Soul Catcher, Digging for Dollars

Soul Catcher

 Soul Catcher
Sentara wants to steal your soul.

The Einsteins at non-profit Sentara want to scan your palm to ensure the veracity of your identity.

Sentara said the scan is optional. That’s today.

The new measure is meant to add a layer of protection to patients' medical identities, said Kris Clickner, Sentara's vice president of clinical information systems, in a press article.

Let’s consider for a moment the records of 56,000 Sentara patients in Tidewater whose data were stolen from the car of an employee of Omnicell Inc. last November.

"Over the course of time, there's going to be a lot of things stored electronically that could cause people concern if they wanted to go down that road," Clickner said in the article. 

We are concerned today, not over the course of time.

"I think no matter what the data is, Sentara has a responsibility to protect the data." 
 
First, prove you can protect the data.  Then, perhaps, we will give you our records.

If the Omnicell breach is an example of how well records are protected, you're not getting under my skin with a scan. 

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Promises
In 2009, a group from South Carolina descended on Norfolk with a flourish, promising to buy and renovate the former Union Mission and 161 Granby Street, often referred to as The Savoy.

U.S. Development toured other downtown landmarks, saying they might spend $100 million to develop 1,000 to 1,500 residential units downtown.

They also toured Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority's 1911 historic headquarters on Granby Street, which the housing authority has yet to sell in order to relocate to a headquarters on Ballentine Boulevard, proposed more than four years ago. 

The Savoy, 161 Granby St, Norfolk

Mayor Paul Fraim announced in December, 2009, at a meeting of the Downtown Norfolk Council that the former Union Mission property had been sold.

But it hadn’t been sold.

In fact, neither the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development nor Oppenheimer, the lender in waiting, had yet agreed to finance the purchase of the property.

Three years later, the former Union Mission is empty and The Savoy, cited frequently for code violations, is strapped with scaffolding.

Word has it that US Development is close to cementing its loan package with HUD. Yet that story has been repeated for the past three years.

More on this topic in future columns.
YMCA/Sentara Therapy Center? 

The non-profit manifesto today

My spidey sense tingles when I see two non-profits doing a deal.

For months, Norfolk’s YMCA, Young Men’s Christian Association, now referred to just as the "Y," has been renovating a portion of its building.

For children? For the elderly, the blind and the disabled to find a quiet and peaceful place far from the maddening crowd?

Not exactly.

The door to this room is plastered with a sign, saying Sentara Therapy Center.

Inside are expensive looking “therapy” beds and other equipment.

So many questions, so little time. 

Who paid for the renovation? Is Sentara leasing the space? How much does it cost? 

Two non-profits. Together. Co-habitating. 



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Philip Newswanger

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757.717.8281