In his commentary published in the Wall Street Journal, Benjamin Brewer, MD, says the biggest challenge in primary-care medicine is dealing with the complications of obesity, diabetes, and hypertension. "The current financial disincentives to providing proper care for chronic disease are daunting, and the waste created by ignoring the problem is growing as the population ages," Brewer says.
Sen. Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, is seeking information from the nonprofit University of Chicago Medical Center about jobs held by Sen. Barack Obama's wife and one of the senator's best friends. Grassley sent the center a letter saying he was "troubled" by recent news reports about the hospital's efforts to steer patients with non-urgent complaints away from the center's emergency room to local clinics. Michelle Obama was a key figure behind the initiative. The medical center said in a statement that it was working on a response to the letter.
Sutter Roseville Medical Center in Roseville, CA, has opened a new $11.9 million intensive care unit for newborn babies. The neonatal intensive care unit has 16 beds and the most up-to-date equipment to handle emergencies for the sickest of infants, said hospital officials. The facility is located on the lower level of the hospital, and will be able to expand by 14 beds if the hospital desires.
Registered nurses of the UW Medical Center are picketing at the University of Washington Medical Center in Seattle. Union officials say contract negotiations with the school have stalled. Sticking points in the negotiations include a reduction in rest between nurses' shifts, a 4% pay hike over the next two years that the union says is not competitive, and changes in the amount of time the nurses can take off to care for sick family members.
According to the Associated Press, Trinity Medical Center in the Dallas suburb of Carrollton, TX, is taking heat because the hospital called authorities when a woman applied for a cafeteria job using a counterfeit Social Security card. The woman was arrested, jailed, and deported.
Now, advocates for illegal immigrants are claiming the hospital went too far. Apparently there is nothing in the law that says an employer is obligated to notify authorities when they suspect or know that an employee or job applicant is in the United States illegally.
The AP reports that immigration attorneys and advocates believe employers like Trinity have become overly cautious about hiring illegal immigrants, to the point that the prospective employers might be bending or breaking the law.
"When people are being prescreened before a decision to hire is being made, then you could have exposure to discrimination charges," Kathleen Walker, a lawyer and former president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, told AP.
Interesting interpretation. An applicant's crimes should be ignored in the prescreening process—whatever that is—because there is a potential for discrimination.
Trinity spokeswoman Susan Watson offered a different, albeit far more mundane, interpretation. The hospital suspected that at least one crime—identity theft—was being committed. Watson says the hospital felt an obligation to report its suspicions to police.
"Regardless of whether they were an illegal alien, legal immigrant or an American citizen, it still wouldn't have mattered. They still would have been reported," she told AP.
Imagine that. A hospital is taking heat for reporting a crime. The nerve!
This criticism comes at a time when the nation's healthcare system is getting blasted—and rightly so—by consumer advocates and the media for its failure to secure patients' records against illicit snooping and identity theft. In Carrollton, we have a job applicant caught using a bogus Social Security card and Trinity is rapped for reporting her. Let's imagine what would have happened if Trinity had hired an illegal immigrant, who then poached patients' records and perpetrated identity theft. How would that play in the media? How many lawsuits would that lapse have created?
The charge of discrimination lodged against a hospital for reporting a crime committed by an illegal immigrant is particularly galling when you consider that illegal immigrants have no better friend in this nation. Our hospitals are the often-uncompensated healthcare provider of first and last resort for many of the estimated 10 to 13 million illegal immigrants living in the United States. In Texas alone, the state's comptroller estimates illegal immigrants cost hospitals $1.3 billion in 2006, with most of those costs eaten by hospitals.
This is not a rap on illegal immigrants; the vast majority are hardworking and decent people who are just trying to provide for their families.
But it does illustrate the unique and vulnerable position that hospitals find themselves in when dealing with illegal immigrants. We have the millions of illegal immigrants using and stressing healthcare services in the country. We have a federal government that is doing little if anything to address this free for all. We have advocacy groups and the media on all sides of the argument waiting to pounce on any perceived error.
Report a crime: Busted! Don't report a crime: Busted! Take your pick.
It's a problem that hospitals didn't create, didn't ask for, and have little or no influence over. But it's still their problem.
John Commins is the human resources and community and rural hospitals editor withHealthLeadersMedia. He can be reached at jcommins@healthleadersmedia.com.
Once upon a time a hospital created an advertising campaign that told its story through the success stories of its doctors and patients. The moral of that story? Increased community awareness is possible with a unique creative strategy.
According to Children's Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota in Minneapolis, everyone involved with the facility had a story to share of an experience they had with a patient. Using that as motivation, Children's decided to do a campaign that would showcase those stories, using them as a powerful way to deliver a message of care.
"We wanted to be able to do two things," says Trudy Marshall, director of marketing and communications for Children's. "We wanted to tell the story of how we take care of kids but also wanted to highlight what we do for kids."
The marketing team chose two patient stories to highlight in the ads. One features a family with twins who were born prematurely and spent 113 days in the neonatal intensive care unit. The other features a family whose child was treated for a rare form of cancer.
"Our neonatology outcomes are among the very highest in the nation," says Marshall. "We wanted to bring that to life through telling an individual story-to show quality outcomes."
What makes the ads unique, however, is the creative execution from which the story is told.
TV was chosen as the primary medium and the ads are a mix of cartoon whimsy and real-life. Each spot shows the Children's story in the form of an actual story book that opens to reveal the patient's success story moving within it. The story is narrated by the professional who cared for the child, and at the end, a call-to-action drives viewers to Children's Web site to share a Children's story of their own.
The stories that are shared via the Web site are then posted in an online community of positive experiences and successes which, in turn, is positive for the facility as it becomes positive user generated public relations messaging.
Marshall says the outcomes have been great.
"The feedback we've received shows that the campaign has made people think about the stories they have. People who have seen it will say, 'boy do I have a story for you.' It's amazing how many stories we do hear."
Kandace McLaughlin is an editor with HealthLeaders magazine. Send her Campaign Spotlight ideas at kmclaughlin@healthleadersmedia.com If you are a marketer submitting a campaign on behalf of your facility or client, please ensure you have permission before doing so.