Malaysia has begun making a name for itself in the medical tourism realm, offering affordable yet sophisticated healthcare in Asia. The number of foreigners visiting the country for medical tourism has more than tripled since 2003, with 341,288 seeking care there in 2007. Local private Malaysian hospitals now offer counters, experienced staff, medical packages, and special arrangements to cater to foreign patients.
The Florida Health Care Association, the state trade association for Florida's nursing homes, has named J. Emmett Reed as its new executive director and CEO. Reed previously served as the CEO of the Florida Home Builders Association for 11 years. Reed replaces William J. Phelan, who is retiring from FHCA after 28 years of service. +
The board of directors at Mercy Health Ministry has named Lynn Britton president and CEO of Mercy Health System, which operates 19 acute-care hospitals in seven states. Britton has served since 2004 as senior vice president with responsibility for Mercy' information services and supply chain divisions, as well as oversight of Mercy's healthcare services in Arkansas. +
David R. Smith, MD, medical director for care management at not-for-profit Aurora Health Care, has been elected a fellow of the American College of Preventive Medicine, a national professional society for physicians committed to disease prevention and health promotion. +
The CIO Healthcare Summit is scheduled for May 10-13 in Scottsdale, AZ. The Summit "provides the forum for CIOs and business leaders from some of the most innovative healthcare organizations to debate and network on the many challenges the industry faces," according to the official Web site.
Encore Health Resources LLC has been formed by healthcare veterans Ivo Nelson and Dana Sellers to provide information technology consulting services to the provider segment of the healthcare market, according to a release.
Electronic medical records have been talked about for at least a decade, and now a mammoth infusion of federal cash may soon bring digital records into the mainstream. The trend represents a huge opportunity for Dallas-area tech companies that say medical care could be drastically improved, according to this article in the Dallas Morning News. But some experts question whether the investment will pay off.
President Barack Obama will sign the $787 billion stimulus package (with $19 billion set aside to bring America's healthcare records into the electronic age) at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science today, and the news outlets are stumbling over themselves trying to the get the newest angle on the package. Here is a round-up from some of the biggest news outlets on MSNBC.com.
Last week's robotic partial nephrectomy was actually the second surgery that was blogged live by the Detroit-based system. In January, Henry Ford surgeons performed robotic surgery to a remove a cancerous bladder while simulcasting live to a symposium the hospital had organized in Las Vegas and blogging the surgery on Twitter, an increasingly popular micro-blogging site that limits users to writing posts of 140 character or less.
General curiosity aside, one reason the Henry Ford Twitter surgeries have garnered so much attention is the educational possibilities they bring to light for medical students, providers, and the public. Bill Ferris, Web services manager at Henry Ford, who helped set up the live Twittering, says the hope is that Twitter will eventually be used as an educational tool for medical students and residents learning about specialized medical procedures.
"We saw this as a great opportunity for medical students and doctors to be able to interact live, even if at 140 characters at a time, with the surgeon in the operating room. With this second surgery we saw an increase in followers from physicians and patients and a greater mix of questions. Some about robotic surgery in general, some specific questions about the case. Overall we see it as an effective way to interact with the surgeons as they perform the procedure," says Ferris, who says the hospital also plans to delve into another form of social networking by launching a Facebook page at some point in the near future.
"Right now we are just trying to figure out how it would fit into our strategy. We're looking at a lot of options: Hospital communications, a patient support group, another way for hospital staff to connect, a recruiting tool. There's a lot to consider," he says.
So how does a Twittered surgery work? In this case, the primary surgeon, Craig Rogers, MD, sits at a terminal guiding a robot from a remote console about eight feet from the patient. The entire surgical procedure is being displayed in 3-D on large monitors in the OR, so the person doing the Twittering, Rajesh Laungani, MD, chief resident of urology at Henry Ford Hospital, can give Twitter followers a play-by-play of the surgical action.
He can also ask specific questions of the surgeon as they come across his laptop screen, says Ferris. "The fact that this allows for interactivity as well as an archive for future review, are both important components. We recognize that we don't have it all figured out, I think we learned from this that we would like to incorporate video and more multimedia, but overall it's generated some really positive buzz."
Buzz aside, just how useful Twitter and the like will be in terms of formal medical education remains to be seen. Right now a physician isn't going to get CME credit, for example, simply by asking a question during a Twittered surgery. But Lawrence Sherman, president and chief executive officer of the Physicians Academy for Clinical and Management Excellence, an accredited provider of CME/CPD, says even slow adopters are beginning to see the value of social networking sites when it comes to education.
"Currently, the main value we're seeing is with peer-to-peer communication. As a CME provider I've been looking at different ways to use social media and incorporate it into CME. There are strict guidelines about what qualifies and simply tweeting without a needs assessment isn't going to cut it," he says. "However, I do think there are other ways to use social media and CME. For example, public and proprietary social media sites are good for making CME announcements or for tweeting from activities for people who can't get there."
And therein lies the real strength of sites like Twitter and Facebook. Whether they are ever recognized formally by accrediting agencies for their educational value, the peer-to-peer educational and networking opportunities offered by them should not be underestimated.
Take my own experience writing this column, for example. Friday morning at 10:00 a.m., I wrote on Twitter that I was "Writing my column for this week. Topic: social media in healthcare." Within 30 minutes I had a message from Joel Selzer, co-Founder and CEO of Ozmosis Inc., (which has a great blog on the use of social networking in healthcare) offering to answer any questions I had for the column. By noon, Joel had kindly introduced me via email to Sherman who informed me he had just landed in L.A. and I should call him at his hotel. In the space of two hours I had two new contacts and had completed an interview. For someone who is used to spending hours trying to track people down, hoping they have something relevant to say about the topic at hand, this was nothing short of miracle.
This kind of instant access to experts is exactly what Henry Ford offered with its Twittered surgery, and I can only hope that more hospitals will follow in their footsteps.
Kathryn Mackenzie is technology editor of HealthLeaders magazine. She can be reached at kmackenzie@healthleadersmedia.com.
Note: You can sign up to receive HealthLeaders Media IT, a free weekly e-newsletter that features news, commentary and trends about healthcare technology.
One question businesses everywhere should be asking is "where will we get the leaders of tomorrow?"
Surprisingly, leadership development was a fairly low priority among CEOs in the new HealthLeaders Media Industry Survey 2009. Just 9% of hospital leaders include it among their Top 3 Priorities, although 48% of CEOs concede that mentoring future managers is a top personnel issue in need of improvement.
Executives at Central Maine Medical Center, a 250-bed, not-for-profit hospital in Lewiston, ME, are among those healthcare leaders who believe leadership development should be a top priority.
"To get to where we want to go as an organization we know we have to further invest in our managers to develop their skills and capacity to meet the challenges of healthcare," says Joyce McPhetres, vice president of Human Resources and Organizational Development at parent Central Maine Healthcare.
Like most health systems, CMHC has had leadership education programs in place for years. In the fall of 2007, however, CMHC established an Accelerated Development Group. Nine mid-level managers from the health system were screened from a pool of about 125 candidates representing a spectrum from administrative and clinical services. They were picked after a series of aptitude tests, interviews, and personal recommendations from their bosses that identified leadership traits, superior job performance, and communication skills.
Assisted by consultants from Princeton, NJ-based Caliper Corp., the nine managers were divided into four groups and each was told to create an "action learning project" around a real business directive: Expand the health system's market share. Following that straightforward directive, the managers identified four strategies: expanding primary care and specialty care services; improving inter-system access with a shuttle service; improving patient referrals within the health system; and improving disease management protocols.
While working closely with one another to develop their projects, group members got help from Caliper coaches to refine their leadership, communication, and organizational skills. For many in the group, the program marked first time in their professional careers that they were encouraged to see themselves as leaders, and to act the part.
"This program taught me how to develop business cases, how to facilitate more effective meetings, and how to do a better job gathering data as I approached the projects," says Kathi Schandelmeier, director of primary care practices, at CMHC, and one of the nine managers in the charter program.
McPhetres says it's exciting to think that a future CEO of the health system could come from among the nine managers in the program. In addition to developing practical leadership skills, McPhetres says the program has other benefits "It's a commitment to people and development," she says. "We believe we have talented people here. This builds loyalty and morale, where people understand that we will invest in them, and they fully invest in this organization. From that great things come."
She says the accelerated program has also changed the way that senior management looks at issues. "We still have the same concerns as every other healthcare business but I feel we are positioned to grow in a different way. We have momentum and new talent and new leaders whose core position is to help us with our growth," McPhetres says.
Now—after a year of leadership training, working together, and sharing ideas—the group mostly runs on its own. The managers have formed close professional bonds and their constant contact with colleagues outside of their area of expertise has torn down a lot of silos and prompted them to think about how their department impacts the entire organization.
"They've become wonderful resources to me and I know that I can call them and bounce an idea off them," Schandelmeier says. "If I have a particular problem with a department or if I need to understand how my department interacts with another department I have a colleague to call. And it's always good to have another perspective besides my own. We have become each other's consultants."
Schandelmeier says Accelerated Development Group delivers the message that CMHC believes in its people. "If the organization that you work for demonstrates that it's willing to invest in you and make a commitment to you in your development, managers and directors and employees at any level are only going to look to reciprocate that and do our best to show our organization that we were worth that investment," she says. "I do believe there are people in this group who will go on to participate in the senior leadership team. We are just very appreciative that we've had this opportunity."
John Commins is the human resources and community and rural hospitals editor with HealthLeaders Media. He can be reached at jcommins@healthleadersmedia.com.
Note: You can sign up to receive HealthLeaders Media HR, a free weekly e-newsletter that provides up-to-date information on effective HR strategies, recruitment and compensation, physician staffing, and ongoing organizational development.
The Taussig Cancer Institute at Cleveland Clinic recently named Jaroslaw Maciejewski, MD, as chairman of the newly created Department of Translational Hematology and Oncology Research. The department will focus on the study of molecular and biochemical mechanisms leading to cancer with the goal of directly improving diagnosis and treatment for cancers and leukemia as well as other related disorders. Maciejewski, a staff physician at Taussig for eight years, is respected internationally as an authority on myelodysplastic syndrome—failure of bone marrow—pre-leukemic states and molecular prognostication.
David R. Smith, MD, medical director for care management at not-for-profit Aurora Health Care, has been elected a fellow of the American College of Preventive Medicine, a national professional society for physicians committed to disease prevention and health promotion. Smith is one of 19 fellows selected by the American College of Preventive Medicine in 2008. Fellows are chosen based on three primary categories: contributions to the field of preventive medicine; board certification by an American Board of Medicine board in any medical specialty, with an emphasis on preventive medicine; and service to the American College of Preventive Medicine.
