The proposed $350 million Easton-based UM Shore Regional Medical Center has generated a lot of excitement. The new state-of-the-art facility will encompass 325,000 square feet on six floors featuring 147 beds,122 acute inpatient and 25 observation beds, emergency, surgery, labor and delivery, and support services. It will be located near the intersection of Rt 50 and Longwoods Road only four miles north of the existing hospital. The total projected cost is $550 million.

Before leaving office, former Maryland Governor Larry Hogan pledged a $100 million contribution from the state toward the project. A pledge is excellent but an empty gesture until it becomes part of the State budget. Hogan is gone, leaving that work to Governor Moore, a big supporter of rural healthcare and the Eastern Shore. He and the legislature approved only $10 million for fiscal year 2024 and promised $20 million in 2025. So, a lot of heavy political lifting is still needed to secure all $100 million, especially in light of looming state deficits projected to hit $1 billion by 2028 unless hard choices are made.      

The new Medical Center represents the most significant piece of the University of Maryland Medical Systems (UMMS) hub and spoke strategy to create an integrated Mid Shore regional rural healthcare delivery system encompassing Caroline, Dorchester, Kent, Queen Anne’s, and Talbot counties, representing about 175,000 people. The last hurdle is getting the “Certificate of Need” (CON) final regulatory approval from the Maryland Healthcare Commission, which is expected very soon. The hope is the new facility will open in 2028.

UMMS Eastern Shore expansion began over a decade ago. In 2006, UMMS merged with Shore Health Systems, which operated Memorial Hospital in Easton and Dorchester General in Cambridge. In 2008, UMMS merged with Chester River Health Systems, which operated Chestertown Hospital. In 2013, UMMS rolled it all up, forming UM Shore Regional Health. The rebranded UM Shore Regional Health includes UM Shore Medical Center in Easton, a 146-bed acute care facility providing in and outpatient service; UM Shore Medical Center in Cambridge, a free-standing medical facility that provides emergency services and various outpatient services; UM Shore Medical at Chestertown, a rural hospital facility that has flexible capacity for 25 inpatients plus outpatient services to Kent & Queen Anne counties; and UM Shore Emergency Center at Queenstown, a free-standing emergency center. UMMS also operates urgent care sites, acquired from Choice One and rebranded UM Urgent Care, in Denton, Kent Island, and Easton. 

As we await the final regulatory approval for a Medical Center that will not open until 2028, it is necessary to focus on the hospital’s current operating performance and significant challenges, which include long ER wait times and nursing shortages, which must be improved immediately. 

Emergency Room Wait Time. We are generally free to choose where we want to be treated and from what doctors, except when we have a medical emergency that requires immediate attention or when we call 911. Whether you cut yourself cooking, your child fell and broke his leg, or you are experiencing chest pains, an ER visit is a traumatic moment. If you live in Easton, the ambulance takes you to the UM Shore Medical Center ER. This makes people nervous, especially after Maryland Matters reported that Maryland has the longest emergency room “wait times” in the US, according to the Maryland Health Services Cost Review Commission. And UM Shore Medical Center had the longest emergency room wait time in the State! Clocking in with a median wait time of 1,400 minutes, just under 24 hours, from when patients arrived at the facility to when they were admitted.  

We all sensed a problem based on anecdotal reports and personal experience, but having it confirmed by empirical data was shocking. The New Facility with more beds and better equipment will help improve ER performance, but what do you do right now? Hospital management regularly meets with elected officials. However, they need better public outreach (i.e., forums, opinion piece, public meetings) explaining how they will improve out of control wait times and when they expect to approach national medians (under five hours, according to U.S. News). Our elected officials, from the Governor down to the Mayor of Easton, should be asking tough questions. 

Improve Nursing Staffing, Reduce Attrition & Improve the Nurse-to-Bed Ratio. Hospitals are struggling with a nursing shortage of 450,000 nurses nationwide and a shortage of doctors estimated to be 120,000. It’s a huge problem, especially for rural hospitals. How does Shore Regional Medical Center’s current performance regarding nurse staffing compare with other comparable hospitals? What is management doing to attract and retain talented nursing staff in this competitive market? Is the issue compensation, more flexible work hours, or both? Nursing shortages affect many aspects of care, including ER wait time. Earlier this year, an EMT told me during a midnight 911 visit to my home that if they took my wife to the ER, it would be many hours before she would get a bed, and even that was not guaranteed. Not because a bed was unavailable but because there were not enough nurses to cover the beds. Management has emphasized that the new UM Shore Medical Center will help attract and retain talent.

Improve Hospital Culture. Elizabeth H. Bradley, President of Vassar College, author, and former Faculty Director of Yale University’s Health Leadership Institute, speaking about organizational culture, once said, “It’s how people communicate, the level of support, and the organizational culture that trump any single intervention of any single strategy that hospitals frequently adopt.” I am curious how Shore employees rate their hospital as a workplace and management’s performance. Internal employee engagement (satisfaction) surveys are standard, as are 360-degree evaluations that ask employees to rate managers, including the President & CEO. Comments about what it is like to work at UM Shore Medical Center on job websites like Glassdoor and Indeed are not great. I know several experienced nurses who have worked at the hospital for decades. They say nurses are burnt out, some looking to retire, and many unhappy with management after several brutal and stressful years dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic and long hours due to nursing shortages and other factors.

I hope members of the UMMS and UM Shore Health boards aggressively monitor and demand improvement in these areas long before the new hospital opens. More stringent patient satisfaction and operating metrics focused on these issues should be included in management’s annual performance review and bonus awards, including for President & Chief Executive Officer Ken Kozel.

Maryland is blessed with great hospitals. Luminis Health Anne Arundel Medical Center appears on Newsweek’s 2024 list of best in-state hospitals at number (4), along with (1) John Hopkins Hospital, (2) John Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, (3) University of Maryland Medical Center, (5) Saint Joseph Medical Center, and (6) MedStar Union Memorial. Anne Arundel is currently the best hospital within 50 miles of Easton and a UMMS competitor located right over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. Luminis Health is a non-profit health system formed in 2019 when Anne Arundel Medical Center acquired Doctors Community Medical Center. Luminis serves Anne Arundel, Prince George’s Counties, and parts of the Eastern Shore. I am hopeful UM Shore Medical Center will appear on this list soon. 

Hospitals are sensitive to ratings from well-known hospital rating organizations and publicize good ratings and downplay bad ones. For 2022, The Leapfrog Group, a national non-profit healthcare rating organization, gave an “A” grade rating (A-F) for overall hospital safety to UM Shore Medical Center and Luminis Anne Arundel Medical Center. Medicare.gov also provides a “Star Rating,” representing overall “Hospital” and “Patient” performance. Shore did not do as well.  

Medicare.gov Overall Hospital Star Rating*

UM Shore Medical Center                                 3 out of 5 stars

Luminis Anne Arundel Medical Center          4 out of 5 stars

* Rating represents an overall performance across different areas of quality, such as treating heart attacks and pneumonia, readmissions, and rates of safety of care. 

Medicare.gov Patient Star Rating*

Um Shore Medical Center                                2 out of 5 Stars 

Luminis Anne Arundel Medical Center                 4 out of 5 Stars

*Recently discharged patients were asked about doctor and nurse communications, how responsive hospital staff was to their needs, and the cleanliness and quietness of the hospital environment.

Looking forward, UMMS must still raise hundreds of millions of dollars for the Medical Center. Potential donors will soon be asked to pay big bucks as part of an upcoming capital campaign. They will ask the same performance questions I have, and management must have the answers. Residents should not worry when taken to the ER or wait five years for the new Medical Center to have an impact.

Replacing our aging hospital with the new Medical Center will not magically solve every operating problem. Just like trading in your aging Honda Civic for an expensive Tesla does not magically make you a better driver. Transformational change is always challenging, and management must rise to the occasion. We all are rooting for them to succeed. 

Hugh Panero, a tech & media entrepreneur, was the founder & former CEO of XM Satellite Radio. He has worked with leading tech venture capital firms and was an adjunct media professor at George Washington University. He writes about Tech and Media for the Spy.

 

Over the last few years, as our judiciary system has pushed back against Trump’s disregard for the rule of law, we have been drinking from a legal educational firehose. Media content has always played a role in educating us about the law, miscarriages of justice, and the justice system in general, and it has never been more important in a digital world of misinformation. 

My favorite legal term learned during the Trump era is Willful Blindness. Best explained in a New York Times opinion piece by Burt Neuborne, a professor emeritus at New York University Law School. He believes that Special Prosecutor Jack Smith intends to show that Trump lied about election fraud to gain unlawful criminal benefits (a 2nd term in office after losing the election). Neuborne wrote, “When a defendant, like Mr. Trump, is on notice of the potential likelihood of an inconvenient fact (Mr. Biden’s legitimate victory) and closes his eyes to overwhelming evidence of that fact, the willfully blind defendant is just as guilty as if he actually knew the fact.” 

For many, great books and popular movies were the first exposure to big legal concepts. Famous films like To Kill a Mockingbird centered on injustice in our legal system based on race; 12 Angry Men focused on the legal concept of reasonable doubt; and Inherit the Wind pitted Darwin’s theory of evolution against creationism in court. More contemporary movies like Philadelphia dealt with homophobia when a young attorney sued his law firm for firing him because he had AIDS. Sometimes, legal concepts get their own movie, like Absence of Malice, the legal standard that protects news organizations from libel and defamation claims.

TV attorney dramas (The Practice, The Good Wife) and urban crime dramas with stories ripped from the headlines also added to our legal education. The leader of this popular genre is Law & Order, which takes you from the crime to the courtroom conclusion. Watching these shows, I learned about being Mirandized (“you have the right to remain silent…”), entering into a plea deal (i.e., Sidney Powel, Mark Meadows), and going after the big fish (i.e., Trump, Giuliani), plus fun acronyms like Perp (Perpetrator), Vic (victim), and BOLO (be on the lookout). All helpful in understanding today’s multitude of real-life legal dramas. The growth of 24-hour cable news, social media, and new digital content like crime podcasts (i.e., Serial) supercharged our legal education.

The tidal wave of Trump lawsuits has turned the legal spotlight away from urban crime and onto the boring world of white-collar crime. Terms like RICO (Racketeering & Corrupt Organizations Act), Defamation (the action of damaging the good reputation of someone), Business Fraud (the wrongful and criminal deception intended to result in financial or personal gain), and Gag Order (a legal order restricting a person from making certain information public or statements) have become part of regular dinner banter. 

Before the terrorist attack on Israel, MSNBC was a wall-to-wall legal analysis of Trump’s various lawsuits filed against him and those who came under his influence, which include former staffers, business colleagues, political operatives, and over 200 convicted January 6 rioters. Fox News paid a $787 million settlement to end a defamation lawsuit brought by Dominion, the voting machine company, relating to defamatory and false claims Fox made about the 2020 election being stolen.

There are 91 felony counts filed against Trump in four criminal cases in Washington, New York, and Georgia. Charges included violating Georgia’s RICO anti-racketeering statute (four co-conspirators have flipped), hoarding classified documents and refusing to return them, and state charges relating to hush money payments made during the 2016 presidential campaign. A federal judge has already ruled that Trump is liable for defamatory statements he made about writer E. Jean Carroll in 2019 when she went public with claims he raped her decades earlier. She was awarded $5 million. Trump is also in a contentious $250 million business fraud case in NY. He is charged with inflating his business assets. In a partial summary judgment, the judge determined that Trump had submitted “fraudulent valuations” for his assets, leaving the judge to determine additional actions and the financial penalty. The verdict will be appealed. 

Adding to our crash course legal education are Senator Bob “Goldfinger” Menendez (D-NJ) and his wife, Nadin. It is alleged that Menendez used his influence to pocket bribes from a foreign government, which included gold bars, cash, and a luxury car. And there is Hunter Biden, who did not pay his taxes for several years and made false statements about purchasing a firearm and illegally obtaining a firearm while addicted to drugs. A Special Counsel is looking into these matters after a Federal judge rejected a prior plea agreement. 

My favorite new litigation is a shareholder lawsuit involving Fox News. Five NYC pension funds, joined by Oregon pension funds, filed a shareholder derivative lawsuit against the board of directors and key officers of Fox Corporation, the parent company of Fox News, for breach of fiduciary duty. NYC pension funds invest for 800,000 current and retired teachers, cops, and firemen, manage over $253 billion in assets, and own about $30 million shares in the Fox Corporation (as of August 31, 2023). The complaint alleges that the Fox Board knew that Fox News promoted political narratives without regard for whether the underlying factual assertions were true, creating defamation risk, including crazy false claims that election technology companies Dominion and Smartmatics, among others, rigged the 2020 presidential election.

These pension funds read all the embarrassing Dominion depositions, emails, texts, etc., which showed Fox News knew that they were peddling false narratives, and the board did nothing to stop it. The pension funds concluded the board had not fulfilled their fiduciary duty of care to mitigate risk and protect shareholder value, resulting in the $787 million Dominion payout, other pending defamation cases, and a depressed stock price. And if Fox is handing out big settlement money, they want some. This will get settled. Fox does not want more of its dirty laundry exposed, and now retired Fox Chairman Ruppert Murdoch, at 92, wants this to go away.

The final phase of our legal education will be when a bunch of the Perps are found guilty. Then, we will learn about endless appeals, pardons, sentencing guidelines, and whether a former President’s Secret Service detail must accompany him to prison if convicted. Or if a sitting convicted President can pardon himself.     

Hugh Panero, a tech & media entrepreneur, was the founder & former CEO of XM Satellite Radio. He has worked with leading tech venture capital firms and was an adjunct media professor at George Washington University. He writes about Tech and Media for the Spy.

 

The recent media reporting by the New York Times and other news organizations regarding last week’s Al-Ahi Arab hospital bombing in Gaza highlights the perils of reporting in a war zone and the pressure on news organizations to get it right in an online world where misinformation travels worldwide at lightning speed. 

The Free Press, a non-profit that keeps a close eye on media, wrote on X (formerly Twitter):

 “Tuesday night, October 17, an explosion at the Al-Ahi Arab Hospital rocked Gaza City. Almost immediately, news organizations— Reuters, the AP, New York Times, & the Washington Post— blamed Israel, citing claims by the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry. But Israel denied any role in the explosion, and in the coming hours, it became clear that the explosion was caused by a misfired Hamas rocket. News organizations issued half-hearted retractions, but the narrative had echoed the globe, leading to violent anti-US and anti-Israel protests.”

Many of us who received rapid-fire news alerts about the reported Israeli airstrike were shocked and confused. An attack of this nature served no purpose strategically for Israel and would be a disaster from a public relations perspective, with the world clearly on its side after the brutal, well-planned massacre of Jews. The news reporting led to angry protests across the Middle East and the cancellation of planned meetings between US and Arab diplomats. 

The media’s reckless need to report the news first or simultaneously with other news organizations highlighted the dangers when there is no proper vetting or more nuanced crafting of headlines and reporting, which came later in the day. Unfortunately, you can’t unsqueeze the toothpaste once misinformation makes it online. This is a particularly acute problem in a war zone where news organizations have a limited presence, and bomb site forensic analysis and a  review of satellite imagery and video footage are all needed to understand what happened.

People tend to believe news that supports their worldview, especially when enabled by a prestigious media outlet like the New York Times. The first Times news alert headline about the hospital bombing hit Tuesday evening, October 17: Breaking News: Israel Strike on Hospital Kills Hundreds, Palestinian Official Says. The Israeli Defense Force (IDF), already reeling from last week’s terrorist attack that left 2,000 dead and over 200 people taken hostage, now had to quickly engage in a media battle to refute misinformation blaming Israel for the hospital bombing. The IDF denied responsibility and circulated evidence showing it was misfired terrorist missiles fired within Gaza that struck the hospital. The US later corroborated the Israeli interpretation of events. The Times eventually changed their homepage headline to read, At Least 500 Dead in Blast Gaza Hospital, Palestinians Say, (deleting the reference to “Israeli Strike,”) but the misinformation damage was done.

According to Time Magazine, before the hospital bombing, misinformation on social media about the Israel-Hamas war had garnered over 22 million views on X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram within three days of the Hamas attack, according to information shared with the Time by Newsguard, an organization which tracks misinformation. Imagine what that number of misinformation views was after the hospital bombing headlines. 

The Times has never been good about admitting fault in their international reporting – remember the Times’s flawed reporting supporting the White House claim that Iraq had Weapons of Mass Destruction.

On Wednesday, October 18, the Times media reporter Katie Robertson wrote a story titled “After Hospital Blast, Headlines Shift with Changing Claims.” The article covered how hard it is to report in a war zone, included tepid criticism of the Times’s performance, and mentioned the Times was not the only one to screw up. The article described the BBC’s initial breaking news headline, Hundreds Feared Dead or Injured in Israeli Airstrike on Hospital in Gaza, Palestinian Officials Say. Later modified to, Israel Denies Airstrike on Hospital in Gaza, Saying Failed Militant Rocket to Blame.”

Nowhere in the Times article did a senior Times Editor comment on the Times-generated misinformation that sent thousands into the street protesting what they believed was an Israeli airstrike on a Palestinian hospital. The Times should have apologized for getting the story so wrong initially, admitted it should not have relied on a Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health spokesman, and that it should have corrected the headline much faster.

It was not until today, Monday, October 23, that the paper under the byline The New York Times finally had its mea culpa, admitting “it relied too heavily on claims from Hamas, and did not make clear that those claims could not be verified.” and later added, “Newsrooms leaders continue to examine procedures around the biggest breaking new events – including for the use of the largest headlines in the digital report – to determine what additional safeguards may be warranted.” Some common sense works for me. 

What makes the Times’s misinformation so egregious is that, as one of our premier Western news organizations, it sets the editorial agenda for the media in general. We also rely on the Times to offset less independent international news organizations like Al Jazeera, no friend of Israel, funded by the Qatari government, which as of the writing of this article, still claimed it was an Israeli airstrike rather than a misfired Hamas rocket. 

The misinformation about the bombing also fed into growing anti-semitism worldwide and hostility toward Israel among US progressives. The Hill has reported that members of the so-called “Squad” comprised of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Jamaal Bowman (D-NY), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), Cori Bush (D-MO), and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) in the House of Representatives voted against funding for Israel’s Iron Dome anti-missile system, even though its uses are solely defensive.

Some progressives, slow to condemn the atrocities committed by Hamas, jumped into action when news of the hospital bombing broke. Congresswoman Tlaib was particularly strident in her comments about Israel. Protests in cities and college campuses appeared more anti-Israel than pro-Palestinian. However, as the initial reports that Israel was not the villain of this story, progressives backpedaled rapidly. 

The media needs to do a better job. In the days and months to come, the fog of war will only make it more complicated for the media, and the fact that you can post a correction later in the day does not cut it. The people in charge of the news must report the story accurately and avoid becoming the story.

Hugh Panero, a tech & media entrepreneur, was the founder & former CEO of XM Satellite Radio. He has worked with leading tech venture capital firms and was an adjunct media professor at George Washington University. He writes about Tech and Media for the Spy.

 

 

 

 

 

The recent death of Senator Dianne Feinstein (90), Senator Mitch McConnell’s (81) mid-sentence freezing at the podium, and the age debate around President Biden (80) and Trump’s (77) bid for another White House term briefly focused media attention on age, competency and when and how politicians should step away.   

Talking about age never gets old for the media. The issue is extremely relevant to Fox News, MSNBC, and CNN, whose viewers skew older. There is also abundant content available since politicians are predisposed to blabbing publicly, and every gaff, trip, or crazy comment is recorded, edited, and circulated on social media at lightning speed. Democracy is messy and will become even messier with our politicians serving and living longer.  

Many aging politicians pushing 80 or 90 are hyper-functional and competent, but what do we do when health or legal issues prevent elected officials from fulfilling the responsibility of their office, and they refuse to leave voluntarily? As the old joke goes, “50 is the new 40, 60 is the new 50, 70 is the new 60 but 80 is 80.” 

Removing any elected official from office is not easy, nor should it be. We would prefer that removal from office be done at the voting booth and reflect the people’s will. However, this can be complicated for a Senator serving a six-year term who has severe health problems at the beginning of the term and refuses to retire. What do you do?

You would also think that Congressmen and women who serve only two-year terms would be easier to replace. However, gerrymandering, the political manipulation of electoral House district maps to advantage the party in power with more voters from their party, can keep people in office year after year. Political considerations also come into play, like leaders wanting to maintain a voting majority and therefore keep people in the office as a political calculation despite competency, legal, and other serious issues. Why else is NY Republican Congressman George Santos charged with fraud, money laundering, theft of public funds, identity theft, and false statements still serving in Congress, or for that matter, NJ’s Democratic Senator Bob Menendez, accused of bribery and found with gold bars in his home like some pirate? They don’t even censure these guys let alone kick them out.

Article 1, section 5 of the US Constitution allows the Senate and the House to expel members. The Senate can expel a senator with a two-thirds vote after specific committees do their diligence. A similar process exists in the House, which might be tested on Republican Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz, who is hated by both parties and blamed for the current chaos in the leaderless House. However, this extreme process is rarely used, slow-moving, and reserved for people who have committed crimes – not for age-related health issues. Thus, barring establishing term limits or mandatory retirement age, and in the case of the President, impeachment or invoking the 25th Amendment requiring the Vice President and a majority of the cabinet to deem a President is not able to do his job, public officials of questionable competency can and will remain in office. 

It was sad to watch Senator Feinstein’s very public decline after a long and heroic career of public service. Some argued that Feinstein’s refusal to step aside as the Senator of California left the State without a strong voice in the Senate during political chaos. I imagine that certain aging politicians like Feinstein are supported by loyal staffers who will protect and carry them for as long as needed. In this regard, I think of President Ronald Reagan, who died of Alzheimer’s (after leaving office), an illness many believe began late in his second term.

More of these awkward situations will arise, especially in the Senate, which gives a new meaning to aging in place. Feinstein served in the Senate for three decades, Mitch McConnell has served for 38 years. Vermont’s Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy (83) decided not to run in 2022 after serving 48 years. This contrasts with Iowa’s Republican Senator Chuck Grassley (90), who in 2022 was elected to his 8th term in office. He will be 95 at the end of his current term and will have served 48 years in the Senate. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (83), who has served 36 years, announced she would run again in 2024. In fact, According to NBC News, the 118th Congress is one of the oldest in the past century. In January, the average age in the Senate was 63.9 years, and in the House, 57.5 years. 

Why do people stay in the office past their time? A belief they earned the right to go out on their terms; the confidence, sometimes false, that they can “still do the job;” a need to be in the public eye; or leaving is an ending they are unprepared for psychologically, who in the words of the poet Dylan Thomas would instead ‘not go gentle into that good night’ and instead “rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

This age issue is not just political. Older Americans are one of the fastest-growing demographics in the country, a combination of aging baby boomers and we live longer. I was born in 1956 when my life expectancy was 69. My grandson was born a few months ago, and his life expectancy is 80. In 2019, there were 54.1 million people age 65 and older (up from 39.6 million in 2009). This population is projected to reach 80.8 million by 2040 and 94.7 million by 2060.

I have no solutions to the age issue in politics, and the media has moved on to cover Trump’s mounting legal troubles, Speaker McCarthy’s being voted off the island, and the deadly attack on Israel. My only suggestion is that every politician be required to watch Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Musical Hamilton. One of the play’s most memorable moments was when George Washington dictated his Farewell Address to Alexander Hamilton, played by Miranda. The text of the duet they sing together was lifted almost entirely from Washington’s Farewell Address. Washington, at the time, was 64 years old and had served two terms in office and decided not to seek a third term. Below is an excerpt from the song One Last Time as Washington explains to Hamilton why it is time for him to say goodbye: 
[HAMILTON]
Mr. President, they will say you’re weak

[WASHINGTON]
No, they will see we’re strong

[HAMILTON]
Your position is so unique

[WASHINGTON]
So I’ll use it to move them along

[HAMILTON]
Why do you have to say goodbye?

[WASHINGTON]
If I say goodbye, the nation learns to move on
It outlives me when I’m gone
Like the scripture says:
“Everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree
And no one shall make them afraid.”
They’ll be safe in the nation we’ve made
I wanna sit under my own vine and fig tree
A moment alone in the shade
At home in this nation we’ve made
One last time

[HAMILTON]
One last time

[HAMILTON-repeating the last paragraphs of Washington’s Farewell Address; sung as a duet with WASHINGTON]

Though, in reviewing the incidents of my administration, I am unconscious of intentional error, I am nevertheless too sensible of my defects not to think it probable that I may have committed many errors. I shall also carry with me the hope that my country will view them with indulgence; and that after forty-five years of my life dedicated to its service, with an upright zeal, the faults of incompetent abilities will be consigned to oblivion, as I myself must soon be to the mansions of rest. I anticipate with pleasing expectation that retreat, in which I promise myself to realize the sweet enjoyment of partaking, in the midst of my fellow-citizens, the benign influence of good laws under a free government, the ever-favorite object of my heart, and the happy reward, as I trust of our mutual cares, labors, and dangers.

Hugh Panero, a tech & media entrepreneur, was the founder & former CEO of XM Satellite Radio. He has worked with leading tech venture capital firms and was an adjunct media professor at George Washington University. He writes about Tech and Media for the Spy.

The Eastern Shore has a beautiful outdoor natural soundscape of birds, insects, rain, wind, and changing tides, making it a unique place to live. Unfortunately, I am also bombarded by an orchestra of unnatural tech sounds, which drive me crazy.

Technology’s unnatural soundscape includes high-pitched sirens, beeps, chirps, pings, and other annoying alarm sounds, euphemistically called “alerts and notifications.” They exist indoors and outdoors and spew from my smartphone, refrigerator, dishwasher, washing machine, dryer, invisible dog fence, septic tank, milk frother, microwave, home security system, and the dreaded smoke detector. 

Loud alerts have a place in our society for essential things like air raids, house fires, jailbreaks, home invasions, hospital ventilator failures, and overheating nuclear reactors. However, today, we are alerted about everything. 

The proliferation of annoying tech sounds will only get worse as our appliances and cars get smarter and given an internet protocol (IP) address, connect to your WiFi and can send and receive data; this is referred to as the Internet of Things. The interconnections via the internet of computing devices embedded into everyday appliances will dramatically increase the number of unnecessary things these appliances want to alert you about.  

It also won’t be long before formerly dumb appliances interface with your personal assistant devices like Alexa, literally providing a voice to nag you to “Shut the Refrigerator!” “Empty the Dishwasher!” and “Close the Microwave Door!” based on data from a sensor that knows all.   

The proliferation of tech alerts is due to the availability of inexpensive parts to enable it, overeager engineers who want to put it everywhere, and marketers’ desire to innovate and get consumers to engage with their products. I just don’t think I need to engage a lot with my toaster. I would trade all this so-called innovation for a washing machine that lasted 25 years with little maintenance. 

This intelligent, sensor-based technology is rapidly spreading throughout the car and home appliances. In cars, we only used to care about the change oil, low tire pressure, and check engine visual alerts on the dashboard. Today, data is pouring in and out of cars. Sensor technology tells us when we are swerving into another lane, or about to back into a truck, or close to hitting the car in front of us because we are going too fast. I admit some of these notifications prevent teenagers, dumb people, and aging drivers like me from getting killed.

This tech invasion in the car was spurred on by Tesla, which turned the car into a giant computer, and traditional car makers have been playing catch up. Their tech upgrade started in the front seat and is now quickly moving to the backseat with “Rear Seat Alerts,” or as I call them, “Idiot Alerts.” For example, door logic algorithms and motion sensors now remind idiots who forget they have an infant or dog in the backseat to remove them. By the way, if you really need this feature, you should not be allowed to drive, have kids, or own a dog. 

How does it work? When a car door is opened and closed before or after the engine starts, the vehicle computer knows to issue a rear seat reminder when the engine is turned off. The Kia and Hyundai system includes a motion detector to scan the backseat for movement; if motion is detected, it will activate the horn, making it completely idiot-proof. 

Alarm PTSD likely causes my fixation on tech alarms and alerts. In my 30s, while cruising up First Avenue in NYC in my bright red Jeep, I once turned on my windshield wipers, and the car alarm started blaring. I quickly pulled into a Harlem gas station to avoid being arrested for grand theft auto. I offered the mechanic $50 to rip out any wire that would stop the noise.

Years later, my wife and I moved to Evergreen, Colorado, where no one had a car alarm or locked their doors at night. My wife’s car had a very sensitive alarm. Leaving for work early one morning, I lightly brushed up against her car, and the alarm began screaming. When my wife entered the garage, she found me kicking her car. Not my best moment.

The smoke alarm also triggers me. My wife loves to cook, and the smoke alarm regularly goes off at home and while visiting Airbnbs, often followed by an embarrassing visit from the fire department, with loud sirens and bright flashing lights.

During a recent Airbnb stay, the smoke alarm went off and alerted the owner via text, who was on an extended family vacation in Tel Aviv. The owner contacted a neighbor, who was dispatched to check if the house was on fire. After that, we began alerting the owner directly when we set off the smoke detector. After the third time, the owner texted us that they disconnected the remote alert feature. My wife is very zen-like when this happens. Me, not so much. 

I wish techies would focus on developing an alternative to the most annoying alert – the chirping smoke detector caused when the backup battery has to be replaced. Hearing this chirp is always a significant event in our home. My dog Ella always hears it first, usually at 1 a.m. She bolts into our bed, shaking, and stands on my chest until I wake up. My wife quickly evacuates her outside as I begin my chirp hunt. I am convinced the electrician who installed my smoke detectors hated me because several units were placed dangerously high, requiring a very long ladder to reach them. I would give anything for an app with a chirping smoke detector kill switch.         

My PTSD aside, I am still determining how I will handle the increasing bombardment of tech sounds in my Easton Shore home, especially since my wife has banned me from kicking cars and appliances. It may require regular visits to One Square Inch of Silence, a noise control project in the Hoh Rainforest at Olympic National Park in Washington state, called “the quietest place in the United States.” 

Hugh Panero, a tech & media entrepreneur, was the founder & former CEO of XM Satellite Radio. He has worked with leading tech venture capital firms and was an adjunct media professor at George Washington University. He writes about Tech and Media for the Spy.

It used to be easier to plan for your demise. All you needed was a will, a list of your significant bank account numbers and essential passwords, a safe deposit box to store it all, and someone you trust to manage things. Dying has become more complicated due to our expanded digital lives. 

Our digital life includes social media accounts, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and smaller platforms like Pinterest, LinkedIn, Snapchat, Reddit, and email services like Google. Since they are free and make their money on your data, dead or alive, they are okay with you living forever digitally. 

I recently got a LinkedIn message asking me to congratulate a friend on his 15th-year anniversary with his company. Unfortunately, he passed away several years prior. This cold, computer-generated notification made me sad and wonder how our digital presence should be handled post-mortem.

The first question is, “Do you care? I do. I’m the person who tidies up his hotel room before checking out. I do not like leaving a mess for anyone, let alone my loved ones, after heading off to the Elysium Fields, Valhalla, Heaven, or whatever afterlife will take me.    

Therefore, to make the lives of a grieving spouse or children less complicated you should create a Digital Life List and add it to the other practical information needed to handle your affairs. And provide some practical instructions on what you want to be done. This list should include usernames and passwords for your smartphone, tablet, computer, email, and social media accounts, among other crucial digital information. Your digital life may not be real but it will need to be handled.

The average individual in the US has seven social media accounts per person. Approximately 302 million people use social media networks, about 90 percent of the population – that’s a lot of people.

The over-65 crowd, which I am part of, uses social media the least among the key demographic age groups and is a less critical part of their lives compared to younger users. Deciding how to handle your digital legacy after death is a bigger issue for millennials, described as the first digitally-native generation.

Social media is twenty years old, and millennials have over two decades of sharing photographs, videos, and other personal information for millions to see, all stored in the cloud. In a recent CBS News report, Mitch Mitchell, Associate Counsel of Estate Planning at Trust and Will, said, “This stuff can outlive you in ways that tangible stuff may not.” 

Millennials are now getting married, having kids, and thinking about boring things like life insurance, wills, and other related matters. This is why Mitchell says millennials are also beginning to plan for what will happen to their digital legacy upon their death, even designating someone to control their social media.

According to Mitchell’s company estate planning study, “… three-quarters of millennials are naming a “Digital Executor” to decide what digital information should be kept or deleted. This sounds like a very depressing job. Imagine having to sift through, box up, and toss out your loved one’s physical property and then go through several terabytes of digital content ranging from Instagram wedding pictures to pictures of their favorite mocktail.

The study, which surveyed 20,000 millennials, reported that 29% were likelier than the older generations to want their emails, direct messages, and texts kept private from their family after death. Almost 40% want their social media accounts deleted, about 20% want them memorialized or preserved, and the rest “don’t care”. 

Upon the death of a loved one, social media platforms are efficient ways for family members to let people in mass know when a loved one has died, provide funeral arrangements, know where to send donations, and help insulate a grieving family from being besieged with well-meaning phone calls asking for such information. After a period of time, I would turn social media accounts off to avoid them being hacked and misused. 

Social media companies have policies regarding what happens when an account holder dies. Removing a loved one’s Facebook account requires the family member to provide documentation to confirm they are an immediate family member or executor of the account holder and to provide a death certificate. Facebook also provides an option to allow an account to be memorialized, a place where friends and family can gather and share memories after a person has passed away. The other social media companies have similar policies.

Facebook also allows you to designate a Legacy Contact, a person to take control of the account once the account holder has died. They can manage tribute posts and decide who can post and who can see and delete posts. Google also provides a similar option to assign an Inactive Account Manager. They are good things to set up now.

When I told a buddy about this article, he said he once went on a white water rafting trip with his wife, who managed his entire life. His wife had a harrowing moment on the rapids and was tossed from the raft and submerged under the water for what seemed a long time. Later that evening, she asked her husband, “Were you anxious seeing me in mortal danger?” He responded, “Yes, I don’t have any of your passwords.”

Your Digital Life List must include usernames and passwords for all your digital hardware to help family members cancel social media accounts and other premium subscription accounts quicker by appearing as if the account holder was doing it. This includes digital premium streaming services, apps, and cloud storage subscriptions, among others. If these accounts are not shut down, the tech companies will keep pinging your credit card post-mortem until the account is deactivated or the credit card associated with it is canceled or expires. 

Family members need hardware passwords more than ever due to enhanced security features, such as double authentication, fingerprint ID, and facial recognition. For example, some online banking and other transactions involve sending a verification code to a smartphone or email address to confirm the person’s identity to complete the transaction. Therefore, if you don’t have access to your loved one’s email and smartphone you are in trouble. 

In the EU, it is much easier to delete your digital life, alive or deceased. There is a general regulatory data rule known as “the right to erasure,” sometimes called the “right to be forgotten.” All you have to do is write a letter to the company and ask that all your data be deleted. I am a big fan of being digitally forgotten because there are only a few people who will really care when I’m gone, and they will not need my digital presence to remember me. 

Hugh Panero, a tech & media entrepreneur, was the founder & former CEO of XM Satellite Radio. He has worked with leading tech venture capital firms and was an adjunct media professor at George Washington University. He writes about Tech and Media for the Spy.