Capgemini officials have announced the global IT consulting firm will invest $20.1 million to establish operations in Nashville.

Headquartered in France and located in 50 countries, Capgemini says it will create a minimum of 500 new jobs and as many as 1,000 as the company launches its first Tennessee delivery center at Broadwest in Nashville.

The Nashville delivery center will specifically focus on Capgemini’s capabilities in enterprise application modernization, artificial intelligence, machine learning and IoT solutions.

Because of its central location, highly skilled workforce and pro-business climate, Nashville will help to fulfill Capgemini’s mission in the future of work by recruiting and developing strong talent, the company states.

Dental showroom, to open in Nashville

A-dec has announced plans for a new dental showroom and education experience center in Nashville that will open in summer 2022.

The 19,000-square-foot facility, which will host continuing education and sales/technical training for dental industry professionals, will provide a premier experience for dental professionals and industry leaders and will feature 12 dental operatories, including scalable operatories to recreate a customer’s operatory space.

Along with multiple design centers and consultation areas, the facility will include teaching operatories, lecture halls and a commercial kitchen and indoor/outdoor dining areas, providing a venue for dental industry thought leaders and practitioners to advance the field of dentistry.

Vanderbilt makes ‘Happiest Colleges’ list

Vanderbilt University is among the Top 25 Happiest Colleges in 2021-2022, a list published by PremiumSchools.org reports.

Some of the most crucial aspects of college life include time management, mental health and proper funding. The happiest college students in the country feel greatly supported in these areas.

Other schools on the list: Princeton, Brown, William and Mary, Kansas State, Iowa, Fairfield, UC Berkeley, VPI, Clemson, Rice, Auburn, Florida State, Penn, Johns Hopkins, Duke, Yale, Notre Dame, Washington College (Maryland), Arizona, Penn State, Cornell, Columbia and the University of North Alabama.

Pivot Point Consulting chosen by MetroHealth

Brentwood’s Pivot Point Consulting has been selected by The MetroHealth System, based in Cleveland, to perform maintenance and quarterly upgrades for its Epic EHR, including all clinical and non-clinical applications.

The multi-year engagement will enable MetroHealth to focus on upcoming high-priority strategic initiatives while Pivot Point handles daily Tier-2 Application Support related tasks across the health care system’s sites.

Pivot Point Consulting’s experts will function as MetroHealth’s ‘run team,’ providing operational and system maintenance on the Epic platform, servicing incidents and requests, and conducting seamless quarterly upgrades to keep the platform current. The Pivot Point run team will also fix general application issues, conduct routine application tasks, analyze business intelligence, and develop custom reports.

$5M grant to aid child care in Tennessee

A $5 million grant program to establish and expand child care in Tennessee is now available.

As part of their continued partnership, ChildcareTennessee, an initiative of The Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee, and the Tennessee Department of Human Services have a new addition – administering Establishment and Expansion Grants across Tennessee.

Two-thirds of parents in the state say they struggle to find child care at all, according to a 2019 study by Tennesseans for Quality Early Education. The same study reported that 48% of Tennesseans live in a child care desert.

While the coronavirus pandemic cast a spotlight on the importance of child care, the need to create more accessible child care has been an issue for decades.

New and existing providers will be able to apply for furniture, equipment, supplies, curriculum and other items and services associated with opening a new child care agency or expanding licensed capacity at an existing agency.

Each grant allows providers to apply for up to $1,000 per licensed child care slot, up to a maximum of $100,000 per program.

The ChildcareTennessee/TDHS partnership also provides other services. An administrative website, ChildcareTennessee.com, features more than 2,000 resources to assist child care directors with administrative tasks, from human resources to staying compliant with federal and state regulations.

PCG Artist Bootcamp coming to Nashville

PCG Artist Development has announced the 10th anniversary of their Summer Bootcamp event, which returns to an in-person event July 15-16, near Nashville.

Event venue locations, breakout sessions, showcase performers and other details will be announced at a later date. Artists may register now through Dec. 25 at PCGartistdevelopment.com/events-master-classes to receive 50% off admission, using code “PCG50.”

Summer Bootcamp brings together some of the best and brightest minds in songwriting, production, vocal/performance coaching and other entertainment industry professionals. In two days, under one roof, young aspiring artists will learn from some of the most knowledgeable professionals in the industry. The PCG team will bring together an experienced group of entertainment industry thought leaders in artist management, entertainment attorneys, record production, publicity/media relations, social media, record label executives, hit songwriters, celebrities and more for a weekend the artist teams will never forget.

AB, Owen partner on certification program

Nashville’s AllianceBernstein has announced the expansion of its financial adviser practice management capability, the AB Advisor Institute.

This expanded solution set includes a proprietary adviser digital assessment toolset and a team of Certified Practice Management Consultants who have completed the Vanderbilt Owen Graduate School of Management Practice Management Certificate program.

The accreditation consists of a 3-part training module taught by the AB Advisor Institute and a capstone program taught by Vanderbilt faculty. Capstone topics are taught around the client engagement model of a leading international consulting firm and psychological tenets of how humans construct beliefs and make decisions.

TriStar Centennial on top cardiovascular list

TriStar Centennial Medical Center in Nashville has been named to the 2022 Fortune/IBM Watson Health 50 Top Cardiovascular Hospitals list in the teaching hospitals without cardiovascular residency programs category.

This year’s study included 951 U.S. hospitals with cardiovascular service lines. Based on comparisons between the study winners and a peer group of similar hospitals in the study, the winners delivered better outcomes while operating more efficiently and at a lower cost.

“The Fortune/IBM Watson Health 50 Top Cardiovascular Hospitals study focuses on one of health care’s most important service lines that affects hundreds of thousands of patients lives annually and adds billions of dollars to our nation’s overall health care costs,” says Gretchen Purcell Jackson, M.D., Ph.D., chief health and science officer, IBM Watson Health.

“That’s why publishing new and achievable benchmarks for cardiovascular services is important and has the potential to make a large and lasting impact on the quality and cost of care for heart patients across the U.S.”

Based on the methodology used by Watson Health, the study concludes that if all United States hospitals’ cardiovascular service lines performed at the level of these study winners, some 6,400 additional lives and roughly $1.4 billion could be saved, and 5,000 additional bypass and angioplasty patients could be complication-free.

Hankook named sustainability leader

Hankook Tire, with U.S. headquarters in Nashville, has been recognized as the best-in-class sustainability leader in the Dow Jones Sustainability Indices World for the sixth consecutive year.

The DJSI is a family of best-in-class benchmarks on sustainable business practices, measuring the performance of the world’s leading companies in terms of their economic, environmental and social impact. Dow Jones Indices are created in conjunction with RobecoSAM, a Zurich-based investment specialist that conducts detailed sustainability research on thousands of global market capitalization leaders.

This year’s DJSI World list included 332 companies, which accounts for 12.7% of the top 2,544 companies worldwide, and Hankook Tire has been listed as a representative of the auto components industry.

This prestigious recognition demonstrates Hankook Tire’s continued focus on environmental, social and governance management as well as its pioneering role in leading the industry to a healthy, sustainable future.

In particular, the company is recognized in areas of social contribution and supply chain management.

Hankook was first recognized by the DJSI in 2011 and has been on the DJSI World list for the past six years starting from 2016.

Vanderbilt, Reeve survey: Vaccine and paralysis

Newly published survey data conducted by Vanderbilt University Peabody College and the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation sheds light on the paralysis community’s perspectives on the COVID-19 vaccine.

Among the findings, reported in Rehabilitation Psychology, is that while more than 80% of people living with paralysis – a group especially vulnerable to COVID-19 – intended to get vaccinated, those who said they were not planning to get the vaccine cited concerns ranging from potential side effects to distrust of the government.

The online survey, conducted in February, included 42 questions designed to gather feedback about how informed the paralysis community was about the COVID-19 vaccine, insights around vaccine hesitancy and how many were planning to be or were already vaccinated.

The survey, distributed by the Reeve Foundation via email to individuals with paralysis or affected by paralysis, was completed by 1,014 respondents: 829 persons with paralysis (PWP) and 185 non-disabled (ND) family members/caregivers.