Employee retention: The secrets behind Wal‐Mart's successful hiring policies

One of the major concerns of any corporation, particularly a high‐growth business, is employee retention. Without minimizing the importance of roles such as compliance, diversity, compensation, and benefits, if the basic exercise of getting, keeping, and growing a company's talent is done well, the other HR functions will reflect this excellence. This article demonstrates Wal‐Mart's exceptional program for obtaining and retaining its employees and helping them grow within the company. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Cost-effectiveness of rivaroxaban compared with enoxaparin plus a vitamin K antagonist for the treatment of venous thromboembolism

Background:

Venous thromboembolism (VTE), comprised of deep vein thrombosis (DVT) and pulmonary embolism (PE), is commonly treated with a low-molecular-weight heparin such as enoxaparin plus a vitamin K antagonist (VKA) to prevent recurrence. Administration of enoxaparin?+?VKA is hampered by complexities of laboratory monitoring and frequent dose adjustments. Rivaroxaban, an orally administered anticoagulant, has been compared with enoxaparin?+?VKA in the EINSTEIN trials. The objective was to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of rivaroxaban compared with enoxaparin?+?VKA as anticoagulation treatment for acute, symptomatic, objectively-confirmed DVT or PE.

Methods:

A Markov model was built to evaluate the costs, quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs), and incremental cost-effectiveness ratios associated with rivaroxaban compared to enoxaparin?+?VKA in adult patients treated for acute DVT or PE. All patients entered the model in the ‘on-treatment’ state upon commencement of oral rivaroxaban or enoxaparin?+?VKA for 3, 6, or 12 months. Transition probabilities were obtained from the EINSTEIN trials during treatment and published literature after treatment. A 3-month cycle length, US payer perspective ($2012), 5-year time horizon and a 3% annual discount rate were used.

Results:

Treatment with rivaroxaban cost $2,448 per-patient less and was associated with 0.0058 more QALYs compared with enoxaparin?+?VKA, making it a dominant economic strategy. Upon one-way sensitivity analysis, the model’s results were sensitive to the reduction in index VTE hospitalization length-of-stay associated with rivaroxaban compared with enoxaparin?+?VKA. At a willingness-to-pay threshold of $50,000/QALY, probabilistic sensitivity analysis showed rivaroxaban to be cost-effective compared with enoxaparin?+?VKA approximately 76% of the time.

Limitations:

The model did not account for the benefits associated with an oral and minimally invasive administration of rivaroxaban. ‘Real-world’ applicability is limited because data from the EINSTEIN trials were used in the model. Also, resource utilization and costs were based on the US healthcare system.

Conclusion:

Rivaroxaban is a cost-effective option for anticoagulation treatment of acute VTE patients.     

Qualified medical child support orders--California health insurance coverage assignment orders--national medical support notices: what's a plan administrator to do?

Many employer-sponsored health plans and multi-employer health benefit trusts have seen an increase in medical child support orders (MCSOs), and they can anticipate receiving a greater number in the future. Once regulations are final for the national medical support notice (NMSN) required by the Child Support Performance and Incentive Act of 1998, plans should also begin receiving these. In preparation, plan administrators should ensure that they have proper procedures in place for determining whether MCSOs and NMSNs constitute QMCSOs.     

An Exploratory Analysis of Factors Influencing Initial Market Response and Media Reports following Shock Corporate Events

This article examines market efficiency in a natural environment using minute‐by‐minute share prices following fatal industrial disasters and sudden CEO deaths, and their subsequent media reports. Prices of affected firms start to react within an hour of shock events and fall by 3%; half this fall is reversed prior to the first media reports with the balance reversed by the next trading day. Spreads behave in similar fashion. This is interpreted as market overreaction as risk‐averse investors respond to uncertainty created by the shock; prices return to pre‐shock levels once it is clear that the event is to be expected and already built into valuations.     

Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder in the Workplace Under the ADA in the Wake of Sutton and Its Companions

The terms Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) or Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (AD/HD) refer to a neurological impairment that affects the individual's ability to sustain attention and to behave in a calm, rational manner. ³ Although this disorder has long been considered to be restricted to childhood, recent research has demonstrated that many children carry it over into adult life and take it with them into the workplace. Most U.S. courts have treated AD/HD as a disability covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). ⁴ However, in the summer of 1999, the U.S. Supreme Court made three decisions that will undoubtedly affect the future status of AD/HD and other impairments under the ADA. This article examines those decisions, how they affect the employment rights of AD/HD-afflicted employees, and the changes they will probably bring to litigation in this area. Because we have many reservations about the court's decisions, we not only voice our criticisms of the decisions, but also offer an alternative approach.     

Calibration and hedging under jump diffusion

A jump diffusion model coupled with a local volatility function has been suggested by Andersen and Andreasen (2000). By generating a set of option prices assuming a jump diffusion with known parameters, we investigate two crucial challenges intrinsic to this type of model: calibration of parameters and hedging of jump risk. Even though the estimation problem is ill-posed, our results suggest that the model can be calibrated with sufficient accuracy. Two different strategies are explored for hedging jump risk: a semi-static approach and a dynamic technique. Simulation experiments indicate that each of these methods can sharply reduce risk exposure. JEL Classification G12 · G13     

government and the PSBR

The government has changed its view of how to gauge the size of the budget deficit. Nick Parsons and David Coleman, of Union Discount, argue that this change is an ill-omen for the control of public spending.     

'multiculturalism' or assimilation: still to decide

Can communities of emigrants be assimilated? David Coleman of Oxford University examines how the issues have been dealt with in the United Kingdom.