Archive for the ‘Spotlight’ Category

Helping American citizens realize their biological potential and live free from the burden of chronic conditions is the moonshot at the core of surgeon-scientist Firouz Daneshgari’s powerful new book, Health Guardianship: The Remedy to the Sick Care System.

In it, Dr. Daneshgari draws upon more than 30 years of research to offer an unflinching look at the systemic dysfunction caused (primarily) by America’s fee-for-service healthcare model — and proposes effective solutions.

“When you use healthcare services as a source of revenue, everything we do … has side effects or complications,” he said.

Among those complications: Approximately half of all healthcare services delivered in the United States are a waste; there’s a tremendous lack of transparency and uniformity when it comes to prices; and intermediaries such as hospitals and insurance companies have come between doctors and their patients, Daneshgari explained.

“We have built a system specialized for sick care, and yet ironically we expect the results of ‘healthcare’ from it,” he said.

In Health Guardianship, Daneshgari details a framework for a new healthcare paradigm that prioritizes mitigation of health risks and elimination of chronic conditions, and rewards guardianship of health, not delivery of sick care services.

“My aim is to generate a national dialogue and movement toward a path forward that will create the next model of healthcare delivery. A model that will have all the medical and technological advances, and yet it is accessible, affordable, high quality and consumer-centric and not provider-centric,” Daneshgari said.

He describes how this new model can be implemented using the existing primary care infrastructure, with the integration of virtual health and wellness services to make proactive, consumer-centric healthcare as convenient and affordable as shopping and banking.

Acting like a whistle blower who calls out the existing dysfunction of the system, Daneshgari offers an imminently available remedy that would create the next generation of healthcare that is accessible to all, affordable by everyone and will provide the quality desired by healthcare consumers.

About the Author
Firouz Daneshgari, M.D., is a surgeon-scientist, educator and entrepreneur who has worked at the University of Colorado, Cleveland Clinic and Case Western Reserve University. He has published more than 200 scientific articles, led numerous scientific and clinical panels, and trained hundreds of students, residents, fellows and junior faculty.

Following implementation of the Affordable Care Act and approval of its mandates by the Supreme Court during 2010-2012, he founded BowTie Medical to create systematic innovations for bringing efficiency and value into the healthcare delivery system.

In addition to Health Guardianship, Daneshgari shares his views on healthcare and the path forward through his podcast, Why Can’t We Have it All? The Missing Pieces in Our Healthcare (www.wcwha.com).

For more information, visit www.bowtiemedical.com.

Health Guardianship: The Remedy to the Sick Care System
Publisher: Merack Publishing
ISBN-10: ‎ 1957048646
ISBN-13: ‎ 978-1957048642
Available now at Amazon.com

 



Book Details:

Book Title:  Merry Murder:  A Fiona Quinn Mystery #2
Author:  C.S. McDonald
Category:  YA Fiction, 219 pages
Run Time: 4 hours, 51 minutes
Genre:  Cozy Mystery
Publisher:  McWriter Books
Release date:  Sep 16, 2016
Content Rating:  G (The Fiona Quinn Mysteries are for everyone–adults love the books and they are appropriate for teens and tweens too!)

Enjoy an early Christmas gift!
MERRY MURDER
will be FREE on Amazon November 21-23
It will be offered at a reduced price of .99 cents
until January 1st

Book Description:

The cookies are baked. The tree is trimmed. The shopping? Well, it’s almost done, and Fiona’s parents have finally returned home for a holiday visit – along with some unexpected unruly friends. Yep, Fiona’s perfectly planned Christmas is coming together, but how could’ve she planned for her favorite uncle’s murder? Who could possibly kill a sweet old man who’s played Santa at the local mall every year without fail? Fiona’s boyfriend, Detective Nathan Landry, is determined to find out – before Christmas day arrives. There’s only one problem: Nancy Quinn. Fiona’s mom is just as determined as the detective to catch the murderer, and she isn’t shy about getting the job done – even if it includes breaking a few pesky laws! Will Fiona and her mother find the killer first or will the killer find them?

BUY THE BOOK:
Audible ~ Amazon
B&N ~ 
Add to Goodreads



Book Details:

Book Title:  The Christmas Cameo:  A Fiona Quinn Quick Mystery
Author:  C.S. McDonald
Category:  YA Fiction, 32 pages
Length: 1 hr, 16 minutes
Genre:  Cozy Mystery
Publisher:  McWriter Books
Release date:  November 13, 2019
Content Rating:  G (The Fiona Quinn Mysteries are for everyone–adults love the books and they are appropriate for teens and tweens too!)

Book Description:

A lovely cameo brooch is discovered in Fiona’s late Uncle Wilbur’s house two days before Christmas. The pin bears a romantic Christmas message from Wilbur for his new wife with the initials, D.A.S.
How very strange! To the family’s knowledge, Uncle Wilbur had never been married. So, who is this mysterious woman? Now, Fiona is on a holiday mission to locate D.A.S. and deliver the belated gift. 
Question is, what happened to the marriage? Is D.A.S. still alive after all these years? And if so, can Fiona find her before Christmas?

Meet the Author:

For twenty-six years C.S. McDonald’s life whirled around a song and a dance. Classically trained at Pittsburgh Ballet Theater School, The Pittsburgh Dance Alloy, and many others, she became a professional dancer and choreographer. During that time, she choreographed many musicals and an opera for the Pittsburgh Savoyards. In 2011 she retired from her dance career to write. Under her real name, Cindy McDonald, she writes murder-suspense and romantic suspense novels. In 2014 she added the pen name, C.S. McDonald, to write children’s books for her grandchildren. In 2016 she added the Fiona Quinn Mysteries to that expansion. She decided to write the cozy mystery series that everyone, including teens and tweens, can read and enjoy. Presently, the Fiona Quinn Mysteries includes nine books with a tenth slated for 2021. The books are also available on audio, narrated by Maren Swenson Waxenberg.

Cindy’s newest venture is The Owl’s Nest Mysteries. Once again, she has set her cozy mystery in Pittsburgh and the female protagonist, Alexa Owl, is much different from Fiona Quinn. The Owl’s Nest Mysteries has a little grit, a little time travel, a little romance, and a whole lot of cozy!

Ms. McDonald resides on her Thoroughbred farm known as Fly by Night Stables near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with her husband, Bill, and her poorly behaved Cocker Spaniel, Allister. 

Connect with the author:  Website  ~  Twitter  ~  Facebook ~ Instagram
(more…)

Copper Waters
Marlene M. Bell
(Annalisse, #4)
Publication date: December 5th 2022
Genres: Adult, Crime, Mystery

A rural New Zealand vacation turns poisonous.

Antiquities expert Annalisse Drury and tycoon Alec Zavos are at an impasse in their relationship when Alec refuses to clear up a paternity issue with an ex-lover.

Frustrated with his avoidance when their future is at stake, Annalisse accepts an invitation from an acquaintance to fly to New Zealand—hoping to escape the recent turbulence in her life.

But even Annalisse’s cottage idyll on the family sheep farm isn’t immune to intrigue.

Alec sends a mutual friend and detective, Bill Drake, to follow her, and a local resident who accompanies them from the Christchurch airport dies mysteriously soon after. A second violent death finds Annalisse and Bill at odds with the official investigations.

The local police want to close both cases as quickly as possible—without unearthing the town’s dirty secrets.

As she and Bill pursue their own leads at serious cost, the dual mysteries force Annalisse to question everything she thought she knew about family ties, politics, and the art of small-town betrayal.

Goodreads / Amazon

EXCERPT:

“Nothing’s sinking in.” I pass the note to Alec and prepare myself. “Would you mind reading it aloud?”

“She and Ethan traveled together.” He gazes at me.

“Okay, we’d considered that.”

“Kate has business to conclude in New Zealand before she returns to New York. She asks me not to mention this to you until she arrives in the States but didn’t give a reason. Kate says she’ll meet you in person when she’s ready.”

“Seriously? Where does she plan to live? With me in Greenwich? The Goshen farm could be sold by now. Does she mention Jeremy finding her another place?”

Alec scans the page randomly. “No, she didn’t.”

I scratch my scalp and shake my head. “Then my sheep station trip to New Zealand is perfect timing. I have to leave now and see if I can catch her before she skips out. Ethan must know where Kate is. If it’s all the same, we’ll hang on to the tickets for our April trip, and I’ll buy my own way for this flight.” Tugging at my sweatshirt with clammy hands, I take the note from Alec and sail it into the flames, watching paper crinkle and burn on the log.

He steps forward, his chiseled profile gawking at the fire in disbelief.

“Were you ever going to tell me about Kate’s message?” A sob chokes my windpipe. “If it weren’t for Ethan’s invite, I doubt that we’d be talking about Kate.”

“Babe, I thought by staying neutral…” He twists his lips and looks at his shoes. “Seeing your reaction now; it was a mistake not to tell you.”

“That totally blows.” I ball my hands into fists. “More like you were afraid that I’d run down there to find her.” I’m mad enough to send smoke signals, so I take slower, calming breaths.

“If I’d told you… Yeah, I worried you’d run off. The ordeal in Italy, then Peter Gregory terrorizing you, and Helga has had barely enough time to settle around here. Your safety doesn’t include encouraging you to hop on a plane to another country so soon after a trauma like that. Waiting for Kate’s return felt right to me. At some point, I hope you’ll see things from my side. Kate put me in the middle, but it’s you I worry about.”

Willing myself to relax, I take his hand to get him to focus on me instead of the floor. “I know that.”

Peter Gregory, an old coworker from my past job at another gallery, is responsible for a young woman’s murder in Lecce, near the Mediterranean Sea on Italy’s eastern shore. Alec and I went to Southern Italy for a working vacation that spun us into solving more than one homicide in order for Alec to sell his dad’s Signorile Corporation, a sports car company.

“After a shower, I’ll give your mom a call from the car on the way home. I might have trouble getting a flight out on the spur of the moment, but if I do, I hope you’ll help me.”

“Anna, we should discuss this.” He catches my wrist. “I’d like to go along. Say the word, and I’m on that plane with you. Allow what’s happened with Kate to simmer. You might feel differently in the morning.”

Grasping Kate’s locket beneath my shirt, I slide the chain over my head and cup Alec’s hand, dropping the necklace there.

“Hold on to my locket while I’m gone. It’s the most precious thing I own. That way, you’ll know I’m coming back to you.” On my tiptoes, our salty kiss calls a loneliness— In a flash, two people are about to have a hemisphere drifting between them from outside influences that want to manipulate us. “Gen will be here to see Noah in a few hours, and you have him until Sunday. Let me go, Alec, and please wait for me at Brookehaven. I have to make this trip by myself. If there’s the slightest chance that Kate’s with Ethan or he knows where she is, I have to go. I’ve already lost precious time.” I start for the drawing room doors and remember something left undone. “Oh, and sorry for the sticky mess in your stable office.”

In a dead run, I’m biting a quivering lip. On the way to Alec’s bedroom suite, I send Chase a text to hold Ethan’s box and note for me at the gallery. True to form, Kate shoves us all out of our comfort zones, where I’m certain to find a disaster waiting for me to book a ticket to New Zealand in a mad rush.

Author Bio:

Marlene M. Bell is an award-winning writer and acclaimed artist as well as a photographer. Her sheep landscapes grace the covers of Sheep!, The Shepherd, Ranch & Rural Living and Sheep Industry News, to name a few.

Her catalog Ewephoric began in 1985 out of her desire to locate personalized sheep stationery. She rarely found sheep products through catalogs and set out to design them herself. Ewephoric gifts may be ordered online or request a catalog at TexasSheep.com.

Marlene and her husband, Gregg reside in beautiful East Texas on a wooded ranch with their dreadfully spoiled horned Dorset sheep, a large Maremma guard dog named, Tia, along with Hollywood, Leo and Squeaks, the cats that believe they rule the household—and do.

Website / Goodreads / Facebook / Twitter / Instagram


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