Emory University Hospital Named Consumer's Choice Top Hospital

Emory University Hospital has been recognized as one of the nation’s top hospitals by the National Research Corporation’s (NRC) Consumer’s Choice Awards.

The award identifies hospitals that health care consumers have chosen as having the highest quality and image in more than 250 markets in the U.S. Emory University Hospital has been recognized by consumers as a top hospital for 11 straight years.

“There is no greater reward or recognition we can receive as a health care provider than the direct positive feedback from our patients and their family members, and I am so pleased to once again share this tremendous news with our faculty, staff and employees at Emory University Hospital,” says Chief Operating Officer Robert Bachman. “These are exciting times at Emory as we continue building a more patient- and family-focused center of care that will allow us to incorporate the patient’s family into the team of world-class physicians and nursing professionals, while also taking their special needs as caregivers into account.”

According to Ginny Martin, president of NRC's Healthcare Market Guide Division, award winners are determined by consumer perceptions on multiple quality and image ratings collected in the company's Healthcare Market Guide Ticker study. Of the 3,200 hospitals named by consumers in the study, the winning facilities rank highest in their Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs), as defined by the U.S. Census Bureau. The Healthcare Market Guide Ticker study surveyed more than 200,000 households representing approximately 400,000 consumers in the contiguous 48 states and the District of Columbia.

"Consumers continue to be empowered to make decisions for themselves and their families when selecting their health care facilities and services," says Martin. "As care options multiply and consumer perception of quality grows in importance, dedication to providing a high level of quality health care becomes essential for hospitals. These Consumer Choice award winners exemplify the dedication it takes to provide quality health care to their communities, and we are please to honor them through the eyes of their patients."

This year, Emory University Hospital for the 18th time, joined the prestigious ranks of America's top medical institutions in the annual U.S. News & World Report guide to “America's Best Hospitals.” The hospital is at the heart of one of the nation’s leading university-based health systems, with nationally and internationally recognized faculty physicians in a broad range of specialty areas. The 573-bed adult, tertiary care facility is a component of Emory Healthcare—the largest and most comprehensive health system in Georgia. The hospital is staffed by 954 practicing physicians who are also faculty members of the Emory School of Medicine.

-----
www.georgiafrontpage.com
Georgia Front Page
www.fayettefrontpage.com
Fayette Front Page

News to Use in Fayetteville, Atlanta, Macon,Peachtree City and all of Georgia

Teaching Consumers On-Line Safety Easiest When They Take the Bait

(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG) and Carnegie Mellon University’s Supporting Trust Decisions Project have established a phishing page redirect initiative that protects global online consumers who have been tricked into clicking links in scam emails by delivering them to Web pages that instruct them on the dangers of phishing – and how to avoid them. The program was announced today at the APWG conference in Atlanta.

The AWPG/Carnegie Mellon Phishing Education Landing Page program builds on the philosophy of using the “teachable moment” to warn users immediately after they’ve fallen for a phishing lure and then give them on-line safety instruction precisely at a time when they are receptive to it. Phishing sites are designed to resemble Web sites of legitimate businesses, such as banks and online retailers, to trick people into revealing credit card numbers, bank accounts or login names and passwords. Actionable messaging will help consumers to avoid falling victim to these scams a second time.

“We are excited about the opportunity to educate consumers as they are falling victim to a phishing site,” said Dr. Laura Mather, Managing Director of Operational Policy for the APWG and CEO of Silver Tail Systems. “We see this initiative as having real impact in helping people understand when they have received a phishing communication so that they can protect themselves going forward.”

This education-at-time-of-action is accomplished by leveraging the URLs of the phishing sites themselves after anti-phishing investigators have identified the sites and shut them down. Instead of leaving the URL file blank, returning a ‘PAGE NOT FOUND’ message to consumers following phishing links, they will be served a page of instruction on how to avoid phishing and reduce the risk of falling victim to electronic crime. (Redirect scripts placed at the sanitized phishing URL will automatically forward the advisory content.)

“Our research has shown that most Internet users don’t know very much about online scams and don’t realize that there are some simple things they can do to protect themselves,” said Dr. Lorrie Cranor, an associate professor of computer science and engineering & public policy at Carnegie Mellon and director of the Supporting Trust Decisions Project.

Ponnurangam Kumaraguru, a computer science Ph.D. student who is leading the effort to design and evaluate anti-phishing training materials at Carnegie Mellon added, “Nobody wants to spend their time taking on-line safety courses. But we’ve demonstrated that users are receptive to on-line safety instruction immediately after they fall for a phishing attack and they tend to remember this instruction."

The phishing education landing page developed by APWG and Carnegie Mellon teaches would-be victims not to give out personal information upon email request and to use a skeptical eye in judging online communications.

The implementation of the program depends on the participation of both takedown service providers and the ISPs and other companies whose servers have been co-opted to host phishing sites. The APWG is already successfully recruiting companies that perform phishing site takedowns, victimized brandholders and trade associations to encourage ISPs and other organizations that remove phish sites to use the APWG’s education landing page program.

The program is based on a similar program initiated by Bank of America in 2007. The APWG/Carnegie Mellon program builds on Bank of America’s ideas by creating a page that can be used for phishing site against any brand. Bank of America has already implemented the APWG/Carnegie Mellon program.

“Bank of America is committed to providing its customers with industry leading security tools and advice to protect them and enhance their overall customer experience. Educating our customers about the risks of identity theft and fraud is critical,” says David Shroyer, SVP for eCommerce Online Security at Bank of America.

"We know from experience that an educated customer is the best defense against fraud, and with this program we are educating our customers at the point of incidence, and letting customers know that we are working to protect them,” Mr. Shroyer said.

The APWG/Carnegie Mellon scheme will augment the usual procedure for communicating to the hosting organization about phishing sites. Instead of asking that the site be disabled and file content associated with the phishing URL removed, the takedown provider or victimized brandholder would request that the URL be preserved and a redirect script send the duped user to a webpage hosted by the APWG.

The education landing page will automatically determine whether the user is using a PC or laptop or handheld device and vend the device-appropriate page. Users of PDAs and Web-enabled cell phones will receive a page exclusively of text. People using PCs and laptops will receive an enhanced page of text, graphics and a number of links to online resources.

The APWG/Carnegie Mellon scheme will augment the usual procedure for communicating to the hosting organization about phishing sites. Instead of asking that the site be disabled and file content associated with the phishing URL removed, the takedown provider or victimized brandholder would request that the URL be preserved and a redirect script send the duped user to a webpage hosted by the APWG.

The APWG page will automatically determine whether the user is using a PC or laptop or handheld device and vend the device-appropriate page. Users of PDAs and Web-enabled cell phones will receive a page exclusively of text. People using PCs and laptops will receive an enhanced page of text, graphics and a number of links to online resources.

“This initiative gives takedown teams, ISPs, registrars, and registries the opportunity to take one more step in protecting consumers against identity theft and the other crimes perpetrated by Phishers,” said Dr. Mather.

As a next step, the APWG will organize the translation of the pages into various languages to serve the larger international community of consumers, brandholders and ISPs who are confronting the threats of electronic crime and engaging questions of efficacious consumer education.

Links:

Redirect education page: http://education.apwg.org/r/en/

Text only redirect education page: http://education.apwg.org/r/index.html

About the redirect education page initiative: http://education.apwg.org/r/about.html

About the APWG: The APWG is an industry, founded as the Anti-Phishing Working Group in 2003, is an industry, law enforcement and government coalition focused on eliminating the identity theft and fraud that result from the growing problem of phishing, email spoofing, and crimeware. Membership is open to qualified financial institutions, online retailers, ISPs, the law enforcement community and solutions providers. There are more than 1,800 companies and government agencies worldwide participating in the APWG and more than 3,200 members. The APWG's Web site (www.antiphishing.org) offers the public and industry information about phishing and email fraud, including identification and promotion of pragmatic technical solutions that provide immediate protection. APWG's corporate sponsors include: 8e6 Technologies, AT&T (T), Able NV, Afilias Ltd., AhnLab, BillMeLater, BBN Technologies, BlueStreak, BrandMail, BrandProtect, Bsecure Technologies, Cisco (CSCO), Clear Search, Cloudmark, Cydelity, Cyveillance, DigiCert, DigitalEnvoy, DigitalResolve, Digital River, Earthlink (ELNK), eBay/PayPal (EBAY), Entrust (ENTU), Experian, eEye, Fortinet, FraudWatch International, FrontPorch, F-Secure, Goodmail Systems, Grisoft, GeoTrust, GlobalSign, GoDaddy, Goodmail Systems, GuardID Systems, HomeAway, IronPort, HitachiJoHo, ING Bank, Iconix, Internet Identity, Internet Security Systems, IOvation, IS3, IT Matrix, Kaspersky Labs, Lenos Software, LightSpeed Systems, MailFrontier, MailShell, MarkMonitor, McAfee (MFE), MasterCard, MessageLevel, Microsoft (MSFT), MicroWorld, Mirapoint, MySpace (NWS), MyPW, MX Logic, NameProtect, National Australia Bank (ASX: NAB) Netcraft, NetStar, Network Solutions, Panda Software, Phoenix Technologies Inc. (PTEC), Phorm, SalesForce, Radialpoint, RSA Security (EMC), SecureBrain, Secure Computing (SCUR), S21sec, Sigaba, SoftForum, SOPHOS, SquareTrade, SurfControl, Symantec (SYMC), TDS Telecom, Telefonica (TEF), Trend Micro (TMIC), Tricerion, TriCipher, TrustedID, Tumbleweed Communications (TMWD), SurfControl (SRF.L), Vasco (VDSI), VeriSign (VRSN), Visa, Websense Inc. (WBSN) and Yahoo! (YHOO)

About the Carnegie Mellon Supporting Trust Decisions Project. The Supporting Trust Decisions Project (http://cups.cs.cmu.edu/trust) is a research project affiliated with Carnegie Mellon University’s CyLab and the CMU Usable Privacy and Security Laboratory. The project has developed a number of approaches to end-user security education as well as automated tools for detecting phishing attacks. These user education tools and phishing filters are being commercialized by Wombat Security Technologies, Inc. This project is sponsored by the US National Science Foundation, Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia Portugal under a grant from the Information and Communications Technology Institute at Carnegie Mellon, and by the Army Research Office.

-----
www.fayettefrontpage.com
Fayette Front Page
www.georgiafrontpage.com
Georgia Front Page

News to Use in Fayetteville, Atlanta, Macon, Peachtree City and all of Georgia

GT Study: Behavior of Online Reviewers Affects Their Credibility

Consumers increasingly rely on recommendations in online forums, such as Amazon.com and Angieslist.com, when deciding which products and services to buy. But, in most cases, they've never met the posters of these reviews.

Without traditional cues to assess the credibility of reviewers, people evaluate not only the content of opinions, but also the online behavior of posters, according to a recent article in the Journal of Marketing Research titled “Listening to Strangers.”

Factors influencing the perceived value of reviews include posters’ speed of response to queries, the length of their opinions, back-and-forth dialogue, and a reputation for successfully answering others’ queries, found the researchers.

The study was conducted by Nicholas Lurie, assistant professor of marketing at Georgia Tech College of Management, and Allen Weiss and Deborah MacInnis, marketing professors at the University of Southern California.

"Imagine that you send an e-mail to members of your neighborhood association asking for recommendations for painters. How do you decide whose recommendation to trust?,” Lurie asks. “Our study suggests that you are likely to give greater weight to those who respond quickly, write a lengthy response, and engage you in a back-and-forth discussion.”

In addition to finding that reviewers’ current behavior affects value perceptions, the researchers found that previous reviews can help or hurt depending on whether information seekers want to make a decision about buying a particular product/service or just learn more about the options.

If information seekers want to learn more about a particular topic, such as important features to consider when buying a digital camera, they value recommendations from information providers who have made multiple contributions on the same subject. But they tend to discount advice from people whose posting history shows recommendations made across a wide variety of topics.

The reverse is true when information seekers have moved from the learning stage to the decision-making point. When people aim to make a decision, they value posters who've made recommendations across a wide variety of topics.

For example, in an online marketing forum, a CEO with a decision-making orientation who needs help choosing between different sales-force automation software packages might value information from an advisor with a wide range of interests more than the recommendations of someone with highly specialized expertise.

The researchers also found that receiving large amounts of information is more important for individuals with a learning goal than for decision-makers.

"Our results suggest that it is critical for marketers (as providers of information) to discern whether potential customers have a learning or a decision-making goal,” write the researchers. “Making strategic choices about how to respond to customer inquiries and from whom such responses should come is particularly relevant to current marketing environments in which communication is customer initiated.”

-----
www.georgiafrontpage.com
Georgia Front Page
www.fayettefrontpage.com
Fayette Front Page