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Growing Entrepreneurial Communities
No full textA pioneering segment of economic development practitioners, entrepreneurs, and scholars have advocated moving away from industrial recruitment and attraction programs to instead focus on designing vibrant systems for starting and growing businesses as a strategic approach for creating jobs, affluence, and community vitality. This article considers the lessons learned from “the largest focus group in economic development”—the 2016 Growing Entrepreneurial Communities Summit. The findings from this study are among the first to report the input from a broad spectrum of thought leaders including entrepreneurs, practitioner experts, and academics on creating entrepreneurial communities reflecting a strong consensus on processes and the common barriers to creating entrepreneurial communities as well as a rich sample of specific strategies deployed in this pursuit
CGM use with interprofessional therapy management improves HbA1c levels in T2DM patients
No full textBackground
Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM) is a chronic disease state with increased complications over time from uncontrolled glucose. Significant data has shown benefits of continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) in reducing glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) levels of Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus (T1DM) patients, but a lack of robust evidence is seen in T2DM. This study assessed the impact of short-term CGM placement on HbA1c levels in T2DM.
Objectives
The primary outcome was the change in baseline HbA1c levels in patients with T2DM up to six months after CGM placement. Secondary outcomes assessed intensification of diabetes medications made by an interprofessional team at a family medicine clinic.
Methods
This retrospective study evaluated changes in baseline HbA1c after short-term CGM placement in patients with T2DM between June 2017 and May 2020. Single-center data was collected from patients with T2DM who were ≥ 18 years old and HbA1c ≥ 6.5%. Participant data included age, sex, race, weight, blood pressure, heart rate, pre-/post-CGM HbA1c, and number and type of diabetes medications used before and after CGM placement. Medication regimen changes were made by a team of healthcare providers that included medical residents, a nurse who is a certified diabetes educator, clinical pharmacist and pharmacy students, and attending physicians. Descriptive statistics were used for patient demographics, and paired t-tests analyzed primary and secondary outcomes.
Results
115 patients were included in the study and had a mean baseline HbA1c of 9.9%. Upon review of HbA1c levels post-CGM placement, mean HbA1c was 8.8% (p=
Conclusions
This study showed a statistically and clinically significant reduction in HbA1c, most likely from an improved guidance of therapeutic decision making made by the healthcare team. Based on study results, CGM placement may be most useful for those T2DM patients unwilling or unable to adequately monitor blood glucose multiple times per day or in those who experience inadequate responses to their currently prescribed diabetes medications
Living Inside a Bubble: Power, Influence, and Perceptual Filtering in Entrepreneurial Leaders
No full textSome entrepreneurs engage in activities, make decisions, and make statements that significantly harm the companies they founded. This gives rise to a perplexing question: why do people who worked so hard to build a business sometimes act in ways that deeply harm all they worked for? This brief conceptual paper theorizes that entrepreneurs\u27 decision errors may be rooted in perceptual errors that arise from the fact that some entrepreneurs live in separate, hyperlocalized realities. While all people are subject to making errors in perception, I theorize that entrepreneurs are particularly susceptible because of their exceptional power and influence in the ventures they found. Drawing on prior research about the sources of social power and influence, this brief conceptual paper conceptualizes an entrepreneurial microenvironment: a perceptually-filtered bubble characterized by positively biased and bias-confirming feedback, such that the logic that governs the local, organizational reality surrounding the entrepreneur is at odds with larger reality which affects the firm. Consequently, entrepreneurs make diminished decisions which lead to poorer organizational and career outcomes. These perceptually-filtered bubbles are created and maintained by entrepreneurial entourages, organizational structures, power dynamics, and the entrepreneurs themselves. Consequences, future directions, and potential remedies are discussed
