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Welcome to the April 2005 edition of the Credential Check Examiner! Spring is in the air and we hope you are enjoying the weather.

This month's articles offer helpful insights on emergency medical helicopters, horseplay in the office, prepaid cell phone service, and many other helpful articles for you, your family, and your business.

2005 had a painful start for Emergency Medical Helicopters, with four deadly crashes in less than 3 months. Following this news came another slap in the face for the industry when federal regulators released the results of their investigation; findings indicate that air ambulances may not provide such a valuable service after all. In fact, studies show that flights often transport minimally injured patients when ground transport could most likely get them to a hospital faster and with less risk to others.

The air ambulance industry began taking off in the 1970's following the circulation of images of helicopters evacuating wounded soldiers in Vietnam, and has seen steady growth since. Since 1997, the industry has doubled, and industry insiders expect to see a consistent 5% increase in helicopter transports per year. There is no doubt that air transport has its place: a 2002 study showed that 24% of seriously injured patients that were transported survived because they were flown, not driven, to the hospital.

The problem is that not all patients are seriously injured. For example, in January 2005 the decision was made to fly a patient from Rawlins, Wyoming, to a larger trauma center in Casper, Wyoming, 120 miles away. No one doubts that Casper's facility is better equipped to handle trauma, but serious doubts were raised regarding the necessity of air transport after the patient was released after 4 days and no surgery. The real kicker: the patient's first flight crashed, killing three crew members, and the patient had to wait another day to be flown to Casper. All told, there had been plenty of time in which to drive the patient had it not been for the tragic accident. A second example involves a 9-year-old boy transported by helicopter after breaking his jaw. Well enough to sit up and remark on the scenery, the boy waited 20 hours once he arrived at the hospital to undergo surgery. What was intended to save time cost the family $25,000 in helicopter transport not covered by the family's insurance.

So what will happen? The evidence shows that too many patients are being flown and the trend will likely continue. With malpractice and negligence claims on the rise, health care professionals may feel the need to err to the side of caution, even at the risk of incurring high costs to the patient and endangering crew. Particularly in cities, ground transportation has a much better chance of reaching patients and hospitals before helicopters, simply because there are few places to land.

Joking around with coworkers is often what keeps employees sane, but the line between horseplay and harassment can be a fine one. The dictionary defines horseplay as "rough or rowdy play," but what does that mean inside a workplace? A definition created by arbitrators defines it as "conduct which is done with knowledge, or reckless disregard, of probable consequences or injuries or done with evil intent, bad motive, or maliciousness," obviously a definition that carries a significantly more maleficent meaning, but still not entirely clear.

What can clarify horseplay is its increasing presence in the courtroom, where horseplay has been used successfully as a defense. Several cases can be noted in which individuals were unaware of the trickery that was about to befall them and reacted unprofessionally and in a manner perceived as violent, though not entirely surprisingly or inappropriately given the circumstances. In such cases, and once the reaction was put in context, the discipline was often reversed or decreased, and the perpetrator of the prank subject to equal or similar discipline.

When is horseplay actually bullying or violence? Though bullying can be considered as nebulous a phrase as horseplay, the court has upheld several different instances in which behavior was considered bullying. Among them, an instance in which employees brought religious items to the workplace, including handwritten notes directed at specific coworkers, and another instance in which ethnic slurs between coworkers were exchanged. The court has also found that while a single incident may not constitute bullying, repeated incidents, especially involving multiple coworkers, does.

Best advice: Establish sound policies regarding workplace horseplay, harassment and religiosity. Communicate those policies and hold supervisors responsible for enforcing them.

Speaking of...cell phones for kids, the Firefly by SunCom is a new phone constructed with kids in mind. Small, simple and sturdy, this phone is meant for kids but controlled by mom and dad, who are responsible for programming in the 20-capacity, PIN-protected numbers.

The phone also has speed dial keys on the face for mom, dad, and emergency calls, with accidental call prevention. Geared toward the 8-12 year old crowd, the Firefly comes with-what else? Prepaid service.

Before the Washington D.C. Metropolitan Area Transit Authority moves forward with its plan to add 125 cameras to its buses (at the cost of $8,000 per bus), it might want to hear what the Brits have to say about how well the cameras work. Since the 1990's, London has spent almost $325 million installing 4.2 million cameras to observe London's streets, shopping centers, and rail stations in an effort to deter crime. And for their investment, they got…nothing. Londoners claim to feel no safer than they did before because the cameras have not shown to be a deterrent to crime. With the exception of the cameras in public parking lots, support for the cameras has waned to almost nothing, and the government has admitted that it will spend no more on the project.

In theory, the cameras sound like a good idea; however, an expert involved in the project admits that for the cameras to be successful in deterring crime, human intervention must take place. In Washington D.C. this seems to already be common knowledge, as police officers have been riding the buses to identify perpetrators-and have been making arrests. It is not yet known if the officers will continue to ride the buses, keeping drivers and passengers safe, but taking the officers off the bus to replace them with cameras is unlikely to be as effective.

Over 1000 parents were instantly notified of a school evacuation following the detonation of a homemade bomb in a high school locker in February, thanks to a new emergency telecommunications system that sent automatic voice messages. The system called parents who had participated with the school's service, providing telephone numbers where they could be reached. To find out if schools in your community use the service go to the school's website and look for ECC-Emergency Closing Center™ . ECC will allow you to search for your school, but also provides updates on its site showing all school closings that have been reported. The site also allows users to be notified via e-mail.

Your e-mail address may have your name on it, but that does not protect it from the peering eyes of your employer; even if you are the CEO. Such was the lesson learned recently by Harry Stonecipher, the popular Chief Exec at Boeing, who got the boot after an affair with a co-worker was uncovered when several very private e-mails he had written were leaked to company officials. But for all the hoopla over Stonecipher's indiscretion, the monitoring of office e-mail is nothing new. "As an employee, you have no rights whatsoever," when it comes to e-mail on either company equipment or through a company account, says a prominent Denver employment lawyer. In fact, most employees do not even have the right to know if they are being monitored, unless they work in Delaware or New Jersey. Though most monitoring is intended to seek out company information that may be leaking from the organization, internal e-mail is also subject to scrutiny. Management consultants agree that internal communication is more likely to contain inappropriate content or language than external communication, simply because employees "play it fast and loose" with internal email.

So how does it work? Though some organizations hire staff-really-to read individual outgoing messages, other organizations are taking the high-tech road and utilize increasingly sophisticated electronic systems to monitor e-mail. As would be expected, an entire industry has been born. Amazingly enough, one of the pioneers is MessageGate, which was started by Boeing, and spun off as a stand-alone company in 2003. The best advice: Don't use your employer's e-mail for personal business, and do not ever put something in an e-mail that might embarrass you should it be read by someone other than the intended recipient.

Once the realm of teenagers looking to see if they could tap into a "secure" system, the face of cyber extortion has grown up and gotten serious. Hackers are no longer breaking into business websites, databases, and other systems to spread nasty viruses or just be nasty. These new criminals have learned that threatening an organization's electronic soul can be extremely lucrative with little risk or cost.

The extortionists use various methods. One of the most common methods is simply send out mass emails to companies demanding money to prevent an attack on their system, a scheme commonly known as "phishing." Though most companies do not fall for the scam, just receiving payment from a few provides a sound return on investment for the extortionist. More sophisticated scammers use "botnets" to attack systems. Bots are programs that typically perform routine or repetitive functions saving time and money. Bots can also be crafted to do harmful things. Secretly loaded onto unprotected computers, extortionist can quickly link thousands of infected computers together, forming a botnet. Upon command, the extortionist can remotely launch his attack if the target organization fails to pay him. Phishing scams typically involve demands of under $5,000, but botnet demand can exceed $50,000.

So who are they targeting? You might think that the cyber extortionist would go after the biggest company for the biggest payoff, but in fact, the opposite is true. Experience shows that the larger and more sophisticated the organization, the less likely that these scammers will get anything, let alone millions. Instead, these criminals prefer-those with fewer resources but with so much more to lose. For the best protection, here's what our experts suggest:

• Back up systems regularly and test them periodically;
• Update system security and programs regularly;
• Hire competent information system security consultants;
• Enforce strict policies on security updates and passwords for employees;
• Inform employees to come to management should they suspect a system fail or compromise;
• Educate employees to not give information regarding the organization, passwords, or login instructions to unknown individuals even those claiming to be computer consultants; and
• Call law enforcement if you or your company becomes a victim of online extortion or other cyber crimes.

If you are interested in obtaining additional information about these articles or the services offered by Credential Check Corporation, please contact one of the following individuals:

Michael A. Pachuta President		888-689-2000 michael.pachuta@credentialcheck.com
Robert H. Samuel Executive Vice President		888-689-2000 robert.samuel@credentialcheck.com
James E. Bonnell, CFE, CPP Director of Risk Management		248-526-5209 james.bonnell@credentialcheck.com
Timothy D. Whiting Director of Applicant Screening		248-526-5213 timothy.whiting@credentialcheck.com

Thank you! We'll see you next month!