“Big data” is a term that you hear a lot these days. Industries as wide-ranging as healthcare, fashion and television are all analyzing and using data. TeraCrunch is a Kansas City company that uses data science to provide insights and recommend actions to different businesses. Kelly Lieberman is the company’s sales director. She spoke with…
U.S. Rep. Lynn Jenkins and U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran are leading a congressional effort to delay enforcement of Medicare regulations requiring physician supervision of outpatient treatments like chemotherapy and intravenous infusions. The rules are intended to improve patient safety. But Jenkins, Moran and several advocacy groups, including the Kansas Hospital Association, say they would burden…
The long line of semi-trucks waiting to get in the gates of the Farmland Foods plant could simply wait around for a few hours to head back, fresh products on board. The trucks are loaded with hogs from several confinement operations near this factory in Milan, a small town in northeast Missouri. Within just 19…
On a wet, grey day in Grinnell, Iowa, the rain beats a rhythm on the metal roof of a packing shed at Grinnell Heritage Farm. Crew member Whitney Brewer picks big bunches of kale out of a washing tank, lets them drip on a drying table and then packs them into cardboard boxes. Like…
It’s a hot summer day outside of Lincoln, Neb., and Jack Chappelle is knee-deep in trash. He’s wading in to rotting vegetables, half-eaten burgers and tater tots. Lots of tater tots. “You can get a lot of tater tots out of schools,” Chappelle says. “It doesn’t matter if it’s elementary, middle school or high school.…
A Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Services official said Thursday that the agency has identified 11 communities that appear to be referring inordinate numbers of patients to the state hospitals for mentally ill or have above-average numbers of inmates in the state’s correctional systems who are known to be mentally ill. “We’ve been going…
With debates over teacher tenure and educator evaluations happening in Kansas and Missouri, it’s easy to see how teaching may be one of the most maligned professions. This summer, as part of a course at the University of Saint Mary’s, local practicing educators took a hard look at how teachers are portrayed in television and…
Olathe Medical Center officials say they have added a building block to their vision of providing cradle-to-grave care. On Wednesday, in front of a crowd of about 300 donors, employees and other well-wishers, the hospital officially opened a freestanding inpatient hospice on its land at Interstate 35 and 151st Street. “In the early 1980s, when…
A month after the death of Michael Brown — the allegedly unarmed black teen who was shot and killed by a white police officer — community members gathered Tuesday evening at Ebenezer African Methodist Episcopal Church in Kansas City, Missouri, for an interfaith prayer vigil. The service, titled “Mother’s Prayer,” was led by Rev. Betty…
A new program in Kansas aims to improve conditions in prisons, but it’s not for inmates. The state Department of Corrections is one of many prison and jail systems around the country working to overcome “correctional fatigue” — the mental and physical stress that lead to corrections workers burning out. From Orange Is The New…