In his conversations with senior living operators, Jim Ketterson is hearing one concern rise to the top: the increased societal propensity to sue.

Help me reduce the chances that I get sued, is a common request from operators, Ketterson says. Claims against senior living operators rose in 2020, and might continue to rise in 2021, both Covid-related and otherwise. Operators face new exposures and an increased focus from plaintiffs attorneys, he says.

Senior living operators are desirous of advice from their insurers on what they can do to both reduce the likelihood that they get sued, as well as to improve their defensibility in the event that they do get sued, says Ketterson, Senior Director of Senior Living at Church Mutual Insurance Company, S.I. (a stock insurer).1

Increasing litigiousness is just one of several pressure points operators are facing during these uncertain times, and combating it is one of three major benefits to having a long-term insurance carrier relationship. Here is a look at those three benefits.

Expertise in the senior living industry

Insurance is designed to give its recipient peace of mind, and thats difficult to achieve with a stranger or a novice. A senior living operator juggling multiple insurers across multiple coverage areas, potentially resetting carriers every few years, creates a situation where it is hard to build a deep and stable rapport with your insurer. A deeper relationship with your insurer helps reduce exposure to loss and increase defensibility.

It also enables the building of deep relationships with claims personnel and coming together on strategies and expectations. Having an insurer with a long track record in senior living, and specialized claims and risk control resources to assist in this regard, is key.

Insurers who operate in the senior living space on a specialized basis, such as Church Mutual, have specialized risk control employees who are well versed in providing advice in that area, Ketterson says.

As a specialized insurer, Church Mutual offers not just proactive and interactive counsel but also resources such as webinars and white papers on everything from negotiated risk agreements and arbitration agreements to end-of-life care.

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The latter ties in directly to an operators ability to minimize risk of lawsuits, Ketterson says.

Church Mutual recently conducted a webinar around end-of-life care, emphasizing its importance and providing counsel to operators on how to manage expectations and communications with family members during the end-of-life process.

That way, family members are not surprised by what happens during end-of-life care with their loved ones. They have a better sense of how the final stage of their loved ones life will play out and what to expect. They are not left feeling like something went wrong and that they should sue, when in fact what they experienced with their loved one was just a normal part of end-of-life. Properly preparing them for what to expect not only reduces the likelihood of suits, but is also the compassionate thing to do, he says. The longer a customer is with us, the deeper were able to get into a multitude of complex issues.

Consistency of the partnership

That consistent partnership reduces operator stress and strain by reducing the amount of work the operator must do to manage insurance challenges. Unfortunately for operators, some carriers lured by the large available premium dollars jump into the senior housing niche without fully committing to first building out the specialized knowledge and resources needed to properly serve and advise customers.

Many operators in the senior living space have been burned by Johnny-come-lately insurers who came in, put forth a competitive insurance program, lost a ton of money, and a year or two later jettisoned the operator back into the marketplace and left the industry, Ketterson says. Church Mutual has been a consistent presence in this marketplace for north of 35 years, and has truly been committed to understanding the space and being a reliable partner for those who are in search of long-term relationships.

Beyond the strategic advantages of a long-term relationship, there are logistical ones too. Simply put, changing insurers is a lot of work. An operator must complete all of the various applications and insurance coverage lines, answer all of the underwriters questions about coverage lines, negotiate coverage, make sure the coverages quoted are consistent with the needs of the organization and understand how claims are handled and reported with the new insurer.

To have an insurer with a long track record for consistency within the niche really is an important part of evaluating insurers, Ketterson says.

Consolidated coverage

Changing one insurer is a lot of work. Now imagine if your policies for different lines of insurance are spread across multiple carriers one for workers compensation, one for professional liability, and so on. Operators who consolidate coverage dont need to reach out to five points of contact annually to renew five different policies.

By bringing as many coverages as possible together with a single insurer, not only do you gain efficiencies from a transactional standpoint, you also gain reduction in your overall volatility of your loss performance with your insurer, Ketterson says. He notes if an operator with one coverage area per carrier has a bad year in, say, workers compensation, then that is a bad year with that carrier.

Whereas if you have all of your coverages with the same insurer, you may have a bad year with the workers compensation, but a good or average year on all the rest of the coverages, he says. When you bring all of the coverages together with a single insurer, youre reducing the volatility of the relationship with your insurance company.

Consolidated coverage also means an operator is managing only one billing relationship versus many.

Church Mutual is one of the few insurance companies that offers very attractive billing plans that really do enhance the cash flow for operators, whereas many of our competitors require all or a significant percentage of the annual premium up front, he says. As operators are very focused on cash flow, this is another significant advantage of doing business with Church Mutual.

This article is sponsored by Church Mutual Insurance Company, S.I. To learn more about how Church Mutual can boost your insurance experience as your single, long-term partner, visit churchmutual.com/seniorliving.

1Church Mutual Insurance Company, S.I. is a stock insurer whose policyholders are members of the parent mutual holding company formed on 1/1/20. S.I. = a stock insurer.

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3 Major Benefits of a Long-Term Insurance Carrier Relationship - Senior Housing News

Demis Hassabis, co-founder of Google's artificial intelligence (AI) startup DeepMind.

Jeon Heon-Kyun | Getty Images

LONDON DeepMind, the London-based artificial intelligence lab acquired by Google in 2014, has extended its hunt for the world's best AI researchers to Toronto, Canada.

The company posted a job ad for a research scientist in Toronto on its website last week and confirmed to CNBC on Wednesday that it plans to build a small team in the city.

DeepMind said it already has a member of its team working out of a Google office in Toronto.

DeepMind, which also has offices in Montreal and Edmonton, employs 51 people across the country, according to LinkedIn.

When it comes to AI research, Canada is widely regarded as one of the top countries in the world, along with the U.S., China, and the U.K.

Geoffrey Hinton and Yoshua Bengio two of the three so-called "godfathers of AI" are based in Canada, with Hinton in Toronto and Bengio in Montreal. Both have strong connections to the local universities.

DeepMind, which competes with OpenAI and Facebook AI Research, has also been busy recruiting a team in New York this year. It hired Facebook AI Research (FAIR) co-founder Rob Fergus to lead the New York team last June.

While FAIR has fewer than 400 people, DeepMind employs around 1,000 people worldwide, with the bulk of those based at its London headquarters. The remainder are spread across satellite outposts in Mountain View, California, where Google is headquartered, Alberta, Montreal and Paris.

DeepMind and FAIR have been battling it out to hire the best AI talent in the world for almost a decade. They're hoping that these top AI researchers, who are sometimes paid around $1 million a year, will be able to create AI technology that can be harnessed by Google and Facebook, respectively.

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DeepMind extends hunt for the worlds best A.I. researchers to Toronto - CNBC

Usually, the encouraging thing about providing support is feeling reassured that we are adding value, making a difference and bringing about a change for the better. It drives us, motivates us, gratifies us even and aids persistence when the going gets tough, nudging us in our stride forward.

During every crisis, big or small, emerges certain humankind that steps in to help, protect and provide. People who cannot sit back and watch, who cannot choose convenience or complacence, who is stirred by the suffering of others and set out with whatever little they have to give and heal.

Mankind has seen and survived a lot. Heroes have helped pick up after natures worst disasters, wars, concentration camps, horrifying accidents like Chernobyl and the Titanic, at irreparable costs to themselves, with one thing simply felt, staunchly followed and stated humbly, I just did what had to be done.

The crisis we experience today is a deep manmade borehole that has cracked the earth far and wide, engulfing voraciously, endlessly. And in this sense, it is different from all the other crises we have faced and fought earlier.

Those that volunteer, support and fight, feel exhausted, hopeless, helpless and angry, struggling to persist, repeatedly hitting walls and dodging those ever-increasing and deepening craters. This time, with no respite in sight, no progress to measure and no solutions on the horizon, many have started to burn out. Fatigue and languish have begun to set in.

Be it frontline doctors, nurses and hospital staff who serve COVID positive patients at the cost of exposure, NGOs and private organisations that stretch every option, day and night, to provide oxygen cylinders, medicines, ventilators and beds; taxi and rickshaw drivers who are ferrying patients and the dead back and forth; people who have turned their homes into small factories to provide meals to those in need; those who have dedicated themselves to call, wait endlessly for answers, collate and verify information to pass on messages of available help and resources to save lives while some offer to assist with whatever the need be, as and when their chat buzzesthere are many heroes we can be grateful for. Recently though I have had many of these special people call in feeling angry, physically or emotionally exhausted, lost and deeply saddened. Some cant eat, sleep, have chronic headaches and anxiety.

People who step up to help in times of crisis are the ones who are sensitive to the suffering of others. As both the cause and cost, sensitivity needs to handled with caution.

Some sensitivities that predispose people to vicariously experiencing trauma or caregiver fatigue include a history of abuse or personal trauma, new and young enthusiasts who have the advantage of passion and energy but are still to learn depersonalisation, those pushing for overtime or pulling double shifts, suffering physical strain and sleep deprivation, those who are stressed in their personal lives and do not have a personal support system, those who have difficulty communicating emotions, people who have a history of chronic illness and those who struggle to recover from what is lost in the past or are anxious about what will be gone in future.

While we need these special humans to sustain the sensitivity to be moved enough to help, we need to equip ourselves to recognise the threshold of emotionality that renders us sick or dysfunctional. Exploring and identifying the needs that cause us to be impacted enough to act in the interest of others can help prevent emotional difficulties when our efforts fall short or things dont go as desired.

Give up control

Human beings want reassurances, guarantees and try to stir things in directions that make us feel in control.

Desire is more rational and productive than demand. It is okay to act in hope and desire for results, wishing for an effect of the action. However, demanding and depending on it or expecting it changes the tonality and intensity of our reaction when the demand is not met. Realistic and flexible expectations are the keystone to nipping angry reactions.

When a desire fails, we may experience irritation, agitation or disappointment, as opposed to a demand unmet, in which case we feel angry, blame others or be furious with the system, destiny or the crisis.

Give up compulsion

We are creatures of compulsions. In this invisible space called our minds, we believe and visualise how things should be, being rigid about what needs to be done, has to be done, or ought to be like. We have rules we start to love and do not like to shake. These rigidities give us a blueprint, a sense of belonging, familiarity and direction. Being compulsive makes it difficult for us to adjust, adapt and focus on the present. This is how it should be, invariably results in anxiety, anger and or sadness, simply because these shoulds and musts dont exist. These are inflexibilities that we create and depend upon in search of attaching ourselves to something.

Redefine compassion

The word compassion is often misunderstood. When we give with the hope of an impact however small, we are functioning from a need to control, not compassion. Compassion is to give what you give and stop there, humbly surrendering to the consequences. Helping others naturally makes us want things to turn for the better, and when that does not happen, we experience several difficult emotions. We may judge ourselves as failing, hold ourselves in contempt, be critical about our lack of influence, feel too small or insignificant in the large scheme of things, be sucked into our past challenges or feel anxious about our future failures.

Compassion starts with love and acceptance for the self, giving with humility that transcends homes, communities, race and borders. Compassion accepts success and failures, performance and non-performance, right or wrong, goodness and manipulation all in the same breath because it doesnt measure the result. Compassion is a process of giving and stepping away from what happens next even as it unfolds, good, bad, a beginning or an end.

Compassion fatigue is thus a phrase that can be challenged at many different levels. We do not get tired of compassion, we get tired of waiting, wanting back, controlling that which we cannot, or giving into compulsive rules, expectations and rigidities. Hope withers and get replaced with anxiety when we try to become a part of the consequences.

Create consciousness of what can be done by you today without entangling yourself in the impact of those actions. Those of us who are courageous, compassionate and conscious, neither tire nor retire.

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Matters of the Mind: Compassion fatigue, vicarious trauma and hopelessness - The Indian Express

insightSLICElatest study tittles AI in Healthcare Market, puts light on the different segments of the AI in Healthcare market. The report was designed to guide the readers through the period under investigation. AI in HealthcareX report highlights the markets growth rate.

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The report segments the global AI in Healthcare market based onapplication, type, service, technology, and region.A magnified look at the segment-based analysis is aimed at giving the readers a closer look at theopportunities and threatsin the market. It also addresses political scenarios that are expected to impact the market in both small and big ways. The report on the global AI in Healthcare Market examines changing regulatory scenarios to make accurateprojections about potential investments. It also evaluates the risk for new entrants and the intensity of the competitive rivalry.

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AI in Healthcare Market Insights, Deep Analysis of Key Vendor in the Industry 2021-2030 | Nuance Communications, Inc., DeepMind Technologies Limited,...

By Sandrine Ceurstemont

Wolf eels can be found more than 200 metres below the ocean surface

Franco Banfi/naturepl.com

The Deep-Sea Podcast

Armatus Oceanic

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IT IS hard to imagine what the deep sea actually looks like. There is practically no light in this lowest layer of the ocean, which starts at a depth of 1800 metres and reaches almost 11,000 metres at its deepest-known point within the Mariana trench in the western Pacific Ocean. Hence nobody has actually seen the deep sea close up, meaning we typically rely on colourful depth maps created with acoustic techniques to visualise it.

Furthermore, it is hard to make sense of the sheer scale of what lies underwater. The Pacific Ocean covers almost half the planet, for example. Due to its intangible nature, inaccurate analogies are often used to describe the deep sea.

Alan Jamieson at the University of Newcastle, UK, is renowned for his journeys to the deepest parts of the ocean. He has teamed up with Thomas Linley, a deep-sea fish expert, to co-host a podcast that portrays the deep sea as it really is, but without removing any of the wonder. Every episode of The Deep-Sea Podcast delves into both important issues, such as whether deep-sea mining should be allowed to happen, and more light-hearted angles, such as a Halloween special on why humans seem to intrinsically fear the deep sea.

The first instalment kicks off with one of Jamiesons biggest bugbears: comparing the deep sea with the moon. It is often said that we know more about the moons surface than the deep sea, which he says is just plain wrong. What other scientific discipline would start by saying how little they know about it?

Jamieson thinks the analogy is unfair, firstly because the moon isnt that big. The surface area of the Atlantic Ocean, for example, is almost three times larger than that of the moon. And while crewed missions to the moon have pretty much stopped, those to the deep sea have never ceased and have even ramped up. We know so much more about the deep sea now than we did five years ago or 10 years ago, says Jamieson.

Each episode features an interview with a guest. Recent examples include director and producer James Cameron, who chatted about deep-sea tech and delved into the secrets of underwater lighting he learned while filming Titanic, as well as discussing ideas like walking on the seafloor by embedding consciousness in a robot.

The guests provide unique perspectives. For example, Alexandra Gould, a UK-based artist who accompanied scientists on a deep-sea expedition in 2019, sketched almost all the crew, as well as sea life and moments that represented her interaction with the vessel when she was onboard. While marine biologists typically aim to analyse deep-sea creatures in detail, she says she prefers not to know too much about their biology as it can take away from the awe they inspire.

The Deep-Sea Podcast has many compelling moments, and the hosts provide expertise on aspects of the field. However, episodes are quite long, often lasting more than hour, and try to cover too much. They incorporate deep-sea news, for instance, which seems like it could merit its own podcast.

All in all, the show suggests that our relationship with the deep sea is becoming more complex. So far, it has been relatively untouched, apart from during scientific research. However, new ventures like deep-sea mining and tourism could soon change that, with the first leisure trips taking place last year. Vast amounts of the deep ocean havent even been looked at, says Cameron. It would be nice if we understood it before we destroy it.

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The Deep-Sea Podcast review: The mind-boggling mysteries of the deep - New Scientist