The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com
Tuesday, November 4, 2014 - 3
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From Page 1
the balance, but U.S. Rep. Gary
Peters (D-Detroit) has taken a
commanding lead in the polls over
Republican Terri Lynn Land, for-
mer Michigan Secretary of State.
What was once a four-point lead
in early September has tripled to
a more than 12-point advantage
for Peters, according to the Real-
ClearPolitics aggregate.
Peters, who specialized in
financial issues during his three
terms in Congress, supports rais-
ing the minimum wage and deficit
reduction, favors policies such as
cap-and-trade to combat climate
change and has also campaigned
on his support for abortion rights
and having access to contracep-
tion.
Land, meanwhile, favors lower
tax rates for businesses to stimu-
late economic growth, supports
free-market solutions to combat
climate change, opposes same-
sex marriage, favors restrictions
on abortion and would support
repealing the Affordable Care Act.
Attorney General
Republican Attorney General
Bill Schuette is seeking a second
term as the state's chief legal offi-
cer as he tries to fend off Demo-
cratic challenger Mark Totten, a
law professor at Michigan State
University. Schuette leads Totten
by roughly four points, according
to a Detroit News poll released last
week. Schuette has highlighted
his efforts as a "voice for victims"
in his reelection bid, but has been
criticized by Totten for his sup-
port of a state ban on same-sex
marriage and his challenges to the
Affordable Care Act in court. Tot-
ten hopes to refocus the role of the
Attorney General as "the people's
lawyer" by prioritizing efforts
such as protecting consumers
from predatory business schemes.
Michigan 12th
Congressional District
Rep. John Dingell's (D - Dis-
trict 12) 58-year run in Congress
is coming to an end, but his wife
Debbie Dingell, a former General
Motors executive and a Democrat-
ic party activist, is looking to keep
the seat in the family. She hopes to
fight for women's and children's
issues, increase state support for
higher education and is an advo-
cate forgayrights. OpposingDing-
ell is Republican nominee Terry
Bowman, an assembly line worker
at a Ford Motor Co. plant and the
founder of Union Conservatives,
which seeks to promote conser-
vative principles to union mem-
bers. Bowman supports the state's
right-to-work laws and opposes
the Affordable Care Act for its
potential to incentivize part-time
rather than full-time employment.
No formal polls have been con-
ducted for the race, but Dingell is
heavily favored in this left-leaning
district.
State Senate
In Michigan's 18th senate
district, incumbent Democrat
Rebekah Warren is seeking
reelection against Republican
Terry Linden. Warren previously
served two terms in the state leg-
islature before being elected to the
Senate in 2010 and supportswom-
en's reproductive rights, increased
state support for education, eco-
nomic innovation and expanding
access to healthcare. Information
about Linden's campaign or views
on issues could not be found and
he declined multiple requests for
comment.
State Legislature
Incumbent Democrat Jeff
Irwin is seeking a third term rep-
resenting the 53rd district in the
state legislature and faces chal-
lenger Republican John Spisak, a
former small business owner and
currentastay-at-home father. Irwin
supports increased state funding
for K-12 and higher education, and
supports investing in the physi-
cal infrastructure to promote
economic growth. Spisak's top
priority is to improve the state's
infrastructure and is also an advo-
cate for fiscal responsibility in
government.
FINANCES
From Page 1
governor and U.S. Senate have
been no exception to this trend,
becoming some of the most
expensive in the country. In the
gubernatorial race, $28.8 million
has been spent on television ads
alone, according to the Center for
Public Integrity.
Republican Gov. Rick Snyder's
official campaign has spent $7.6
million, supported by another
$6.5 million from the Republi-
can Governors Association and
$1.3 million from the former
New York City Mayor Michael
Bloomberg's Independence USA
political action committee. The
Democratic Governors Associa-
tion has done the majority of the
ad spending for Democratic chal-
lenger Mark Schauer, providing
$8.9 million so far, while Schau-
er's campaign itself has contrib-
uted $2.6 million.
The RGA and DGA are 527
organizations, meaning that
unlike the candidates' official
campaigns, there is no cap on
how much they can accept from
contributors or on how much
they spend. According to the
Michigan Campaign Finance
Network, the largest Michigan
contributor this election cycle
to the RGA was ETC Capital, a
Farmington Hills-based invest-
ment firm that has given roughly
$2.7 million. The DGA's largest
in-state contributor this cycle is
the United Auto Workers, which
gave $1 million.
As expensive as the guber-
natorial race is shaping up to
be, the race for Michigan's open
U.S. Senate seat has proven to
be even more costly. The Center
for Responsive Politics rated it as
the ninth-most expensive Senate
race this election cycle, topping
$46.9 million. Republican candi-
date Terri Lynn Land's campaign
has spent over $11.8 million,
while U.S. Rep. Gary Peters, the
Democratic candidate, has spent
$9.5 million in his campaign.
Just like the gubernatorial
race, outside spending for the
Senate race has outpaced that of
the candidates themselves. Lib-
eral groups either supporting
Peters or opposing Land have
together spent roughly $18.7 mil-
lion, while Conservative groups
supporting Land or opposing
Peters have spent $8.8 million.
The two largest spenders in the
race are the SuperPAC Ending
Spending Action Fund, a con-
servative group advocating for a
reduction in government spend-
ing, and the NextGen Climate
Action, a liberal environmental
group backed by billionaire Tom
Steyer, a hedge fund manager.
Steyer has spent $58 million this
election cycle, the largest single
donor in the disclosed political
system.
While abundant spending
on behalf of both candidates
has distinguished the races for
governor and Senate, lopsided
financial advantages have char-
acterized two other prominent
Michigan campaigns.
In the race for Attorney Gen-
eral, Republican incumbent Bill
Schuette has raised $3.7 million
compared to Democratic chal-
lenger Mark Totten's roughly
$679,000, according to the
Michigan Campaign Finance
Network. Schuette has received
large donations from the PACs
for Decider Strategies, a Republi-
can political consulting firm, and
Detroit law firm Miller Canfield,
as well as the Michigan Beer and
Wine Wholesalers Association.
For Totten, the largest contribu-
tors have been from the PACs for
UAW and the Michigan Educa-
tion Association.
Fundraising in the race for
Michigan's 12th congressional
district has been similarly one-
sided. Democratic nominee Deb-
bie Dingell has raised over $1.3
million compared to just over
$42,000 for Republican Terry
Bowman. According to the Cen-
ter for Responsive Politics, more
than half of Dingell's campaign
war chest-has come from sources
outside the state.
Despite the influx of out-
side money in these races, it is
unclear whether the candidates'
positions have altered as result
of such trends. Traugott noted
that though the current state of
campaign finance has empow-
ered some outside groups with a
narrow issue focus, many of the
groups like the RGA and DGA are
just newer fundraising apparatus-
es ofthe standard political sources
that existed pre-Citizens United.
"I think that the greatest
impact on position-taking comes
from direct contributions rather
than these indirect contribu-
tions," Traugott said. "They have
the ability to contact the (elected
official's) office and remind them
how they supported them during
the campaign."
UHS
From Page 1
very soon after the shift - Doug
Strong, CEO of the University of
Michigan Hospitals and Health
Centers, said the health system
was suffering.
"It caused us to slow down
because it was complicated and
people had to learn it," Strong
said. "As a result we were suffer-
ing more financially than we had
been previously ... as we speak
we are resurfacing from that."
UHS Medical Director Rob-
ert Ernst agreed that the change
to MiChart was a major step for
UHS, particularly because they
were transitioning from paper
charts to computers.
"It was a really major shift
in our practice when we moved
from paper records to an elec-
tronic record system," Ernst
said. "And I don't think you can
underestimate the disruption."
Two and a half years later,
UHS members have become
much more comfortable with
the inner workings of MiCh-
art. With familiarity has come
success, and in many ways
the UHS online system is
thriving and nearly all of the
paper charts have been moved
online.
"People who have been users
of this system have had an oppor-
tunity to build a record, and that
took some time," Ernst said.
"There were instances when
we were working with both the
paper record and the electronic,
and we've kind of grown out of
that now."
Electronic records have
resulted in bidirectional com-
munication between the health
care provider and the patient.
Using an online health portal,
MyUofMHealth.org, students
can request prescription renew-
als, view test results and make
appointments. Previously, stu-
dents had to call or even come to
UHS to perform these tasks.
The convenience of care has
brought increased patient satis-
faction. Ernst said patient satis-
faction with ability to view test
results was 70 percent without
the portal. Since then, this num-
ber has now climbed to 90 per-
cent.
"That addresses what we had
known as a gap," Ernst said.
"We've really made a tangible
improvement in that."
UHS is still looking to improve
student usage of the portal,
which about half of students
currently use. UHS has taken
measures such as putting portal
information on business cards
and having kiosks at checkout
with computers for patients to
make portal accounts.
Though 50 percent of patients
are actually using the por-
tal, only 5 percent are making
appointments through it. Ernst
said he is looking to increase this
number over time.
UHS is the only site within
UMHS that offers patients the
option of scheduling an appoint-
ment online. Ernst is an advo-
cate of this feature particularly
because it encourages continuity;
patients can only make appoint-
ments with a doctor they have
seen in the past, a feature that
is supported by studies indicat-
ing a link between a consistent
patient-doctor relationship and
better quality of care.
"It's not as intuitively obvious
to most students that they would
benefit from continuity until
they've had it," Ernst said. "Then
they really find it to be satisfy-
ing."
The biggest challenge that
persists with the online system
is internal communication with-
in UHS, Ernst said. Rather than
making a phone call or going
to see them in person, doctors
can contact their medical assis-
tants and nursing staff through
the system, and Ernst said staff
members are still working out
this part of the routine.
"It has become almost some-
thing else to do," he said.
Epic is not a simple system.
Ernst said there are other, less
advanced systems that are tai-
lored specifically to college
health centers and might be eas-
ier to work with initially. How-
ever, Epic's functionality results
in greater efficiency once its
capabilities are well understood.
UHS is now reaching that point.
UHS has begun to launch
screening algorithms to encour-
age protocol-based features such
as STI screenings for women.
Ernst said this functionality
has greatly improved efficiency
because it takes advantage of
a patient's presence at UHS. A
patient can receive - or at least
schedule - the routine check
that day.
"That is the high-end Epic
functionality that is not associ-
ated with the off-the-shelf, more
tailored college health electronic
records," Ernst said.
The use of Epic is also crucial
because it allows UHS to be on
the same system as the rest of the
University hospitals. This would
not be the case if UHS were using
the less complex programs typi-
cally meant for college health
systems.
"The fact that we're using the
same system as the medical cen-
ter has really eliminated this loss
of information," Ernst said. "If
a student goes to the emergency
room ... that sort of sharing of
information when there needs
to be sharing of information has
been fantastic."
MiChart is continually becom-
ing a useful tool for UHS. Just
last week, UHS launched online
nutrition services.
"We've really settled in now,"
Ernst said, "so we're much more
efficient with it than we've been
before."
DETROIT
From Page 1
into teams and develop products
that they pitch to a panel of pro-
fessional mentors.
Ultimately, one team wins the
"competition," earning a $400
prize. How the winners use the
money is up to their discretion.
Last year's program had two
winners. One winning team
designed a product called Graf-
fiti Gowns, medical gowns that
can be drawn on, as a way to
engage younger children in hos-
pital environments.
Resnick said this team used
some of its prize money to con-
sult with a patent lawyer and try
to patent a washable material for
the gowns.
"The end goal, really, is to give
what we envision the promising
team from our workshop money
so that they can continue to
have resources to continue this
work," he said. "We just want to
see these students empowered
to go on their own."
Resnick added that even
those who do not win funding
are given the tools to succeed.
Not all projects set out to cre-
ate products - others include
valuable services, such as local
tutoring or community service
organizations.
Once the program ends, Resn-
ick said many of the projects go
on to be implemented, and par-
ticipants stay in touch with their
fellow students and mentors
through Facebook groups and
over e-mail.
One example is LSA sopho-
more Monica Mungarwadi, who
was a student in the program
during her senior year of high-
school and is now a member of
d[en]. Her group project was
called the Middle School Initia-
tive, which would recruit stu-
dents from middle schools to
take part in a diversity education
program centered on race and
ethnicity.
The initiative was success-
fully launched last year in her
hometown of Farmington Hills.
She said the skills she learned in
the d[en] program were invalu-
able ingettingthe Middle School
Initiative going. y
"One of the first things that
I learned was writing a busi-
ness model," she said. "I had
never even heard what a busi-
ness model was. That helped a
lot because it helped us struc-
ture our organization: what our
main goal was, what our mission
statement was, how much money
we wanted to put towards our
program, how to get the funding
that we needed."
Tom Frank, executive direc-
tor of the University's Center
for Entrepreneurship, who was
a guest judge at last year's con-
cluding d[en] competition, said
a couple of teamseven sought
his mentorship after the pro-
gram came to an end. He hap-
pily extended it and said he was
impressed by the program over-
all.
"Two of these high school
teams presented the best startup
ideas that I had seen all year,
and one of them I would have
invested my personal money in if
that was not completely outside
of our conflict of interest," Frank
said, referring to Graffiti Gowns.
Frank said high school stu-
dents yield innovations that go
beyond the sometimes-cookie
cutter version of "entrepreneur-
ship" that is often prevalent at
the university level, which tends
to focus on tech startups.
"People solve problems that
reflectthe world thattheyilive in,
and the problems that we were
presented by the d[en] students
were really cool to me because
they came from a completely
fresh perspective," he said.
Frank said the sentiment was
also visible recently at the CFE's
Urban Entrepreneurship Ini-
tiative Symposium, where, he
said, many Detroit natives were
present. The initiative encour-
ages sustainable business meth-
ods for solving important urban
issues and was founded by David
Tarver, a lecturer at the College
of Engineering and the CFE.
"The things that they cared
about around financing are not
the same things that somebody
who's commercializing a laser
in one of our research labs cares
about," Frank said. "So there
again, you get the benefit of this
feedback from the community:
'Don't set up a venture capital
storefront ... show me how I can
finance the next phase ofgrowth
so I can manufacture this thing
I've created.'"
Tarver also taught a d[en]
workshop last year, which pro-
vided an overview of methodolo-
gies for growing a business. This
is one of his areas of expertise
- he has successfully developed
numerous profitable businesses,
namely Telecom Analysis Sys-
tems, which he started in his
basement with two friends and
ultimately sold for $30 million.
Read the full story at
michigandaily.com
DEMOCRATS
From Page 1
age students to vote this election
cycle, especially because non-
presidential elections are known
for attracting fewer voters. Many
of the candidates cited low voter
turnout among young voters as
the reason for substantial Demo-
cratic losses in the 2010 midterm
elections.
"We need you tomorrow,"
Dingell said to the cheering
crowd. "We've got to take the
state legislature back. We are here
tonight to create the energy, to
create the enthusiasm to remind
your roommates and the people
and in your houses and in your
dormsthattomorrow matters and
what's at stake."
Schauer said he believes the
student vote will push Democrats
ahead in the election.
"I am an optimist about our
future and I trust you with the
future of this state," Schauer said.
"It is in your hands and I am com-
pletely comfortable with that."
After the rally, the College
Democrats posted flyers and
chalk messages around campus.
"We're doing everything we
can to make sure that if you're a
student at the University of Mich-
igan, you know that it is Election
Dayandyouknowwhothe Demo-
crats are," Culbertson said.
In addition to encouraging stu-
dents to vote, many candidates
discussed their positions on fun-
damental issues like the environ-
ment, women's rights, health care
and LGBTQ rights. Many candi-
dates also discussed their goals
for empowering the people over
big business and corporations.
"This is really a critical elec-
tion to show that big money can't
buy elections," Peters said. "It is
the people of the state of Michi-
gan who get to determine who
their Senator is, who their Secre-
tary of State is, who's their Attor-
ney General, not these out of state
billionaires."
Culbertson said that the state
elections, and especially the guber-
natorial race, are still very impor-
tant for out-of-state students.
"We're voting for someone who
is going to sign the state budget
for higher education and sign the
road funding, and they're going to
be signing bills of anti-discrim-
ination legislation," Culbertson
said. "Even if you're only going to
be on campus for four years, all of
those things will and should mat-
ter to you. I think this election
is incredibly important and it's
incredibly important to show up
on Election Day."
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We'll be updating michigandaily.com
all day with election results.
t