After the COVID-19 pandemic and required social distancing forced the cancellation of the popular Nissan/Lipscomb BisonBots Robotics Camps this summer, Nissan North America has shifted a portion of its 2020 donation of $60,000 in a way that still nurtures future engineers.

The funds were reallocated to support scholarships for more than 10 Lipscomb engineering students who have realized financial difficulties as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and are in need of additional support to complete their degrees.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has created economic uncertainty for many students. With the cancellation of the summer robotics camps, reassigning those funds toward scholarships for engineering students directly impacted by the pandemic was a natural pivot,” said Parul Bajaj, Nissan’s senior manager of philanthropy. “Our commitment to education is strong regardless of the form it takes for students this summer.”

Since 2010, Nissan has annually funded Lipscomb’s BisonBots Robotics Camps and Music City BEST (Boosting Engineering, Science and Technology) robotics competition, providing engineering and STEM education for students throughout Middle Tennessee at a variety of skill levels from age 6 to high school seniors.

Nissan’s total investment in nurturing Middle Tennessee’s future generations of engineers through Lipscomb totals $718,793.

In 2020, a portion of the donation will still be used to sponsor the upcoming Music City BEST Robotics Competition in the fall.

Vanderbilt athletics partner with Cromwell Media

The Vanderbilt Commodores will have a new home on the radio dial.

Vanderbilt Athletics announced this week its flagship radio partnership with Cromwell Media’s sports stations 102.5 The Game and ESPN 94.9 along with 93.3 Classic Hits where football and men’s basketball games will be broadcast beginning with the 2020-21 season.

Games will be aired on 93.3 FM/830 AM (101.9 in Robertson and Sumner Counties) and streamed on the web.

Additional programming on 102.5 The Game and ESPN 94.9 will include daily Vanderbilt Athletics updates, weekly broadcasts with Commodore radio announcer Joe Fisher and “This Week in Vanderbilt History” segments.

“This partnership has been several months in the making, and we’re very pleased to be making this transition to bring Vanderbilt Athletics to even more fans and followers in the Middle Tennessee area and beyond,” said Candice Lee, Vanderbilt’s vice chancellor for athletics and university affairs and athletic director.

Cromwell Group, Inc. operates 31 radio stations: five in Nashville, eight in Kentucky and 18 in Illinois. All stations can be heard nationwide on the iGoRadio app and online for Vanderbilt fans can listen worldwide.

“We couldn’t be more excited about our new partnership with Vanderbilt”, Cromwell Media vice president and market manager Dennis Gwiazdon said. “Vanderbilt’s invaluable connection to our community lines up perfectly with how we want to represent local sports and the SEC in Nashville.”

Bayard Walters said, “As the local owner of Cromwell Media, I’m glad we can formally be the flagship for Vanderbilt football and basketball. We have always supported Vanderbilt students and sports. We want this association to be overall great for Nashville.”

LUCI launches power wheelchair that can ‘see’

LUCI, a Nashville-based mobility company, has released a first-of-its-kind hardware and software platform that uses sensor-fusion technologies to allow a power wheelchair to “see” its environment, giving riders unprecedented stability, security and cloud connectivity.

LUCI mounts onto a power wheelchair between the power base and the seat, to help users avoid collisions and dangerous drop-offs while maintaining personalized driving control. Through cloud-based capabilities, LUCI can also monitor and alert users and caregivers of low battery, possible tipping scenarios, and other updates regarding the chair and the user.

Tipping over in a wheelchair is a common, treacherous reality, which often leads to trips to the hospital and expensive health care bills. In fact, 87% of wheelchair users reported at least one tip or fall in the past three years. Wheelchair accidents were the cause of more than 175,000 emergency room visits in 2010 – the last year the data was tracked – and 30,000 of those were significant enough for admission into the hospital.

The LUCI team spent the past two and half years collaborating with clinical professionals and logging over 25,000 hours of user testing to develop an invention to help people with physical disabilities drive safely, precisely and independently. LUCI’s R&D efforts have already resulted in 16 patents (eight pending).

Families can receive funds for kids’ meals

Tennessee families are now eligible to receive financial support for their children’s nutritional needs during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This support is provided through the Pandemic Electronic Benefit Transfer program.

Under the new P-EBT program, families of children who receive free or reduced meals at school or attend a Community Eligibility Provision school may receive financial assistance to replace school meals during the months of March, April and May due to COVID-19 school closures. The program will provide parents with $5.70 per child for each day that child qualifies for P-EBT.

Parents who already receive Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or Temporary Assistance for Needy Families benefits currently, do not need to apply. The funds began arriving on the EBT card they already use beginning June 12. Parents who do not receive SNAP benefits, but whose children do qualify for free or reduced school meals, will need to apply for P- EBT online here beginning June 15. The application period will end June 29.

Twice Daily donates to TSU ag program

Twice Daily Thrive, Twice Daily’s reduced emission program, is making a $30,000 donation to Tennessee State University to support the rebuilding of the Agriculture Complex that was devastated by the March 3 tornado.

Twice Daily will send volunteers to TSU to assist with the rebuild. The volunteers will help plant trees on the research farm, which was most impacted by the tornado. The farm includes wetlands, research areas and more from which students study and learn.

Siloam Health expands services to Antioch

Siloam Health is expanding access to high-quality health care for Nashville’s underserved and medically vulnerable populations through a new clinic in Antioch, which opened this week at 2717 Murfreesboro Pike.

It will offer acute care for minor illnesses and injuries, behavioral health consultations and vital community health services. Care is available at the clinic primarily through walk-in or same day appointments.

Siloam Health, a faith-based, not-for-profit health care organization based in the Melrose area, has served Nashville’s culturally marginalized immigrant and refugee populations for nearly 30 years.

Antioch, which boasts the city’s highest concentration of immigrant residents, has grown significantly in recent years, but nonprofit services have not kept pace with the need. It has also been hit particularly hard by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has exposed and exacerbated underlying challenges related to transportation, housing, language barriers, and access to services.

Siloam Health Antioch will also serve as a base for the organization’s community health worker program, which serves patients from over 80 homelands and more than 70 language groups.

BlueSky updates management software

Nashville-based BlueSky Medical Staffing Software has released an update to its clinical talent management system.

With hospitals facing financial challenges related to the COVID-19 pandemic like increased costs, revenue losses and staffing shortages, locum tenens (short and long term) physicians, travel or temporary nurses and their employer agencies are heavily relied on by health care systems to provide care for their patients. SIA analysts project long-term demand for these roles will only increase, nearly 30% by 2030.

BlueSky Staffing Software’s 5.14 update introduces more than 10 new invoicing templates for vendor management plus enables the administrator to create their own invoice template for processing and reuse. Each vendor or agency will be served documents formatted exactly as a user defines.

The staffing software update includes caregiver evaluation with weighted scores to assess job performance on a Likert scale. Valid data is available from custom or standard evaluation reports within moments. Caregiver evaluations reflect back to vendor success, providing in-depth information for key business decisions.

QTC to build operations center in Nashville

QTC, a subsidiary of Leidos Holdings, Inc., will invest approximately $5 million to establish an operations center in Nashville.

The investment will create approximately 410 jobs in Davidson County over the next five years.

QTC provides disability and occupational health examination services for veterans, federal employees and the commercial industry. QTC offers a full suite of employment-focused medical exams and diagnostic testing services. Its network is supported by more than 1,700 experienced clinical, corporate and operational associates, over 90 clinic locations, and partnerships with more than 12,000 physicians and allied health professionals.

Piedmont continues aid for those hit by COVID-19

Piedmont Natural Gas has announced it is adding steps to help customers who are suffering financial hardship as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The additional steps build on the swift actions the company offered to help customers at the start of the response to the pandemic. Piedmont suspended key credit actions, including disconnections for nonpayment, late payment fees and fees for credit card and other payments.

Piedmont, together with its parent company, also donated $6 million for COVID-19 relief efforts in Florida, Indiana, Kentucky, North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina and Tennessee.

“With many homes and businesses in Nashville continuing to face financial hardships, we embraced the opportunity to support our communities and their energy needs even more,” says Sasha Weintraub, Piedmont Natural Gas senior vice president. “And now, as Nashville begins to open and more jobs return, we are ready to help these same homes and businesses get back to normal.”

Piedmont is monitoring restart activities and local orders in Tennessee to determine when billing and payment practices can resume. The company will continue to provide assistance to residential and business customers whose accounts have fallen behind due to illness or lost wages.

Arizona company joins axialHealthCare

Nashville’s axialHealthcare has announced a new partnership with Health Choice Arizona to offer care optimization services that support providers, patients, and families as they navigate substance use issues.

axialHealthcare’s comprehensive risk to recovery platform identifies opioid and polypharmacy-related patient safety concerns, engages and assists providers who care for members at risk, and supports members with substance use disorder from initial treatment through sustained recovery.

Despite national reductions in opioid prescriptions, increases in federal funding, and policies aimed at expanded treatment access, overdose and addiction rates remain steady across the country. According to the latest National Survey on Drug Use and Health, nationally, treatment rates for individuals with SUD hover below 20%. In Arizona, 224,000 individuals misused prescription pain relievers in the prior year, and 394,000 met the clinical criteria for SUD.

FDA approves Enexor’s new ventilator

Franklin-based Enexor Health Systems has announced the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has granted an Emergency Use Authorization for the immediate delivery and use of a new ventilator, the X-VENT.

Enexor has already begun manufacturing the ventilators. With the FDA approval, Enexor will ramp up manufacturing to meet the critical needs in the U.S. and internationally.

Guided by the medical team of physicians and respiratory therapists, led by Dr. Bill Walsh of Vanderbilt University’s Monroe Carrol Jr Children’s Hospital, a pioneer in ventilation technology and one of the design team members of the original oscillating ventilator, the X-VENT was designed to deliver the critical modes of ventilations required for COVID patients.