Capstone Projects 2015-Present

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  Building the United Health Services Palliative Medicine Service

  Emily Tier

  As part of UHS, the largest comprehensive healthcare system in the Southern Tier of New York State, the UHS Palliative Medicine Program serves patients with serious, chronic, and/or terminal illnesses, such as cancer, dementia, heart disease, and lung disease. Staffed by an interdisciplinary team of physicians, nurse practitioners, and social workers, the program takes a holistic approach to the management of these illnesses, with the goal of maximizing quality of life through the end of life. The program works to help patients at any age and at any stage of illness to: • Understand their options • Manage their symptoms, including pain, shortness of breath, and fatigue, as well as anxiety and depression • Address their emotional and spiritual needs • Develop care plans and advanced directives that respect their choices • Support their family and friends • Coordinate their care with providers in the hospital and in the community A relatively new specialty, palliative medicine has expanded across the United States over the last two decades (Dumanovsky et al., 2015). Palliative medicine services have been associated with increased patient satisfaction rates and decreased healthcare costs in both hospital and home settings (for example, Brumley et al., 2007; Morrison et al., 2008; Morrison et al., 2011).

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  Smoothing and Standardizing the Hiring Process: A Panel Interview Summary Sheet

  Pascal E. Trappe

  HRA/DSS currently helps over three million New Yorkers through the administration of more than 12 major public assistance programs and has an operating budget of $9.7 billion. The specific department that I worked in was the Office of Staff Resources (OSR).

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  Environmental Nonprofit Advocacy Guide

  Diana Truncali

  By reviewing existing literature and interviewing nonprofit and government professionals, I have created a nonprofit strategic advocacy guide for environmental organizations at the local and regional level.

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  Bundle vs. Non-Bundle: Looking at Differences in Care and Outcomes at a Skilled Nursing Facility

  Georgia Tsmasiros

  The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) introduced the Bundled Payments for Care Improvement Initiative (BPCI) in 2013 in an effort for consumers to have higher quality and more coordinated care. This research compared the care and outcomes of four individuals with bundled payment insurance plans and four non-bundle insured individuals with the same diagnosis, accessing rehabilitation services at a skilled nursing facility. The results show no observable differences between the outcomes of individuals with a bundled insurance plan and individuals without a bundled insurance plan. The financial implications are negative for healthcare agencies participating in BPCI who must successfully treat individuals within the CMS standardized Estimated Length of Stay (ELOS). These results are limited due to the small sample size observed and the lack of financial data available. The application of bundled insurance plans to the older adult population is discussed with recommendations for future research on this topic to observe a larger sample size.

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  Translation and Interpretation (TIP) Training Manual

  Zelin Wang

  The goal is to provide a systematic training manual for future volunteers monthly training sessions. The goal of this manual is to make sure every volunteers know how to behave appropriately in terms of campus emergency situations.

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  Use of Social Media for Recruiting at Franziska Racker Centers

  David Williams

  Can Franziska Racker Centers increase recruitment through paid advertising on social media, especially Facebook? • Are similar agencies in New York State using social media for recruiting? If so, is it producing adequate results? • How can Racker Centers’ better target local media for recruiting?

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  Identifying Sustainable Funding Streams for the Broome County Land Bank

  Sarah Glose

  Current funding streams for the Broome County Land Bank will expire at the end of 2016 and need to be replaced. The ExecuJve Director idenJfied a budgetary need of $200,000 each year. I recommend that this budget be funded by increasing the Broome County mortgage tax and reallocaJng Broome County Hotel/Motel Occupancy Tax revenues.

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  Creating a Data-Based Facebook Engagement Plan for Chabad at Binghamton

  Justin Hayet

  Core Capstone Question: How does Chabad at Binghamton maximize its online Facebook Engagement in a fashion which mirrors the needs of its diverse online stakeholders?

  Schmalzbauer (2013) calculated that two thirds of America’s 400,000 Jewish college students attend schools with a Chabad chapter” (p. 120). Binghamton University’s student population is thirty percent Jewish, that is, 3,500 Jewish students (Hillel, 2014). Chabad at Binghamton’s seven full time staff members and student leadership of eighty-seven designated positions seek to engage all 3,500 of those students through weekly programs, Shabbat dinners, large scale programs and individual meetings. Chabad at Binghamton has been serving the Jewish community of Binghamton University and the Greater Binghamton area for over thirty years. However, a majority of organizational stakeholders live in the Metro-New York area as noted in Figure 1. Stakeholders include, but are not limited to, young alumni, alumni, parents of alumni, community members and friends of the organization. The challenge for Chabad at Binghamton is how to continue to engage, to educate, to mobilize and to empower digital and philanthropic involvement for these stakeholders in the Greater New York Metro Area.

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  First Semester Enrollment Trends and Patterns: Who Stays? and Who leaves the Institution?

  Jose Soto

  Even though Binghamton University maintains higher than average undergraduate freshmen retention rates—90% compared to the 73% national average—the administration continues to play a proactive role by seeking ways to improve student retention. While some or most of the students who did not come back for their second semester might have dropped out, there was no data to prove it. Accordingly, from the total of students who did not return, some might be stop-outs, transfers, or actual dropouts. The ultimate goal of this research is to identify small sub-groups of students who do not return to the university for their second semester to develop interventions that can be used to retain them.