As federal and state/provincial governments attempt to trim their budgets, find efficiencies in various departments and impose a series of cutbacks to services, one of the growing issues for countries everywhere is the state of health care, especially for the aging population.In the United States alone, there are approximately 40 million Americans aged 65 and over and by the year 2030 that number will jump to an estimated 71 million. This means that in a country that is facing an intense budgetary crisis and rising debt levels, it will not have enough adequate resources to take care of the elderly.The United Nations published the results of a global study that concluded most nations are not prepared enough to look after the growing number of elderly people. It ranked the economic and social (health, education, income, etc.) well-being of old people in 91 countries and it ranked Sweden in first place and Afghanistan was listed last.According to the Global AgeWatch Index, by the year 2050, seniors older than 60 will outnumber children under the age of 15, which is the first time in history. To compartmentalize it: the globe is not working hard enough to cope with a greyer population.”We expect the Index to become an important research and analysis framework for practitioners and policy-makers alike, as it will facilitate cross-national comparative research on the quality of life and wellbeing of older people, and help identify data and knowledge gaps on issues of aging,” said Professor Zaidi from the University of Southampton in a statement. “We need to give more and more importance to such data gathering work — in fact, since the lives of older people are at stake, we can’t afford not to.”Despite much of the world turning to Sweden as a role model when it comes to health care, even that country is facing tremendous problems that is affecting everyone: a huge bureaucracy, higher tax rates, immense waiting times and a paucity of quality. This can also be found when it comes to health care for seniors.It isn’t just international studies looking at the issue of health care for seniors. Last year, National Research Council (NRC) published a report that essentially stated that the U.S. will have to come to grips with caring for its aging population because it will become a long-term problem. With a longer life expectancy and lower birth rates, there will be budgetary inadequacies – in addition, it was noted that Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security are on unsustainable paths.Many have decided to turn to the private sector for elderly home health care and senior assisted living. Although retirement residences still remain an option for a significant percentage, many retirees have decided to stay home due to technological advancements and the large number of senior care assistance businesses.Some industry professionals say that retirement homes may even become an antiquated model because of the numerous benefits and options that seniors have: tax credits, nutrition counseling, home health care and much more.The London Guardian even took a look at this and found that private enterprises are facilitating seniors staying home through the adoption of alarms, sensors, helplines, pill dispensers and other forms of technology that more and more seniors are utilizing.
Although some public officials appear to be bleak on the future of senior health care, the private sector is seeing a market and an opportunity to improve the quality of life and standard of living of the aging population.
Business Tip #2 – Tips For Loans
Taking out loans is nothing new, especially to help keep a business running. Many companies also have taken out loans to pay for a property, either a store front or an office space because with low interest rates, high foreclosure rates, and a large number of available places you can pay the same to own a property as you would pay to lease one. While this does come in handy as far as the overall value of a company, it does hurt you when you wish to move or lower your monthly bill.During hard economic times many companies look first to spending less money. They cut back store hours, cut the employee staff and employees hours to help save. They also look at things like office supplies, electric, water, and any other thing they are billed for every month. Some companies have even gone as far as to fine employees who leave their computers on even after their shift is over. While these may seem like a lot of monitoring or changing of routine, they are effective ways to save money. Another very effective way to save money is to modify your loan.When you own a place, unless you own it out right, you have to pay monthly bills for it. These can add up, especially because of finance charges, insurance, and interest rates. While many people would love to lower this bill, few take the time to actually try to. Commercial loan modification has been around for years and it works. Commercial loan modification companies go directly to the bank or lender to work out a deal that can save you money each and every month. They work fast and they work for you so you don’t have to deal with the banks.
Why Cloud Storage is a Better Idea for Small Businesses
Like big businesses, small businesses have varied requirements from infrastructure, IT deployment, daily operation, and manpower to data management. However unlike big businesses, small businesses have budget constraints that often limit their scope of expansion and expenditures in the needful projects. Despite the limitations it doesn’t mean that small businesses do not have options. In fact there is a plethora of options available for small businesses to fulfill their wide-ranging business requirements.One of such options is cloud storage, also called as online storage, for data management, which is the biggest need of small businesses. Cloud storage is an answer to all the prayers related to data backup and restore of small businesses which are more prone to data loss/damage as compared to large businesses. According to a survey, 70% of the small businesses shut down within one year of their operations after they suffer major data. According to a survey conducted by Sage North America, about 62% small companies do not have a proper disaster recovery plan in place for safety from catastrophic disasters, man-made debacles, accidental deletions, thefts, power outages, hardware failure. In the same survey, it was concluded that around 33% of the businesses do not have data backup and recovery plans in place because there hasn’t been observed any catastrophic disasters or emergencies in their areas while around 30% said that “have never thought about it”. Around 28% of the participants said that they regularly back up their data because they have major data losses in the past.This is the poorest scenario for any small business that needs to be able to run properly without facing operational hitches which may occur and recue in the absence of a proper data backup and recovery plan. If you run a small business from your home or office, you can understand how vital it is to keep your data organized and safe to be able to meet the tailor-made demands to your clients, protect your business ideas and information from competitors, and from employees who might take advantage of your personal or professional information for monetary purposes among other things.The question that arises here is ‘why small businesses do not pay attention to data backup and recovery plans when they cannot prevent a tornado or other such catastrophic disasters, accidental deletions, thefts, power outages, or hardware failure for that matter from occurring’? Small businesses may be taking this risk because data management is not affordable for them. Besides, regular data backups and recoveries on several devices involve lots of hassles that put them off from maintaining proper data management plans. However with the onset of cloud storage, it has become extremely convenient and affordable for small businesses to maintain data. Businesses can back up their data as many times as they want and access it anytime, anywhere from their computers, Smartphones, tablets, servers, and networks etc. connected to the Internet.Since your data is stored in a cloud server, which is the only place for all your digital possessions viz. emails, contacts, documents, images, family videos, music numbers, social network updates, and bank details etc., the cost of regularly data backups and recoveries drastically come down. It’s is because you don’t have to use multiple hard disks and/or USB devices to store your data. In the cloud server, your data is stored once and forever. You can access, add, delete, edit, re-edit, backup and restore your business data as many times as you want without going through the lengthy and cumbersome procedure.In fact the data stored in a cloud server remains protected and safe from the tactics of hackers. Besides, cloud storage services are scalable as you can store higher volumes of data according to your needs. With cloud storage, it only takes a computer, server or mobile device with an active Internet connection or Wi-Fi to be able to manage the data. Such a flexibility and convenience is absent from the external storage media on which the cost of backing up and recovering data is also very high, in fact the highest.Considering that cloud storage is the only contemporary, affordable, and viable solution for small businesses and users, several major tech giants including Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Netgear, and McAfee among others have come up with integrated cloud storage. Cloud storage is around 1,000 times more affordable than the external backup media whose reliability and safety are always at risk due to environment, physical conditions, catastrophic emergencies, accidental deletions, thefts, and other contingencies. Thus, if you own a small business, make sure that you cloud-power your data. It’s your choice to keep spending big money on the external storage media or spend only once and forever with a cloud storage services. It’s your choice if you want peace of mind or want to constantly run around losing business, clients, and money.