, parties, ski trips, sports tickets, meals and other inducements to get business.

“Few people shop for title insurance, although they certainly can,” said Kreidler. “It tends to be included in the large stack of documents that homeowners are handed to sign. So title companies and others in the industry are positioned to steer business to particular insurers.”

New rules took effect in March 2009, clearly outlining what can be given. There are limits on advertising, donations to trade associations, meals, training, leasing workspace and gifts.

READ MORE - WA Supreme Court: Insurer can be held liable for agent's actions

Google Apps Vault for a subset of your users

Posted by Jack Halprin, Head of eDiscovery, Enterprise

Since we launched Google Apps Vault, thousand of businesses, schools, and governments have adopted it to archive, retain, and manage business-critical information. Until now, customers have only been able to buy Vault for their entire domain. Now, with partial domain licensing, you can buy Vault for specific users or by organizational units, enabling you to save money and focus your efforts.

Google Apps Vault helps protect organizations of all sizes from lawsuits by enabling them to quickly find and preserve email messages that may be relevant to litigation, reducing investigation costs. Vault also helps manage and preserve business-critical information for continuity, compliance, and regulatory purposes.

You can add Vault to an existing Apps account, or purchase it in conjunction with Apps, for $5 per user per month. If you purchased Google Apps online directly from Google, you can purchase Vault from your Apps Admin Console. If you purchased Vault from a reseller partner, please contact them to purchase additional Vault users. And, finally, please contact us if you are a Google Apps for Education or Government customer interested in Vault.

READ MORE - Google Apps Vault for a subset of your users

New York City guides residents to safety with Google Maps for Business

Posted by Colin Reilly, Director of Geographic Information Systems at the New York City Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications

Editor's note: This post comes from guest blogger Colin Reilly, Director of Geographic Information Systems at the New York City Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications. Read how NYC is improving crisis management by integrating Google Maps Engine, the core of the Google Maps for Business solution.

At the New York City Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications, we bring mission-critical technologies to city agencies, making life for our residents easier and safer. This includes creating apps and online services that New Yorkers can depend on, such as our newly launched Hurricane Zone Finder.

In the wake of Superstorm Hurricane Sandy, we realized the importance of reliable technology in a natural disaster. During the storm, record levels of traffic to our online evacuation map slowed performance and blocked updates. We knew that we needed to find the right technology to keep our maps running during the worst of storms.

Now that we’ve implemented Google Maps Engine, we can ensure that New Yorkers can get the information they need, when they need it most, no matter how hard a storm rages or how many people access the system. Powered by Google’s reliable cloud infrastructure, our new Hurricane Zone Finder not only guides residents to the nearest evacuation area, but can also handle thousands of visitors to the site.

The revamped site highlights color-coded evacuation zones on a Google Map, helping people easily determine if they need to evacuate and find out where they should go. Mobile and online visitors can check the Hurricane Zone Finder on nearly any device and get directions – driving, walking, or transit – to the closest evacuation center. All of this information is provided in the Google Maps interface, letting users interact with familiar technology.

Google Maps Engine made it easy for us to develop and publish our maps. Included with the new tool are the three new hurricane evacuation zones developed by the New York City Office of Emergency Management; in total, six zones now cover nearly three million residents. The Google Maps Engine API lets us quickly process this new information, and provide a map with boundaries that are updated and precise.

Hurricane Sandy taught us some valuable lessons about informing New Yorkers in advance of a major storm. While online maps can get people the information they need, they are only part of the solution. With Google Maps Engine, we can provide visitors with a tool that is not only informative but reliable. And as long as our residents are informed and kept up to date, we’re doing our job.

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City of Omaha and Douglas County join forces to move government workers to Google Apps

Posted by Derek Kruse, CIO, Douglas Omaha Technology Commission, Nebraska

Editor's note: Today’s guest blogger is Derek Kruse, CIO of the Douglas Omaha Technology Commission (DOTComm), which provides municipal technical services to the City of Omaha and Douglas County, Nebraska. Be sure to join Innovation for the Nation, a virtual summit featuring government customers, streaming live on July 31st and August 1st. And see what other organizations that have gone Google have to say.

Derek Kruse, CIO

The City of Omaha and Douglas County have something many municipalities lack, a collaborative relationship. With Omaha located within Douglas County, we are fortunate to live in a community that values working together to solve complex challenges. Our cooperation has led to many innovative solutions, including the formation of the Douglas Omaha Technology Commission (DOTComm). Another example of this collaborative spirit is our decision to upgrade our email and calendaring platform. In order to improve government productivity and efficiency, DOTComm has been tasked with moving approximately 5,000 city and county employees in more than 70 departments to Google Apps for Government.

In May, after a thorough and exhaustive evaluation process, the DOT.Comm Oversight Committee approved the proposal to implement Google Apps for Government. The decision was endorsed by the Mayor and also unanimously approved by both the City Council and the County Board of Commissioners. We decided to go with Google Apps because it not only meets our current needs, but it offers new collaboration features at a fraction of the cost it would take to upgrade our existing system. We chose SADA Systems, a Google Apps Premier Enterprise Reseller, to help with this transition and serve as our deployment partner. It is obvious that SADA’s focus on training and ensuring a smooth migration will enable us to quickly and easily adopt Google Apps.

Moving to Google Apps will provide tremendous benefits. Our current system is more than 10 years old and lacks any modern features. Employees struggle to access information on their mobile devices and people spend valuable time deleting emails because our mailboxes do not have enough space. Given the age of our system, we have seen a steep increase in outages as well. That will all change when we move to Google Apps for Government. We will offer a more secure, stable, modern and scalable cloud solution to the City and County. Employees will now be able to communicate instantly and work collaboratively online, even if they are miles apart. Mailbox size alone has people cheering -- one of our employees made the comparison that we will be moving from a shot glass to a swimming pool!

We started out this process to fix our aged email system. We have discovered this is much more than a fix -- this is the future -- and another big step in the ongoing collaboration between Omaha and Douglas County. The next few months will be very exciting as we implement Google Apps and we are very thrilled to be rolling up our sleeves once again to improve our community together.

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Unemployment Insurance Fraud Detection in Iowa

Posted by Gary Bateman, CIO, Iowa Workforce Development

Editor's note: Today’s guest blogger is Gary Bateman, CIO for the Iowa Workforce Development. Be sure to join Innovation for the Nation, a virtual summit featuring government customers, streaming live on July 31st and August 1st. And see what other organizations that have gone Google have to say.

In Iowa, our mission at Iowa Workforce Development (IWD) is to provide a comprehensive statewide system of employment services, education and regulations to ensure the economic security of Iowa’s workers, businesses and communities. An important part of our effort is to identify and prevent unemployment insurance fraud. Our efforts have cut the rate of fraud to less than 6%, but we are not satisfied to stop there.

Detecting and preventing unemployment insurance fraud is challenging because of the high volume of claims we receive. Often times, we’re not able to detect the discrepancy until after multiple payments have been made. This lag means the bad actors can take the money and move on, making it difficult and expensive to recover the payment. We went looking for technologies to provide an even better rate of fraud detection, allowing us to act faster to prevent this criminal activity and save the state money.

After a competitive bid process, we selected Fraud Detection as a Service (FDaaS) by Pondera Solutions, a Google Enterprise Partner, to help us identify and prevent improper payments. FDaaS is a Google-powered solution that uses Google Prediction API, Google Maps, Google Street View and Google Earth.

With FDaaS, suspicious claims are proactively flagged by the system, which alerts IWD employees about potentially fraudulent claims. The claims are plotted on a heatmap built on Google Maps to identify areas with the highest fraud incidents and determine where to put more investigative resources. We also use Google Street View to check the validity of businesses that submit claims. All of these data points are compiled into a custom, configured dashboard that helps us quickly examine claimants and employers to validate whether these claims are valid. This dashboard will replace many of our manual processes of checking disparate databases. And because Google helps to integrate relevant market data into our validation processes, we can parse massive amounts of data quickly and efficiently, allowing us to identify advanced schemes and rapidly respond to potential issues. With all this information available at our fingertips, we can then examine claimants and employers to validate whether these claims are proper much more efficiently.

Using the new solution, IWD will improve accuracies in Unemployment Insurance, benefiting both the employers and citizens of Iowa. Our continuing efforts will help assure that the vast majority of unemployment insurance benefits are delivered to the citizens who need and deserve our assistance.

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Agent charged with theft and forgery; collected commissions for fictitious customers

A former Vancouver insurance agent has been charged with theft and forgery for allegedly collecting about $15,000 in commissions by creating fictitious applicants for insurance policies.

Julie Anne Goss, 43, an independent agent for AFLAC, was arraigned last week in Clark County Superior Court.

The scam came to light after the owner of a restaurant in Battle Ground, Wash. told AFLAC that she’d received premium bills for two “employees” that had never worked there. 

AFLAC investigated, and it turned out that Goss wrote dozens of policies for 15 people that either weren’t employees at the named businesses or apparently didn’t exist. In other cases, she wrote policies for real employees, but they said they hadn't applied for the coverage.

In each case, Goss stood to get a commission for the policy. All told, the investigator found, between August 2010 and January 2011, Goss wrote 91 fraudulent insurance policies and collected more than $15,000 in commissions for them.

The company canceled its contract with Goss in March 2011 and reported the matter to our Special Investigations Unit. After investigating further, we revoked Goss’ insurance license in January 2012. The charges against her were filed in late June.
If you suspect insurance fraud and you live in Washington state, please report it.

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Head for the Cloud: Nobel Biocare, manufacturer of dental implants, moves to Google Apps for Business

Posted by Dietmar Böhm, CIO at Nobel Biocare

Editor's note: Our guest blogger this week is Dietmar Böhm, CIO of Nobel Biocare, a leader in innovative, restorative and aesthetic dental solutions, headquartered in Switzerland. See what other organizations that have gone Google have to say.

Nobel Biocare was founded in 1981 in Göteborg, Sweden as Bofors Nobelpharma and we now have 2,500 employees in more than 40 countries. Our focus has always been on scientific innovation and developing safe and effective solutions to restore and improve our patient’s smiles. In order to provide the best dental care for our patients it’s important that our team is working together across all of our office locations.

In the healthcare industry, the privacy of our patients is extremely important. We wanted to give our employees the flexibility and mobility to work together while determining the best options for their patients, while still maintaining our data security and reducing our IT costs. As a company we had been using Lotus Notes, but I had personally been using Google Apps at work for over a year. I felt that by moving to the cloud, we would improve our ability to work together internally and with our suppliers, and offer our employees the most innovative technology available.

We believe that in order to attract the best talent and to retain the talent we have, it’s vital to provide the best technology that allows people to work together from anywhere. Today, many employees already know products such as Gmail, Google Drive or Google Calendar from using them in their personal lives. By using Google Apps for Business, we’re giving our employees the tools they’re used to and also building the foundation for years to come.

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