From WisPolitics.com/WisBusiness.com …
— The Autism Society of Southeastern Wisconsin has split from the Autism Society of America and rebranded as Autism United of Wisconsin, reflecting the nonprofit’s new goal of expanding statewide.
The group today announced the change. Executive Director Rechelle Chaffee says its mission “remains as it always has been the past 50 years” that it’s served and supported Wisconsinites with neurological differences. It has historically covered Milwaukee and Waukesha counties, she said, serving about 40% of the state’s population.
“The change, although it’s a change, is going to long-term be positive,” she said today in an interview. “It’s also going to let us roll out some of the programs we’ve been doing for years to a larger audience, and take some of these programs across the state … We’re now not limited to some invisible geographic border.”
The move comes after efforts by the now-AUW to negotiate with the national Autism Society of America to combine three affiliates of the ASA in Wisconsin, with others located in Madison and northeastern Wisconsin. According to Chaffee, the nonprofit’s leadership negotiated with the national group for more than 18 months, but “ultimately, those efforts were rejected.”
Chaffee notes the AUW isn’t the first “and probably not the last” ASA affiliate to resign its affiliation from the national group, as groups in New Jersey, Connecticut, and Tennessee have all done so.
She explained the split was driven in part by “huge brand confusion,” and the negotiations with the ASA were meant to provide clarity for clients in Wisconsin and define the “rules of engagement” between affiliates.
“The reality is, we have stayed in our service area because we follow the rules, but those rules have not been consistent for everyone,” she said, adding other affiliate groups have been “copying what we are doing.”
She said the AUW didn’t want to leave the ASA, but said without clearly defined, uniform rules for affiliates, “we were really worried about having to cut services and supports” for families.
No programs or services are being cut due to the split, she noted, and AUW now plans to launch more services statewide. That includes a program called Encompass Autism, launching across Wisconsin in March, which aims to help families learn about the basics of autism and where they can find support.
The AUW has always been privately funded, Chaffee said, noting “we won’t have any financial ramifications” from leaving the national group.
“As a matter of fact, they’ve been soliciting our people for donations, which was another thing,” she said. “I actually had a call from a constituent who was very frustrated. She thought she’d made a donation to us, and she actually made it to the [ASA.] So the reality is, this split is going to help for donors to know that they’re giving locally … and that the money they give stays, and goes directly back into programs and services.”
The Autism Society of America still lists two affiliates in Wisconsin: Autism Society Greater Wisconsin, based in Menasha; and Autism Society South Central Wisconsin, based in Madison.
The national group didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
See the release below.
— Rural health care providers are putting an increased focus on cybersecurity and emerging technologies such as AI, according to a recent survey from Milwaukee advisory firm Wipfli LLP.
The report spotlights the “growing prevalence of corporate cyberattacks” across all industries including health care, referencing a HIPAA Journal finding that large breaches of 500 or more patient records have doubled between 2017 and 2023.
In line with that trend, 36% of the 75 executive respondents to the group’s latest survey said they had at least one unauthorized access incident over the past year — nearly double the percentage of those reporting such an incident in 2024, which was 19%.
“The increase in attacks has hit home for a lot of people,” Wipfli Digital Strategist Nathan Sundheimer said in the report. “When you add in the fact that the cost of cyber insurance has skyrocketed, shoring up network security is a mandate.”
More providers in the survey are taking measures to prepare for cyberattacks and breaches, Wipfli found.
Eighty-one percent of respondents in the 2025 survey said they’ve increased cybersecurity investments, up from 70% in the 2024 survey. And the percentage of respondents that are developing or revising a cyber risk management policy rose from 52% to 70% over the year, while those improving systems to respond more quickly to a cyberattack rose from 60% to 68%.
But even as cybersecurity concerns have driven more rural health care organizations to take preventive measures, other technologies are giving them new, useful tools. More respondents are using digital applications for hospital price estimates, appointment reminders, scheduling and more, the survey found.
It also found 32% of respondents are currently using AI tools, while 37% aren’t and 31% are considering. Of those using them already, about half have been doing so for less than six months. The most common use case is for administrative tasks, while others such as patient scheduling, remote patient monitoring through wearable devices and imaging analysis ranked lower.
Sundheimer says “it makes sense” for rural care providers to begin with administrative uses of AI as they grapple with the constraints of a shrinking workforce.
“These additional use cases, while they are just beginning to emerge, suggest future avenues for AI integration into service delivery in rural healthcare,” he said.
See the report.
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