Kaiser Permanente: Building Support for Public Health

On March 29th, 2023, Kaiser Permanente underscored the lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic and emphasizes the need to address gaps in the U.S. public health infrastructure. It introduced three multi-sector initiatives to improve public health.

1. Health Care Industry Coalition: Leading healthcare organizations, including AHIP, Alliance of Community Health Plans, American Hospital Association, American Medical Association, and Kaiser Permanente, are forming a coalition to enhance connectivity between public health agencies and the healthcare system. The focus includes building connectivity, ensuring emergency preparedness, establishing interoperable public health standards, and modernizing public health data systems.

2. Partnerships Between Community-Based Organizations (CBOs) and Public Health Agencies: The CDC Foundation, along with Kaiser Permanente and various CBOs, aims to optimize relationships between public health agencies and CBOs. This involves developing recommendations and roadmaps to strengthen partnerships, especially during public health emergencies.

3. Public Health Services Research Agenda: AcademyHealth, with support from Kaiser Permanente, will engage stakeholders to set a research agenda. The goal is to create a robust evidence base informing interventions, models, and partnerships to improve the public health system.

The overall goal is to reimagine and strengthen the public health system, involving various sectors in addressing urgent challenges identified during the pandemic.

Speakers included Ashish Jha, MD, MPH, White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator, Rochelle P. Walensky, MD, MPH Director, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Rick Pollack, President & CEO, American Hospital Association (AHA), Judy Monroe, President & CEO, CDC Foundation, among others.

2024 DC Auto Show

It’s been tradition amongst my friends ever since college to visit the DC Auto Show every year - the only years I’ve not attended were the year it was cancelled due to COVID, and the one year I happened to be buying a car the same day of the show.

This year was no different; we made a day of it and explored the show as usual.  This year I did something a bit different, and took some video clips in addition to my usual photographs of whatever caught my eye - I treated this as an exercise to sharpen my skills with a new video editing suite, and perfect my HDR and high framerate workflows.

After the auto show, we all met up with some friends at our favorite cozy spot in the district.

The BMW Ultimate Driving Experience: 2022

Note: This entry is being posted in late 2024, well after the event concluded.

Enjoy some highlights of BMW’s Ultimate Driving Experience in 2022.  This would mark my second time at BMW’s annual driving event which showcases some of their latest models.  This year we’d be getting spirited wheel time in the all-new BMW i4 M50: BMW’s latest all-electric sedan sporting 536 horsepower and a 0-60 in just 3.7sec.

I’ve driven many electric vehicles, including a Tesla P85D.  And while the Tesla certainly had a more explosive launch with its nearly ~700HP motors, this and its “full-self-drive” are mostly just party tricks packaged in a poorly assembled, low material quality body that simply feels cheap and unintuitive.   For two cars supposedly in the same class, there is simply no comparison - BMW has Tesla beat at its own game hands down.  Aside from the i40 possessing the quality in materials and build that one expects from the German maker, but it also comes with BMW’s famed handling; driving the i40, one wouldn’t know it isn’t a beefy V8 aside from the fake engine noise piped in through the sound system - while convincing, knowing the sound is a lie is the only thing that makes the driving experience less genuine.

World Oddities Expo - 2023

For the four years it was on, and the several years of reruns we got to enjoy, I always loved watching Discovery’s Oddities TV show, which followed the staff and antics of patrons of the Obscura Antiques & Oddities shoppe in Manhattan’s East Village.  I have a love of antiques, and the grim and spooky and offbeat, and I’ve sadly never been able to make it to Obscura Antiques & Oddities (which has since closed their NYC location and shifted to online-only after the COVID-19 pandemic) so naturally when I heard about the World Oddities Expo, I made sure not to miss it!

The World Oddities Expo is apparently not the only oddities expo on the scene, but it was the first I heard about, and is one of two that visit semi-locally.  The event itself wasn’t quite what I expected based on the website, but I was still very pleased - the WOE is more of a flea market than anything else.  But when the vendors are offering posed taxidermy, embalming supplies, obsolete medical instruments, steampunk treasures, and relics of the spooky and supernatural, of course I’m in love.

See a few photos of some of the offerings - out of respect, I didn’t photograph everything I saw.  At the end of the day, I had picked up a witchy gift for one of my best friends, an emerald green pinned butterfly in a frame for my own wall, and some smaller specimens in vials - the beginning of a collection I hope to slowly grow.

The World Oddities Expo visits the Baltimore-DC region at least once a year, and in 2025 will be here twice, and this isn’t counting other similar expos with many of the same vendors - I sadly was busy the day of 2024’s expo, but can’t wait to add to my collection in 2025!