Shadowy’ nonprofit calls shots at NY Health Dept. with little scrutiny

 A nonprofit run by the state’s health commissioner operates as a shadow agency without scrutiny from lawmakers — yet doles out hundreds of millions of dollars yearly in government money and has a huge say in New York’s biggest medical decisions, critics told The Post.

Health Research Inc, a 70-year-old entity intertwined with the state Health Department, employs nearly 2,200 agency staffers, many of whom are high-ranking department officials involved in responding to the pandemic and fighting cancer, AIDS, and HIV.

HRI’s staff work side by side with official civil servants, yet its $1 billion-plus budget isn’t reviewed or approved by state legislators, and the nonprofit claims to be a private entity exempt from the Freedom of Information Law. 

“We conditioned the state to punt everything to a third party that can’t be subpoenaed — that can’t be susceptible to FOIL and don’t show up to any oversight hearings,” fumed Assemblyman Ron Kim (D-Queens), whose recent op-ed in The Post shined a light on the mysterious organization.

“It’s like a no man’s land where we have no idea who’s actually being held accountable to protect New Yorkers.”

Kim said he hopes to work with Amy Paulin (D-Westchester), chair of the Assembly Health Committee, and other legislators to hold oversight hearings and potentially produce legislation prohibiting HRI and similar quasi-government entities from “this type of obscene outsourcing of government services without any oversight.”

During the fiscal year ending March 30, 2021, HRI reported $1.16 billion in revenues – at least $710 million secured through state and federal grants – yet reported a net loss of $17.5 million, a precipitous drop from a year earlier when it reported being $506 million in the black, according to its most recent publicly accessible filings.

But HRI’s reported net assets remained steady at $610 million, and the entity claimed the net income loss is a one-time result of adopting new accounting standards.

The nonprofit spent more than $1.3 billion in fiscal 2022, including $813 million covered by federal funds, $6.4 million by state agencies, and $493 million covered by other sources, said Cheryl Mattox, HRI’s executive director.

Mattox said, “HRI has always been transparent and responsive when appropriate as it relates to requests for information.”

In 2021, Empire Center for Public Policy ran into all sorts of resistance trying to secure HRI’s payroll data, eventually getting records for fiscal 2018 through fiscal 2020. But the government watchdog group said the data was incomplete because HRI didn’t provide a full picture of its employees’ income.

Health Research Inc is a 70-year-old entity intertwined with the state Health Department and employs nearly 2,200 agency staffers, many of whom are high-ranking department officials (pictured: Acting Health Commissioner James McDonald).

New York State Department of Health

For instance, the records failed to note then-Health Commissioner Howard Zucker collected more than $75,000 in salary and other compensation as HRI’s president — on top of his actual $210,000 Health Department salary. It’s part of a decades-long arrangement supplementing health commissioner paydays. Empire Center spotted the extra earnings in tax filings.

Zucker’s successor, Mary Bassett, declined to accept the additional stipend while serving as commissioner from September 2021 through the end of 2022. It’s unclear whether Acting Health Commissioner James McDonald, who is expected to take over the job permanently, will accept the extra money.

Mattox received $217,226 in total compensation in fiscal 2020 – including $157,220 in salary and $50,006 in “other” pay, according to tax filings. However, the HRI payroll information Empire Center received and made public only showed the executive director’s earnings at $167,435.

About one-fifth of the Health Department’s workforce for fiscal 2020 included 1,449 staffers who technically are employed through HRI. Another 978 HRI staffers were based in Buffalo and worked for the Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center.

However, getting accurate information regarding the payroll of the organization proved to be a challenge.

Health Research Inc

“Outsourcing one-fifth of the Health Department’s operations to an off-the-books quasi-private organization flies in the face of good government,” said Bill Hammond, a senior fellow for health policy at Empire Center.

HRI was founded in 1953 to accept donations on behalf of the Roswell Park Center, before morphing into a powerful nonprofit.

Empire Center opted to go after HRI’s salary information after the organization refused a 2021 request by The Post to turn over the salary of a top doctor who helped provide expedited COVID-19 tests for friends and family of then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

Dr. Eleanor Adams had listed being a Health Department employee on her LinkedIn page, but records showed she was never on the state payroll because she was paid through HRI.

Health Department spokesman Cort Ruddy defended the department’s relationship with the nonprofit. “For decades, HRI has helped the Department of Health promote the health and welfare of New Yorkers by supporting core public health functions, which today include everything from wastewater detection and biomonitoring to disease prevention and emergency preparedness,” Ruddy said.

https://nypost.com/2023/04/08/ny-health-department-run-by-shadowy-nonprofit-critics/

FitBit fatigue: Is your fitness tracker just making you miserable?

 Do you ever feel like your life is dictated by numbers — from the numbers in your bank account to the step count on your fitness watch?

You are not alone.

We are surrounded by numbers like never before.

Humankind now generates more numbers every day than all the numbers generated between the creation of the first clay accounting tablet in Uruk 5,000 years ago — and the year 2020. 

This number epidemic is having an effect on us, say economics professor Micael Dahlen of the Stockholm School of Economics and marketing professor Helge Thorbjornsen at the NHH Norwegian School of Economics.

Counting numbers can make us greedier, more selfish, less motivated, and can even lead to depression, the authors warn in a new book, “More Numbers Every Day: How Figures Are Taking Over Our Lives — And Why It’s Time to Set Ourselves Free.” (Hachette).

“The pedometer counts the steps for you,” they write.

“Facebook counts your friends for you. Today there are counters for everything you do in a day. And at night too, for that matter.”

Numbers affect us physically and mentally, they warn — and we are in danger of becoming ‘number capitalists,’ exchanging the numbers in our lives for cheaper deals from large corporations feeding our personal data to artificial intelligence.

The authors advise taking a “number vaccine” to lessen your dependence on the numbers in your life — and free yourself from thinking about everything in numerical terms. 

“Perhaps you’ll decide that some parts of your life can actually be de-quantified. Or that, at the very least, you could do with a temporary number detox,” they write.

“In any event, we think that everyone would feel better for getting vaccinated against numbers, so as to be able to choose for themselves how to handle them.”

How numbers shape your feelings

How much do numbers affect us? Numbers influence us physically, including how much weight people can deadlift, with experiments showing that American bodybuilders hit their wall at 225 lbs because it’s a neat number. 

The researchers say that an effect known as SNARC (spatial-numerical association of response codes) means you look downwards as you count down, and are more likely to turn left if you are shown a low number. 

On “milestone” birthdays (ie 30, 40, 50) you don’t feel one year older — on average you feel 2.4 years older, the researchers say.

What is your favorite number? Most people pick the number seven, according to research with 44,000 people by British author and mathematician Alex Bellos (hence, perhaps, the seven deadly sins, seven seas, seven days in the week — and the seven dwarves. 

So what can we do about this?

“We are number animals and are influenced by numbers whether we’re aware of it or not,” write Dahlen and Thorbjornsen.

“For that reason, be careful with them, for both your own and others’ sakes.”

By focusing on measurement, a person might become obsessed with numbers instead of jogging for enjoyment.

Shutterstock

Numbers hurt your self-image

Numbers also affect the way we feel about ourselves — in particular, numbers that relate to money and social success.

Just looking at money or thinking about it makes us stronger and self-confident, scientific studies show — but also more focused on ourselves. People who pick up money feel less afraid of death.

An experiment by the authors showed that people who monitor their financial data become more work-focused, more selfish, and even more xenophobic.

People also become more insensitive to the needs of others, less considerate, and less social.

Social media can have similar effects.

The researchers did their own experiments with social media and found that people who receive a lot of likes on their pictures, feel increased satisfaction with life, self-confidence, and lowered stress levels. 

“One of the reasons the number of likes has such a direct and immediate effect on self-confidence is that they make social comparison so incredibly simple,” write the authors.

“Two numbers are extremely easy to compare. Two vacation pictures or two pictures of a plate of food are not.”

Numbers such as BMI and credit ratings provide us with ways to compare everything with other people — and intuitively, humans compare ourselves upward rather than downward, looking at people who are “doing better” than us. This makes us dissatisfied. 

“Numbers, especially in social media, can be addictive,” write the authors.

“Do a detox now and then.”

Numbers can rob you of your motivation

The Quantified Self-movement preaches that measuring numbers such as heart rhythms and blood sugar can make you superhuman, according to the movement inspired by Timothy Ferriss’s book “The 4-Hour Body,” with promised results including increasing fat loss by 300% and allowing 15-minute orgasms for women.

But does technology and measuring the numbers it logs actually make us healthier?

Americans believe this, with more than 40% believing that self-monitoring increases athletic ability and reduces fat.

But there’s actually very little evidence that using devices to measure performance has any significant positive effect. 

“The majority of the (few) controlled studies that look at the effect of smartwatches, step counters, and various forms of logging of health data find a significant but relatively weak positive impact on the person’s health and performance,” write the authors.

“We run a little faster, lose a little more weight, or perform a little better. But just a little.”

The researchers say that a study by Jordan Etkin at Duke University shows that measuring performance actually harms motivation — and over time, people cut down on the activity they are doing and enjoy it less. 

By focusing on measurement, it takes the person’s attention away from the activity itself — so people who once enjoyed jogging for fresh air and a chance to listen to music, instead obsess over numbers. 

“Measurement can lead to decreased motivation and to self-deception,” write the authors. “Be honest with yourself.”

We are all becoming ‘number capitalists’

In 2018, insurer John Hancock Insurance announced it was selling ‘interactive’ life insurance policies that collect data through wearable fitness trackers such as Apple Watch and Fitbit. 

People who do not use the devices pay higher premiums. 

The apps we use offer big companies information such as geolocation data, health data, number of followers, and how warm our living rooms are. In return, we get more personalized services, accurate advertisements, and cheaper services. 

These algorithms are all “self-improving” via artificial intelligence and deep learning — using neural networks to “learn” from large amounts of data in a way that mimics human brains. 

Some of these models are “black boxes” where we have little insight into how the AI makes its predictions. 

One Nordic bank developed a deep learning model which could predict when people were about to default on loans — but was forced to retire it when they couldn’t explain how it worked. What else is happening to our private data inside these ‘black boxes’? 

“Think carefully before you exchange your numbers for money,” write the authors.

“Are you quite certain that you want Google, Apple, and the rest of them to know everything about you, your family, and your health?”

https://nypost.com/2023/04/08/is-your-fitness-tracker-just-making-you-miserable/

Are robot waiters the future? Some restaurants think so

 You may have already seen them in restaurants: waist-high machines that can greet guests, lead them to their tables, deliver food and drinks and ferry dirty dishes to the kitchen. Some have cat-like faces and even purr when you scratch their heads. 

But are robot waiters the future? It’s a question the restaurant industry is increasingly trying to answer.

Many think robot waiters are the solution to the industry’s labor shortages. Sales of them have been growing rapidly in recent years, with tens of thousands now gliding through dining rooms worldwide.

“There’s no doubt in my mind that this is where the world is going,” said Dennis Reynolds, dean of the Hilton College of Global Hospitality Leadership at the University of Houston. The school’s restaurant began using a robot in December, and Reynolds says it has eased the workload for human staff and made service more efficient.

But others say robot waiters aren’t much more than a gimmick that have a long way to go before they can replace humans. They can’t take orders, and many restaurants have steps, outdoor patios and other physical challenges they can’t adapt to.

“Restaurants are pretty chaotic places, so it’s very hard to insert automation in a way that is really productive,” said Craig Le Clair, a vice president with the consulting company Forrester who studies automation.

California-based Bear Robotics introduced its Servi robot in 2021 and expects to have 10,000 deployed by the end of this year in 44 U.S. states and overseas. China-based Pudu Robotics has deployed more than 56,000 robots worldwide.

AP

Still, robots are proliferating. Redwood City, California-based Bear Robotics introduced its Servi robot in 2021 and expects to have 10,000 deployed by the end of this year in 44 U.S. states and overseas. Shenzen, China-based Pudu Robotics, which was founded in 2016, has deployed more than 56,000 robots worldwide.

“Every restaurant chain is looking toward as much automation as possible,” said Phil Zheng of Richtech Robotics, an Austin-based maker of robot servers. “People are going to see these everywhere in the next year or two.”

Li Zhai was having trouble finding staff for Noodle Topia, his Madison Heights, Michigan, restaurant, in the summer of 2021, so he bought a BellaBot from Pudu Robotics. The robot was so successful he added two more; now, one robot leads diners to their seats while another delivers bowls of steaming noodles to tables. Employees pile dirty dishes onto a third robot to shuttle back to the kitchen.

Robots allow waiters to spend more time communicating with customers leading to an increase in tips.

AP

Now, Zhai only needs three people to do the same volume of business that five or six people used to handle. And they save him money. A robot costs around $15,000, he said, but a person costs $5,000 to $6,000 per month.

Zhai said the robots give human servers more time to mingle with customers, which increases tips. And customers often post videos of the robots on social media that entice others to visit.

“Besides saving labor, the robots generate business,” he said.

Pandemic-era concerns about hygiene accelerated the adoption rate of the technology.

AP

Interactions with human servers can vary. Betzy Giron Reynosa, who works with a BellaBot at The Sushi Factory in West Melbourne, Florida, said the robot can be a pain.

“You can’t really tell it to move or anything,” she said. She has also had customers who don’t want to interact with it.

But overall the robot is a plus, she said. It saves her trips back and forth to the kitchen and gives her more time with customers.

Labor shortages accelerated the adoption of robots globally, Le Clair said. In the U.S., the restaurant industry employed 15 million people at the end of last year, but that was still 400,000 fewer than before the pandemic, according to the National Restaurant Association. In a recent survey, 62% of restaurant operators told the association they don’t have enough employees to meet customer demand.

Li Zhai of the Noodle Topia restaurant points out features on his BellaBot robot, Monday, March 20, 2023, in Madison Heights, Mich. 

AP

Pandemic-era concerns about hygiene and adoption of new technology like QR code menus also laid the ground for robots, said Karthik Namasivayam, director of The School of Hospitality Business at Michigan State University’s Broad College of Business.

“Once an operator begins to understand and work with one technology, other technologies become less daunting and will be much more readily accepted as we go forward,” he said.

Namasivayam notes that public acceptance of robot servers is already high in Asia. Pizza Hut has robot servers in 1,000 restaurants in China, for example.

The U.S. was slower to adopt robots, but some chains are now testing them. Chick-fil-A is trying them at multiple U.S. locations, and says it’s found that the robots give human employees more time to refresh drinks, clear tables and greet guests.

Marcus Merritt was surprised to see a robot server at a Chick-fil-A in Atlanta recently. The robot didn’t seem to be replacing staff, he said; he counted 13 employees in the store, and workers told him the robot helps service move a little faster. He was delighted that the robot told him to have a great day and expects he’ll see more robots when he goes out to eat.

“I think technology is part of our normal everyday now. Everybody has a cell phone, everybody uses some form of computer,” said Merritt, who owns a marketing business. “It’s a natural progression.”

But not all chains have had success with robots.

Chili’s introduced a robot server named Rita in 2020 and expanded the test to 61 U.S. restaurants before abruptly halting it last August. The chain found that Rita moved too slowly and got in the way of human servers. And 58% of guests surveyed said Rita didn’t improve their overall experience.

Haidilao, a hot pot chain in China, began using robots a year ago to deliver food to diners’ tables. But managers at several outlets said the robots haven’t proved as reliable or cost-effective as human servers.

Wang Long, the manager of a Beijing outlet, said his two robots have both have broken down.

“We only used them now and then,” Wang said. “It is a sort of concept thing and the machine can never replace humans.”

Eventually, Namasivayam expects that a certain percentage of restaurants — maybe 30% — will continue to have human servers and be considered more luxurious, while the rest will lean more heavily on robots in the kitchen and in dining rooms. Economics are on the side of robots, he said; the cost of human labor will continue to rise, but technology costs will fall.

But that’s not a future everyone wants to see. Saru Jayaraman, who advocates for higher pay for restaurant workers as president of One Fair Wage, said restaurants could easily solve their labor shortages if they just paid workers more.

“Humans don’t go to a full-service restaurant to be served by technology,” she said. “They go for the experience of themselves and the people they care about being served by a human.”

https://nypost.com/2023/04/08/are-robot-waiters-the-future-some-restaurants-think-so/