http://www.innovations.harvard.edu This section focuses on new initiatives underway in the field of health and social services. Topics include primary care, access and insurance, medical education and research, healthcare administration, long-term care, mental health services, public assistance, public health, gender and ethnicity issues, social services to specific populations, substance abuse treatment and prevention, and general violence/abuse treatment and prevention. en-us Copyright 2009, Government Innovators Network Tue, 24 Nov 2009 21:48:00 -0500 Tue, 24 Nov 2009 21:48:00 -0500 info@innovations.harvard.edu http://www.innovations.harvard.edu/news/856749.html Federal agency websites are beginning to catch up with the private sector in terms of citizen satisfaction, reaching their highest levels ever, according to a study released this morning. Websites by the Social Security Administration and the National Institutes of Health ranked highest on the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) E-Government Satisfaction Index, which overall attained its ... http://www.innovations.harvard.edu/news/735393.html The "arrow of progress" sometimes leads back to ideas we've abandoned. Like commercial innovation, social innovation has become synonymous with "new technology"—inventions based on new knowledge that "changes everything." But sometimes innovators deconstruct old ideas that have taken hold—breaking them down and rejecting them—and rediscover old knowledge ... http://www.innovations.harvard.edu/news/825548.html In which nuPOLIS social innovators—Plastrik & Taylor—talk with network maven Beth Kanter (and her video camera and blog)Beth's Blog By Email  <http://beth.typepad.com/beths_blog/> Drawing Networks on Napkins with Peter Plastrik and Madeleine Taylor, Co-Authors of Net Gains <http://feedproxy.google.com/r/bethblog/3/FipS640PYn4/drawing-networks-on-napkins.html> Posted ... http://www.innovations.harvard.edu/news/875055.html When social innovators flock around an innovation like the Harlem Children's Zone (HCZ), calls for replication are in the air."The first part of my plan to combat urban poverty will be to replicate the Harlem Children's Zone in twenty cities around the country. We'll train staff, we'll have them draw up detailed plans with attainable goals, and the federal government will provide half of the ... http://www.innovations.harvard.edu/news/637583.html Ken Gehle first noticed something was wrong about a year ago: He'd sit down to dinner and the first bite of food seemed to get stuck in his throat. http://www.innovations.harvard.edu/news/830082.html We're betting on network approaches to become an important way of increasing social change. For the past six years, Madeleine Taylor and I have been working with the idea that network-building approaches offer social-change agents and organizations a powerful new way to generate impact. We've consulted with networks large and small; written and circulated articles and drafted a handbook, ... http://www.innovations.harvard.edu/news/687425.html The future is in the apps. I live in a rural community many hours from the urban places—Chicago, Detroit, Ann Arbor, Grand Rapids—I often visit for my work. Here in northern Michigan access to high-speed broadband is spotty or slow, nothing like the nearly ubiquitous presence in cities. Our small rural markets don't inspire investment in broadband infrastructure because ... http://www.innovations.harvard.edu/news/147891.html The New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation issued the following press release: New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation President Alan D. Aviles today marked the opening of the new $153 million psychiatric center at Kings County Hospital and announced significant improvements achieved in the first phase of a comprehensive eight-point plan to transform mental health services, improve ... http://www.innovations.harvard.edu/news/784108.html New uses for mobile phones could launch another wave of developmentIN A field just outside the village of Bumwambu in eastern Uganda, surrounded by banana trees and cassava, with chickens running between the mud-brick houses, Frederick Makawa is thinking about tomatoes. It is late June and the rainy season is coming to an end. Tomatoes are a valuable cash crop during the coming dry season and Mr ... http://www.innovations.harvard.edu/news/725205.html How communities can become social innovation hot spots. Communities—cities, towns, villages, regions—can create the conditions that stimulate social innovators to transform the performance of local systems like education, economic development, health care, and more. But in most places, civic leaders don't know enough about how to do this and often shortchange their efforts or ... http://www.innovations.harvard.edu/news/595801.html Two years ago, Anne Mahlum was taking her morning run through the streets of Philadelphia, passing as always the same group of homeless men on the corner of 13th and Vine. She usually waved and kept running. But one sticky July morning, Mahlum stopped and asked the nine men whether they would like to join her. This fortuitous conversation would be the beginning of Back on My Feet, a Philadelphia ... http://www.innovations.harvard.edu/news/151671.html OptumHealth Inc. today announced it has been selected by the state of New Mexico's Interagency Behavioral Health Purchasing Collaborative to manage several publicly funded mental health and substance abuse programs. These include the State's Medicaid program; federal mental health and substance abuse block grants; Children, Youth and Families behavioral health funds; and Community Corrections behavioral ... http://www.innovations.harvard.edu/news/632053.html Navigating health care’s labyrinthRURAL Kentucky, and particularly eastern Kentucky, is poor and relatively unhealthy. The people who live in the hills and hollows of central Appalachia face high rates of diabetes, heart disease, cancer and respiratory illness. Some of the area’s problems are common across America: many rural Kentuckians are uninsured, for example, which discourages ... http://www.innovations.harvard.edu/news/747685.html HHS-Connect links nine city health and human services agencies, giving caseworkers access to better client information. http://www.innovations.harvard.edu/news/152751.html The following information was released by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation: The Pioneer Portfolio of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) and Ashokas Changemakers have launched a global search for individuals and institutions who help people make healthier choices for themselves and others. The Designing for Better Health competition will use the unique, open-source online competition model ...