A recent State University of New York study found that patients using telemedicine to manage congestive heart failure experienced a reduction in overall health care costs of 41 percent. Reduced physician office visits alone saved more than $115 million annually.

Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons (P&S) at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center (CPMC) and SUNY Upstate Medical University have received a $28-million grant to bring health care into the homes of under-served rural and inner-city residents with diabetes.

Telemedicine can give people the tools they need to take control of their health. The system will empower people to take better care of themselves through monitoring, access to information, and education. This ‘house call’ of the future will allow patients and clinicians to reach out across any distance for care.

Participants will receive Internet service, training in equipment use, and maintenance support. Patients will check their blood sugar, blood pressure and other factors that affect diabetes. They’ll be able to view their own medical information, learn more about diabetes and receive recommendations and instructions on how to manage their disease.

Decision support systems will play a crucial role, and an automated care guideline system will analyze each patient’s data. If information recorded on the computer varies from predetermined values, an automated alert will be sent to the physician or nurse. The system also will provide suggestions and reminders to patients about what steps they need to take to maintain good health.

Columbia’s Center for Advanced Technology coordinated the participation of companies including American Telecare, which is providing the special home-based units, and Bell Atlantic, which will serve as the telecommunications carrier.

We’ve come a long way from, “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!”

Yesterday’s post was about IRS laws, so we thought follow-up with some advice on a related home-based business topic: zoning laws.

Just so ya know, you could be breaking the law by simply starting a home-based business!

Zoning laws are determined by your city or your county, depending on where you live, so start by finding who establishes your zoning laws, and then familiarize yourself with their regulations.

If you plan on running a home-based business that will have no employees and no walk-up customers, the zoning question may never arise. Usually it’s complaints from neighbors that bring home-based businesses to the attention of zoning boards. If employees and customers are seen going in and out of your home, or taking up parking spaces that would normally be used by residents, you could run into problems with the zoning commission.

In addition to complaints from your neighbors, you can also run into trouble if the amount of space your business takes up in your home is greater than the actual living area. This is referred to as "space percentage," and while it can be difficult to determine exactly how much space your home business occupies, it can lead to a zoning issue. Frequent deliveries by big trucks isn’t going to go over well neighbors either.

The type of merchandise you are selling may also be restricted in a residential area. This commonly only applies to businesses dealing with chemicals, such as fertilizer, but it may affect other types of business as well.

If you’re trying to keep a low profile and avoid zoning issues, don’t go posting a sign on the front lawn. Simply posting a sign for your business may breach of zoning laws.

If all else fails, consider having zoning laws changed. It’s not unusual to have laws established 100 years ago still in effect that make your business illegal even when what you’re doing is common practice by modern standards.

Now here’s a work from home opportunity that’s unique! Check out this news release about a new FAA and National Air Traffic Controllers Association telecommuting program. Our comments and observations follow.

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For Immediate Release
April 1, 2008
Contact: FAA: Lynn Tierney (202) 267-3883; NATCA: Doug Church (202) 220-9802

FAA, NATCA Announce Agreement on Air Traffic Work At Home Program (ATWAHP)

WASHINGTON — The Federal Aviation Administration and the National Air Traffic Controllers Association today signed an agreement to create an Air Traffic Work At Home Program (ATWAHP), designed to foster a better work/life balance, reduce pollution, and improve working conditions for employees of the FAA.

Under the ATWAHP, controllers will have access equipment and technical support that will allow them to work in the comfort of their den, basement, or even their bedroom. This program is designed to foster job satisfaction and help solve safety issues.

FAA Acting Administrator Robert Sturgell said, “I am gratified that the Air Traffic Controller segment of our workforce will now be able to work from home in conditions that could lead to safety improvements. This telecommuting program, which is similar to those in place throughout government and industry, will let us reduce our carbon footprint and improve family relations while increasing air safety.”

“Creating an atmosphere where controllers and their families can work in more comfortable conditions while they identify, report and correct safety issues will go a long way in helping us further improve our safety record,” Sturgell said.

The program is for 18 months and will begin at several targeted facilities. If the program is determined to be successful after a comprehensive review and evaluation, both sides intend for it to be a continuing program.

“NATCA is committed to improving air traffic control system safety and this program is a step forward in that goal,” NATCA President Patrick Forrey said. “We believe safety would be enhanced if all employees responsible for the safety of the traveling public were able to begin working from home. For the people NATCA represents, the benefits are clear: this provides us with a way to reduce the stress and expense of the daily commute and improve performance-related issues affecting system safety.

“This type of program, which is widely used by industry, is essential to encourage employees to relax and enjoy working for the FAA while together with FAA management we develop solutions to enhance safety,” Forrey said.

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Back in the ’30s, before radar, a lonely air traffic controller wearing a fedora and puffing a stogie would lethargically push little pieces of cardboard around a map. That was the way they tracked, if not controlled aircraft back then. After all, on any given week, there was only one westbound flight out of Albuquerque headed for Phoenix and Sacramento.

Then, as technology advanced, dozens of controllers, sleeves rolled up in the unairconditoned facilities and with cigarettes dangling from their lips, sat in front of rows of radar screens in huge darkened rooms. As aviation technology advanced from lumbering DC-3 to intercontinental 707 to supersonic Concorde, computers and communications kept pace to ensure the highest possible level of safety for the traveling public.

But increasingly-stressed controllers remained trapped in dank caves now chilled to inhuman temperatures in deference to the needs of cranky electronics.

Today, with ever smaller computers and lightning fast communications enabling change, and backed by a Congressional mandate encouraging Federal Agencies to allow their employees to work from home, the FAA and NATCO have taken a bold step. And in so doing, the agency has responded to critics demand for modernization by initiating a program that will allow controllers to work from the comfort of their homes.

“The idea first occurred to me while playing with a flight simulator on a home computer,” one FAA executive admitted on the condition of anonymity. “There were people flying airplanes around the sky from bedrooms and dens all over the world, everything from Piper Cubs to giant airliners and Navy F/A-18 fighters, while I provide separation and flight following service from my sunroom on the back porch. It was just like the real thing, and the screen I was looking at wasn’t all that different from the one I sat in front of at work. But I was sure a lot happier with a beer in one hand, music on the stereo, and my dog at my feet.”

Today over 14,000 controllers endure the daily commute risking far greater harm than their counterparts in the sky, while choking on increasingly expensive fuel and polluted air.

Our research shows that if 40% of the FAA controllers worked from home–a proportion comparable to other government agencies–they individually would save 26 work-days of time a year (the equivalent of a very nice vacation), and $807 dollars in gas bills. Cumulatively, the controllers would save 67,000 barrels of crude oil, and eliminate 12,000 metric tons of CO2–that’s more than the work at home population of Baltimore MD saves, according to the US Census Bureau’s American Community Survey numbers applied to Undress4Success.com’s computational model.

We applaud this visionary FAA program, especially one they had the guts to start on April Fool’s Day .

Telecommuting Tax Credit—Georgia Leads The Way

If you want to work at home and you live in Georgia, you may want to get that spare bedroom ready thanks to a new law that encourages telecommuting. Under the law, employers are eligible for a one-time tax credit of up to $20,000 (to offset program set-up costs), plus annual tax credits of up to $1,200 per work-at-home employee. Eligible expenses include equipment, software, and maintenance.

The Georgia General Assembly has allotted up to $2 million in credits for the 2008 tax year. Employers will be informed of acceptance by December 31, 2007. Credits will be taken after purchases or payment in the form of a credit for the 2008 tax year.

Way to go Georgia!

Now for the bad news—turns out last week was National Telework Week—not that you’d know it from the fanfare it received . . . or more to the point, didn’t receive. Even we didn’t know it until last Friday when we spotted a Census Bureau podcast. You can bet we’ll be on it like buzzards on roadkill next year.

Our analysis of research by SBA, EPA, DOT, and Census Bureau data shows that while less than 5% of the U.S. workforce currently work from home, 40% have jobs that would allow them to telecommute. If they did, according to our study, these new teleworkers could annually save 625 million barrels of oil (roughly equivalent to 80% of our Gulf Oil Imports), reduce greenhouse gases by 107 million metric tons of CO2 each year, and save almost $43 billion at the pump (at $3.50/gallon). Each worker individually would save 26 work-days and over $800 each year — time and money now wasted commuting.

This work is part of background research we’re doing for our book on telework and home based business opportunities that will be published by John Wiley & Sons titled Undress 4 Success: The Naked Truth About Working From Home.

Details of our work is available here on our Research Page where you can look-up existing and potential telework savings for every city, state, county, and region in the country. We’ll even customize the data–free of charge–for reporters, government agencies, companies, and other organizations who want to know the potential impact telework could have on their carbon footprint. Requests can be submitted on the Research Page.

There’s all kinds of research that suggests telecommuting or working from home offers benefits for all concerned, but we wanted to put some numbers behind the claim. In one sense the commuting time saved means a teleworker gets a day off every other week, but report after reports shows that people use that extra time productively instead.

While telework offers individuals who can work from home a better work/life balance, it also offers companies real increases in productivity, higher worker satisfaction, and reduced costs. Telecommuting also offers the community reduced highway congestion, lower greenhouse gas emissions, and less dependence on foreign oil. Telework can make a real contribution to improving our environment.

Sources / Additional Details:

2006 American Community Survey / Census

2004 BLS Current Population Survey

2002 Survey of Business Owners

2007 U.S. Gulf Oil Imports

2007 CEA Energy & Greenhouse Gas Emissions Impact

Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) Omnibus Household Survey

Reason Foundation—The Quiet Success: Telecommuting’s Impact on Transportation and Beyond

EPA MOBILE6.2 2003

Code of Federal Regulations at 40 CFR 600.113-78

Energy Information Administration - How Gas Is Formed

Workforce Assumptions

Size of workforce and existing work at home workforce numbers comes from the U.S. Census Bureau - Means of Transportation To Work (B08301) 2006 American Community Survey.

The data on means of transportation to work were derived from answers to American Community Survey Question 25, which was asked of people who indicated in Question 23 that they worked at some time during the reference week. Means of transportation to work refers to the principal mode of travel or type of conveyance that the worker usually used to get from home to work during the reference week.

People who used different means of transportation on different days of the week were asked to specify the one they used most often, that is, the greatest number of days.

• Percent Who Could Work At Home = 40%
CEA Energy & Greenhouse Gas Emissions Impact‚ page 47. Matthews and Williams (2005) estimate that information workers that could have the potential to telecommute represent 40% of the U.S. workforce. Excludes those who already do, regardless of how often the work from home.

• Roundtrip Minutes to Work = 52
Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) Omnibus Household Survey - Average commute is 15 miles each way (26 minutes)

• Number of days/week each worker telecommutes = 5

• Number of workweeks/yr = 48
Excludes 2 weeks vacation, 5 paid holidays, and 5 sick days.

Per Person Assumptions

• Commuting miles saved / per person = 30
Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) Omnibus Household Survey. Average commute is 15 miles each way (26 minutes) - Avg. miles not avail by region

• Per Person Savings in Days = (5 days a week, times 48 weeks per year, times 52 minutes) divided by 60 minutes, divided by an 8 hour work day. Essentially this is additional free time the telecommuter realizes each year.

• Percent of reduced travel from telecommuting = 65%
2005 Reason Foundation — The Quiet Success: Telecommuting’s Impact on Transportation and Beyond. Page 3. Telecommuters reduce their daily trips by 53 to 77% on telecommuting days. We’ve used 65% in our calculation but many telework researchers argue the number is closer to 90% because the side stops they would have made on the way to or from work are eliminated or are handled together in a more efficient fashion.

• MPG = 20.3
EPA MOBILE6.2 2003 (EPA’ computer model) weighted average of 23.9 mpg for cars and 17.4 mpg for light trucks. Your mileage, as they say, may vary.

• $ Saved per person / yr assuming $3.50/gallon

Aggregate Assumptions

• Gallons saved/year
Gallons per person savings times the number of teleworkers

• $ Saved
$ Saved per person time the number of workers

• Barrels Saved:

Gallons of gas per barrel of crude = 0.466667

42 gallons (1 barrel) of crude equals 19.6 gallons of gas. Energy Information Administration, Petroleum Supply Annual 2005, June 2006.

U.S. Gulf Oil Imports = 791,928,000 barrels

Greenhouse Gas Savings (aggregate/yr)

• CO2 savings in pounds = 19.4
A gallon of gasoline is assumed to produce 8.8 kilograms (or 19.4 pounds) of CO2. This number is calculated from values in the Code of Federal Regulations at 40 CFR 600.113-78, which EPA uses to calculate the fuel economy of vehicles, and relies on assumptions consistent with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) guidelines.

• Conversion of CO2 savings from pounds to metric tons = .00045359237