Medical malpractice is one of the most commonly accused forms of malpractice issued by a patient against medical personnel. A case of medical malpractice happens when a doctor or any other skilled and trained medical professional mismanages a case, causing the patient injury, loss or damage by his or her negligence or improper treatment.

There are lawyers who specifically deal with medical malpractices in Atlanta. These lawyers know the law of the state regarding medical malpractice, and they offer neutral third party guidance.

The laws of the state that has issued him/her the licence to practice bind any practicing medical professional, and sometimes, there may be instances when the patient has not responded properly to a line of treatment, and there really is no malpractice involved. Or there might be instances, where everything appears normal, but there is an underlying hint of malpractice. An experienced medical malpractice lawyer will instinctively know whether there is a case or not. Hence, it is a good idea to consult a good Atlanta medical malpractice lawyer, even if there is the slightest doubt of malpractice.

In case of a malpractice, the lawyer will not only take care of what needs to be done; he will also know how to go about investigating to make the case stronger for the patient. He will also know when to issue a lawsuit for the particular case and fight the case for the recovery of damages caused to the client.

Could a medical coding career be the answer for a long-term employment experience that you’ll greatly enjoy? If you’ve ever considered getting into the medical coding industry, you might be surprised to learn just how amazing this type of profession can be.

Here, we’ll look at a few of the reasons that a medical coding career is so sought after in today’s global marketplace:

1. A Medical Coding Career Can Be Done at Home

Are you interested in working out of your home? As a medical coding professional, you may be able to work out of the comfort of your living room or eat-in kitchen while your kids are in school or in bed at night. Truly, the flexibility of medical coding is a boon to persons who want to be available to their families but also want to make a steady income.

2. A Medical Coding Career Can Be Highly Lucrative

It’s no surprise that the medical industry is popular in our society, especially due to the rising costs of pharmaceuticals and health care. Thus, medical coding specialists are needed across the board. And employers are willing to pay well for medical coding professionals who have credentials and/or experience. Hence, you could wind up making a better salary working part time as a medical coding pro than you would working full time in another field.

3. A Medical Coding Career Is Flexible

Does your family move around periodically because of a household member’s professional (such as military work or sales)? If so, you’ll be pleased to know that medical coding is useful practically anywhere you go. Consequently, you won’t have to worry about finding work… typically, medical coding specialists are able to get “up and running” in a new city in a very short amount of time.

The professional healthcare team includes physicians, nurses, therapists, technicians, dieticians, and other healthcare support staff. A vital member of this team is the medical transcriptionist. While not as visible to the general public as those members of the team providing hands-on care, the medical transcriptionist plays an important role in documenting the quality of patient care.

Medical transcriptionists provide an important service to both physician and patient by transcribing dictated medical reports that document a patient’s medical care and condition. These may include office chart notes, history and physical examinations, consultations, letters, memos, admission notes, emergency department notes, operative reports, discharge summaries, and many specialized laboratory tests and diagnostic studies. Medical transcriptionists transcribe reports from a variety of medical specialties, and each day’s work presents a unique challenge and opportunity for learning.

Medical transcriptionists contribute to quality patient care through their commitment to excellence. Because each dictated report represents a part of a patient’s life, the medical transcriptionist transcribes it with care, demonstrating an extensive knowledge of medical terminology, anatomy, pharmacology, human diseases, surgical procedures, diagnostic studies, and laboratory tests in order to produce an accurate and complete permanent medical record.

A mastery of English grammar, structure, and style, a knowledge of transcription practices, skill in typing, spelling, and proofreading, and the highest professional standards contribute to the medical transcriptionist’s ability to interpret, translate, and edit medical dictation for content and clarity.

Medical transcriptionists work in a variety of settings, including medical centers, general and specialty hospitals, clinics and group practices, radiology and pathology offices, government facilities, insurance companies, home offices, and other environments. Some medical transcriptionists combine their transcription skills with clinical skills to work as medical assistants. Others become supervisors, managers, and college teachers.

Travel medical insurance is a great idea anytime you travel to another country. It is just like regular health insurance, but it is meant to cover you in the specific country in which you will be spending some of your time. It can be either temporary or permanent, depending on your travel habits. Usually, to get insurance, a person has to pay a premium on a monthly basis to an insurance company, sometimes through an agent or middleman. In turn, the insurance company agrees to pay for any medical care the customer needs. Most companies have various insurance policies and schemes that are affordable, reliable and easy to buy. Medical insurance gives people the opportunity to share the burden of the medical costs by easy methods of paying premiums.

Travel medical insurance is meant for international travelers who have to go abroad quite often. There are a number of travel medical insurance companies that give support to thousands of traveling people on travel medical programs. These programs are meant to provide medical protection and assistance services in cases where people develop medical problems outside the country.

However, some of the salient features of the travel medical insurance schemes are that each and every such scheme has a hospital indemnity benefit of at least $100 per night for those traveling outside the US and Canada. They also pay about $15,000 in eligible medical expenses for pre-existing conditions. But this feature is only meant for the US citizens traveling outside the United States and Canada.

Medical Tourism is the most recent trend in privatization of healthcare services and is gaining prominence in developing countries like India. The term ‘medical tourism’ here is not tourism in real sense of the word i.e. it is not destination tourism rather it involves medical health package tourism. Tourism here refers to the provision of ‘cost effective’ private medical care in collaboration with the tourism industry for patients coming from foreign countries so that they could get good health care package.

Medical tourism or health care package tourism covers broad spectrum of medical services and has become a common form of vacationing. The objective of medical tourism package is to mingle wellness and healthcare with relaxation and leisure and to provide best of medical tour package to foreign patients.

India is a recent entrant into the global medical tourism map and medical tourism in India is at boom. McKinsey and the confederation of Indian Industry made a study and stated that medical tourism in India could become a $ 1 billion business by 2012. Government and private sector studies estimate that medical tourism in India is growing by 30 percent a year.

India has caught the attention of foreign patients with high quality treatment and services at private hospitals and those run by voluntary services. Some of the pluses offered in India are the international standard of medical attention, high-end equipments, personalized attention and minimum waiting period that too at a fraction of costs incurred overseas.

India with its culture and scenic beauty is becoming a popular medical tourism destination for foreign patients needing surgery and other specialized treatment and is providing cost effective medical tour packages. Many patients are pleased with the Indian Medical package tour like getting their tummy tucks with a trip to mesmerizing Tajmahal Agra.

Indian hospitals like Apollo are providing a nice blend of top-class medical expertise at affordable prices and thus are attracting foreign patients. Apollo hospitals are one of the leading medical corporations of India serving medical tourists from foreign countries.

Competencies have been used as a performance management tool to achieve competitive advantage in a number of industries, and can be defined as the knowledge, skills, and behaviors that differentiate superior performance. To develop a competency model for medical writers, you need to define the key roles for your organization (eg, coordinating author, project manager) and assign the appropriate competencies to them. This is commonly achieved using a card-sort exercise. Competencies can be considered behavioral (eg, communication) and technical (eg, knowledge of the International Conference on Harmonization guideline) and it is usually a combination that defines superior performance. For training and developing a medical writer, you need to look at the competencies associated with each roles) carried out by the individual, and identify the most critical development areas, taking into account any performance feedback. Appropriate training can then be arranged such as ‘on-the-job’ training, coaching and mentoring, attendance at courses, and self-study.

HE USE OF COMPETENCIES as a performance management tool is not a new concept, and it has been applied to achieve competitive advantage in a number of industries.

WHAT ARE COMPETENCIES?

Though the precise definition may vary from company to company, competencies can be defined as the knowledge (what we know), skills (our application of the knowledge), and behaviors (what characterizes our approach) that differentiate superior performance. It is important to distinguish these from competence, which is the minimum qualification to do the job.

The purpose of using competencies to manage people, or competency-based management, is to try and raise the performance level. To carry out a job, an individual needs minimum or basic skills (eg, these days most jobs require the ability to use a computer). Focusing on these alone will not give performance enhancement as it will not separate out individuals who are superior performers. The challenge is defining the competencies required for particular roles and thereby recruiting and training people appropriately.

HOW ARE COMPETENCIES USED?

Competencies provide a consistent platform and common language for managing people across the business and provide clarity for both the manager and the individual being managed. They should fit in with any people management systems you already have in place. Competencies can potentially be applied in selection, individual development and training, performance management, compensation, succession planning, and promotion. You need to decide what competencies will be used for and to whom they will be applied.

Thus, we can use competency-based management to respond to the following questions:

What type of people should I recruit?

What should be the focus of my employees’ training and development efforts? and

What should I consider for performance planning, performance review pay, promotion, and succession planning decisions?

WHEN IS COMPETENCY-BASED MANAGEMENT A POTENTIAL SOLUTION?

It may be that the performance management systems already in place in your company are sufficient and that competency-based management would not add anything significant. Therefore, a business case should be made before embarking on the development of competency models. One example of a situation where competency-based management is a potential solution is when the competencies that your organization needs change, for example, your organization is redesigned and given new objectives and/or your client requires changes in how you deliver your product (new technologies, new approaches and behaviors). Another example may be that competitive advantage is achieved through attracting, developing, and retaining top talent, and your current approach to selection is not achieving this and/ or your people management processes are not effectively developing or reinforcing the correct competencies.

In the medical writing world the environment changes on an ongoing basis, for example, new regulatory requirements emerge such as the need to provide electronic submissions and the introduction of the International Conference on Harmonization Common Technical Document. Medical writers need to adapt to these changes.

HOW DO YOU DEVELOP A COMPETENCY MODEL?

In order to develop a competency model you need to define the key roles for your department/division/organization and assign the appropriate competencies to them (Figure 1). It is important to involve appropriate levels of management and individuals to whom these roles apply in order to ensure that you build understanding, commitment, and quality models.

Role Discovery and Definition

You first need to define the key roles required to achieve the organization’s business strategy. For a medical writing department, examples of key roles may be a coordinating author and a project manager. You then need to define the accountabilities and responsibilities associated with these roles. In order to do this you can use a number of tools, including review and analysis of job descriptions you already have, interviews with relevant staff, and client interviews. In developing role descriptions you need to take into account environmental factors such as the competition, regulatory requirements, and customer demands. To illustrate the definition of a key role, we can use the example of a coordinating author. The purpose of the role is defined below with examples of an accountability and a responsibility:

The term “forensic” is from the Latin, meaning forum or a place where legal matters are discussed. Forensic medicine and dentistry (odontology) deal with the professional handling, examination, interpretation and presentation of medical and dental evidence that come before legal authorities. Although the MiriamWebster dictionary dates the term from 1659, a full text on the subject dates back to 6′h century China. Forensic identification techniques go back even further. In 45 AD, the Roman Emperor Nero used dental impressions to identify slaves; this practice continued throughout Europe and the United States during the slave trade. In 1867, Oscar Amoedo, an Italian dentist, helped identify hundreds of victims of the Great Fire of Paris. Techniques and protocols developed during that fire are still in use today.

The term “forensic” is from the Latin, meaning forum or a place where legal matters are discussed. Forensic medicine and dentistry (odontology) deal with the professional handling, examination, interpretation and presentation of medical and dental evidence that come before legal authorities. Although the MiriamWebster dictionary dates the term from 1659, a full text on the subject dates back to 6′h century China. Forensic identification techniques go back even further. In 45 AD, the Roman Emperor Nero used dental impressions to identify slaves; this practice continued throughout Europe and the United States during the slave trade. In 1867, Oscar Amoedo, an Italian dentist, helped identify hundreds of victims of the Great Fire of Paris. Techniques and protocols developed during that fire are still in use today.

PRACTICAL APPLICATION

orensic study was originally directed toward identification of the living as well as the dead. To that aim, it is important to note that teeth are extremely durable, able to survive millennia with little or no degradation. Variations in morphology can assist in determining geographic origins. Wear patterns are often indicate a persons oral habits, occupation, and even dietary characteristics. The Presidential assassin John Wilkes Booth was identified with dental records. Dr. Joseph Warren, an American Revolutionary patriot, was identified at Bull Run by means of a sterling silver partial denture fabricated by Paul Revere. Serial killer Ted Bundy, in the absence of any “smoking gun,” was convicted primarily on bitemark evidence left on his victims. Amidst controversy, dental records ultimately identified the remains of Adolph Hitler and Eva Braun.

Anthropometry, the branch of anthropology that uses comparative bony measurements to assist in determining racial origins, was the prevailing discipline used in the study of the skeleton in the late 19th and early 20* centuries. With the advent of xray technology, however, the field of forensic study broadened substantially. Forensic scientists began to use bony anomalies, fractures and prostheses to confirm identification, as well as to contribute information on sex, nationality, and even social standing and occupation.

Soon after Austrian physician Karl Landsteiner introduced blood typing in 1901, he and others employed this new discipline in the field of forensic study. Also in 1901, Sir Richard Henry, newly appointed head of Scotland Yard, forced the adoption of fingerprint identification to replace anthropometry as the prevailing identification technique. Advances in forensic study proceeded continuously, prompting a group of physicians, dentists and scientists in 1950 to form the American Academy of Forensic Science (AAFS). This organization subsequently began publishing what has become one of the premier journals on the subject, the Journalof’Forensic Science.

Progress in the fields of forensic medicine and dentistry expanded in 1984, when Sir Alec Jeffreys developed the first DNA profiling test. In 1986 he used his test in the successful prosecution of Colin Pitchfork, who was suspected and ultimately convicted of murdering two girls. Interestingly, in the course of the investigation this same test was first used to exonerate an innocent suspect. In 1987, DNA profiling was used successfully in the United States during the trial of a sexual predator in Orlando, Florida. Later that year, similar evidence was challenged in the case of New York vs. Castro. The result of this scrutiny “culminated in a call for certification, accreditation, standardization, and quality control guidelines for both DNA laboratories and the general forensic community.” Today, DNA is becoming the “gold standard” in the area of forensic identification and criminalistics.

THE POSTMORTEM IDENTIFICATION PROCESS: THE STATION NIGHT CLUB FIRE

On February 20, 2003, in The Station fire disaster, 100 people lost their lives, making it the fourth most deadly club fire in the nation’s history and the worst fire in the history of the state. Forensic odontology was a major part of the postmortem identification process.

The forensic process began at the scene, as it usually does. Survivors were extricated and transferred to local and regional hospitals. While victims normally would be extensively photographed on site, this was not practical or appropriate because many bodies, victims as well as injured, were stacked in doorways and near exits. The first priority, therefore, was to locate survivors, some trapped below the dead. Victims were then assigned a numerical identification and transported to the state morgue. Since the physical plant at the Office of the State Medical Examiner (OSME) was not adequate to handle the volume of victims, refrigeration trailers were brought to the state facility.

Byline: REPORTED BY SANDRA YIN AND LOUISE WITT

If 2004 were to have a personality, it would be a drama queen. We may not know exactly what the year has in store for us, but if nothing else, we know that it won’t be boring. The war in Iraq slogs on. The presidential campaign kicks off in earnest. The Summer Olympics return to Greece. The Internet grows up with legit music downloads. Biotech drugs let Americans recapture their youthful vigor. Men and woman experiment with sexual taboos, although a growing segment of our society longs for a return to traditional values. College students, unlike their Gen-X predecessors, are now more conservative.

America is more entangled with the rest of the world than at any other time in history. We buy clothes from China, cars from Japan, fruits from South America and luxury goods from Europe. When we call for tech support, the person at the other end of the line may not be in Indiana, but in India. Yet, more Americans are homebodies. We’re more likely to remodel our kitchens than book a trip to see the pyramids in Egypt. We’re more likely to eat take-out than splurge on a three-course meal. And if we do go out, we want to eat casual, inexpensive food. Blame the lackluster economy or 9/11 - or both.

As we deal with scary new diseases, such as SARS, we’re using information from the human genome to create drugs to tackle illnesses that have plagued us for generations. Biotech firm, Genentech Inc., for example, plans to market Raptiva to treat psoriasis. For years, people afflicted with the itchy skin condition used stinky coal tar derivatives to alleviate their symptoms. Other drugs that are based on knowledge of our DNA will also be available this year.

President George W. Bush passed substantial tax cuts, letting Americans pay less to Uncle Sam. Still, many feel financially strapped. States and local governments increased taxes and fees to close their budget gaps; the employment rate is still below its highs of the late ’90s, and many workers who have jobs find that they make less than they did before. To make money go further, Americans shun upscale stores in favor of discount centers, such as dollar stores, and mass merchandisers. But many people will still splurge on flat-screen TVs.

The twelve months ahead promise great accomplishments, historic events, as well as shattered expectations. If anything, 2004 will be memorable for the even greater changes it will set in motion. - LOUISE WITT

Marian Burros

Food writer, The New York Times

We’re still in the comfort food phase. Restaurants are offering down-home type of foods. Barbecue is really big in New York. Pearson’s Texas Barbecue is jammed. Retro restaurants, like Brennan’s a new old-fashioned steakhouse in New York, are also popular. Ordering small plates of food, like tapas, is growing in popularity. This started in San Francisco and now it’s on both coasts. Zaytinya is the hottest restaurant in Washington, D.C. You can have some bites, have a drink and order more plates. It’s casual and inexpensive. Those are two things people are interested in these days. People are also eating at home more than they used to, because fewer women are working. Maybe they’re ordering in, or buying carry out, but they’re eating at home.

Grant Clauser

Editor-in-chief, Dealerscope, a consumer electronics magazine Philadelphia

MP3 sales will be strong with more iPod wannabes. In 2004, there will be 10 or so. Napster’s relaunch, as a legitimate pay file service, will increase their penetration. We’ll see more flat-panel TVs. Prices are coming down and more non-Japanese manufacturers offer them. Hard drive-based video recording, like TiVo and Replay, will increase. TiVo is in the public language like Xerox. You hear, “I’ll TiVo that show.” DVD recorder sales will strengthen. Entry-level prices will be under $300. In a year or two, they will be standard on most DVD players. There’ll be more Wi-Fi networks connecting computers to home entertainment centers and to stereos.

Irma Zandl

President, The Zandl Group, a trends analysis firm, New York

With the growth of the Hispanic population (especially Mexican American) and with hip-hop now over 20 years old, a fresh street/urban culture is emerging: cholo culture. Its gang/East L.A. roots give it a gritty authenticity and unique style. Look for it to influence design especially with the Old English lettering, Pendleton shirts and khakis, bandanas, low-rider bikes and cars. Also, look for more entertainment, especially music, to cross over from that culture.

Madelyn Hochstein

President and cofounder, DYG, Inc., a market research firm Danbury, Conn.

Consumers are trying to change their lives by finding more meaning and living a valuable life. They will try to create change, fix things that are wrong, build a legacy and make every moment count. But there’s a roadblock. They can’t get where they want to go, because of security and economic risks. A lot of next year is going to be about sorting out whom we can trust. On the consumer front, we see them trying to take control in the marketplace. They’re demanding more quality, becoming more information-oriented and exploring things about brands that they may not have looked as closely at before. At the same time that we are building our fortress to protect ourselves, we need a furlough. Americans need escapes. Look for “what the hell” behavior and spending no matter what the economic outlook.

The striking diversity of beliefs about paranormal phenomena is a noteworthy and poorly understood characteristic of humanity. On the extremes, some people are almost violently opposed to the very concept of paranormal phenomena and others are equally adamant that such phenomena are real. Neither side has prevailed and there is no indication that either is getting the upper hand (Mathews, 2004; Musella, 2005). Even those who claim tempered scientific perspectives sometimes appear to be living in different worlds. For example, Schumaker (1990), a skeptic, described belief in paranormal phenomena as one of the strongest human motivations and as resulting from the “terror” of facing reality without irrational illusions. On the other hand, Tart (1984), a proponent of psi, described the fear of psi as a powerful, pervasive, instinctive human motivation that prevents the acceptance and occurrence of psi.

As might be expected, the proposed explanations for paranormal beliefs tend to reflect the attitudes of the person proposing the explanation. In his extensive review, Irwin (1993) noted that “much of the skeptical research on the topic seems to have the implicit objective of demonstrating that believers in the paranormal are grossly deficient in intelligence, personality, education, and social standing” (p. 6). These skeptical efforts have also carefully ignored the obvious fact that the deep hostility of some extreme skeptics indicates an irrational prejudice that needs explanation.

At the same time, proponents have done little to offer alternative models or to explain the prevalence of misbeliefs about psi. Many people apparently misinterpret normal experiences as paranormal. Broughton (1991, p. 10) noted that surveys typically find that over half of the population report having had a psi experience, but closer examination of the cases suggests that only about 10% to 15% of the population have had experiences that appear to be possible psi. This estimate is consistent with early surveys (Rhine, 1934/1973, p. 17) and with later studies (Haight, 1979; Schmiedler, 1964). At least 70% to 80% of the people reporting psychic experiences appear to be misinterpreting the experiences.

The motivations for such extensive misinterpretations need to be explored. In fact, understanding the motivations related to attitude toward psi would seem to be a prerequisite for understanding whether, when, and how psi occurs.

The purpose of this article is to summarize and discuss some of the key personality factors and motivations that appear to be relevant for understanding why people believe, misbelieve, and disbelieve in the paranormal. Of course, innumerable personal, social, and cultural factors may have a role in attitude toward the paranormal. The present discussion is intended as a starting point focusing on selected prominent factors. These factors are diverse, and the possibility of conflicting motivations should be recognized.

BACKGROUND

Terminology and Concepts

Certain distinctions in the terminology and concepts related to paranormal phenomena are useful for this discussion. According to the definitions in the American Heritage Dictionary (3rd Edition), “paranormal” is a broad term that means beyond scientific explanation. The term “psychic” is more narrow and refers to extraordinary mental powers such as ESP. This definition of psychic implies that a person is the causal factor for the phenomena, although it can include communication with the spirit of a deceased person. The term “supernatural” means outside the natural world or attributed to divine power. Supernatural typically implies paranormal phenomena caused by a nonphysical being or power that has motivations and intentions separate from those of living persons. Such beings are often considered as God or gods if the motivations are beneficial for people, or as the devil or demons if the motivations are detrimental or evil. The term “miracle” means an event with a supernatural origin. According to the glossary in the Journal of Parapsychology, the term “psi” refers to ESP and PK, which also implies that the phenomena are produced by the mind of a person. Also in that glossary, the term “parapsychology” primarily refers to the study of ESP and PK. Supernatural interpretations tend to be excluded from parapsychological writings and are often assumed to be misinterpretations of psi phenomena produced by living persons. The extent to which psychic and supernatural are different interpretations for the same basic phenomena is an interesting empirical question that remains to be investigated.

The most widely used measures for paranormal beliefs are sheep-goat scales based on psychic phenomena (Palmer, 1971; Thalbourne & Delin, 1993) and the much broader paranormal beliefs scales that also include things like the Loch Ness monster, that black cats bring bad luck, and heaven and hell (Tobacyk & Milford, 1983). The sheep-goat scales were developed by parapsychologists and the broader paranormal belief scales were generally developed by researchers who were more skeptical. The number, validity, and orthogonality of factors in paranormal beliefs have been persistent, unresolved topics of debate (Hartman, 1999; Lange, Irwin, & Houran, 2000; Lawrence, Roe, & Williams, 1997; Tobacyk & Thomas, 1997).

E-mail security vendor Espion International last month released a dual-key system for encrypting e-mail that works with the company’s product gateway appliance or as a stand-alone.

Called MXLock Secure Email, the product is designed to secure outbound emails that relate to government regulations, corporate policy, intellectual property or other sensitive information.

“One thing we feel is very important is ensuring that, with the transmission of information and ideas, they are received by the intended recipient,” says Murali Chakravarthi, CTO of Espion. That can be controlled and locked down.”

MXLock uses two-key encryption; one of the 1,024-bit keys resides at the sender’s gateway, the other is delivered to the recipient as part of the e-mail. When the recipient gets an e-mail from an MXLock user who has encrypted a message, the recipient is directed to click on a link embedded in the e-mail. Once at this Web page, the recipient’s key is authenticated against the key stored in MXLock, and a browser window is opened for viewing or downloading the decrypted message, Chakravarthi explains.

In addition to letting companies send secure e-mail, MXLock can be used as a replacement for FTP transfers, Chakravarthi says.

Administrators can set policies to automatically encrypt outbound e-mails that contain sensitive information by comparing the content of messages to the included dictionary of terms related to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HlPAA), or based on other keywords in the body of the e-mail or elements, such as the text of the subject line or the sender, Chakravarthi says.

A number of other e-mail security companies, including CipherTrust, Mirapoint and Sigaba, offer encryption on outbound e-mail through their own technology or via licensing deals with third parties.

For companies covered by HIPAA regulations, being able to have e-mail automatically encrypted is a significant benefit.

“We’re a healthcare facility, so we need to be able to send personal health information and not be sending it in clear text,” says Kate Fuller, network administrator with Trover Clinic and Regional Medical Center in Madisonville, Kentucky. Before installing MXLock, Trover’s users were told they couldn’t send personal health information through email; now with Espion’s product any e-mail destined for certain recipients - a physician, for example - is automatically encrypted.

Fuller could have chosen from a number of e-mail encryption products, but because the company uses Espion’s Interceptor appliance, she decided to wait for MXLock. “Espion’s been real responsive,” she says. “That’s why we were willing to wait for them to develop an encryption product.”

Espion also is working on integrating the artificial-intelligence algorithm used in its Interceptor e-mail security appliance with MXLock. This algorithm “learns” what e-mail users deem valid mail vs. spam and blocks unwanted messages accordingly, Chakravarthi says. In addition, the appliance is “hyper-seeded” with years of understanding regarding what is and is not spam and other unwanted e-mail, so it begins blocking messages as soon as it is installed at an organization, he says.

Espion offers an example of why this artificial-intelligence approach to blocking unwanted e-mail is effective: The Baton Rouge, La., company had many of its customers knocked offline during Hurricane Katrina. Unlike other anti-spam products that rely on constant updates from vendors’ network operation centers to remain effective, Interceptor stores at the customer’s gateway all of the information needed to block unwanted mail, based on this learning approach. Therefore, Espion’s customers did not need to be online during the hurricane and its aftermath to keep blocking spam, Chakravarthi says.

Using this technology MXLock could detect which outbound messages should be encrypted, he says.That version of MXLock is slated for release within a few weeks, according to Ron Kaufman, COO of Espion.

MXLock costs $8,250 for small and midsize businesses, $13,250 for corporations. Interceptor with MXLock is priced at $14,500 for small and midsize businesses, $22,500 for corporations.

Espion offers special pricing for customers affected by Katrina; for those companies in the Federal Emergency Management Agency federal disaster ZIP codes, Interceptor with MX Lock is priced at $9,875 for small and medium businesses and $15,795 for corporations.