The Women’s Policy Forum, a women’s advocacy group, is urging the board at JPS Health Network board to improve access to the taxpayer-supported system and to better serve Tarrant County, TX, residents who cannot afford medical care. The Forum recommended that JPS reduce co-payments, eliminate parking fees, and lower eligibility requirements for low-income people enrolled in its healthcare programs. The group said that prior to making the recommendations, it had studied JPS problems, met with physicians, and read the reports from a Houston-based consultant hired by JPS.
Rising water from the Cedar River forced the evacuation of a hospital in downtown Cedar Rapids, IA, after residents of more than 3,000 homes fled for higher ground. The hospital's 176 patients, including about 30 patients in a nursing home facility at the hospital, were being evacuated to other hospitals in the region. The evacuation started late Thursday night and continued Friday morning. Cedar Rapids was among the hardest hit communities in the state, and Iowa Gov. Chet Culver declared 83 of the state's 99 counties as disaster areas while nine rivers were at or above historic flood levels.
Insurance regulators in Washington state have regained the power to reject excessive premiums for individual health plans. Regence BlueShield, the state’s largest insurer for such plans, has begun mailing notices to 150,000 policyholders that rates will jump an average of 17.8% Aug. 1. Earlier, Seattle’s Group Health Cooperative notified about 20,000 customers with individual and family coverage that their premiums would rise almost 10% on July 1.The rate increases are the first to be vetted by state Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler under a new law that gives him authority to disallow "unreasonable" premiums on individual policies. But despite the newfound authority, thousands in state residents may still see double-digit rate increases this summer.
The new LSU Health Sciences Center in New Orleans has the latest in simulation technology to give medical professionals an opportunity to build confidence, train, and practice before encountering actual patients. The technology is comparable to flight simulators used by airline pilots, and is a "pioneering, whole new way of training physicians," said Alan Levine, secretary of the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals.
Former CEOs of JetBlue, Starbucks, and Motorola sat down with Fortune Magazine to discuss their falls from the top. If you're a leader, this interview is worth reading-even if you think your job is safe.
At some point in their education, all aspiring reporters learn about journalism's "seven dirty words." These terms (not printable here) are guaranteed to offend, ostracize, and get you fined—or, as comedian George Carlin said, they will "infect your soul, curve your spine, and keep the country from winning the war."
The world of healthcare leadership has a dirty word of its own. It's a word that can propel leaders to the top of their organizations—only to knock them back down. It can drive people to cheat, lie, and steal. On a smaller scale, it can even kill team spirit, zap loyalty, stunt growth, and trigger resignations. But it's also one of the words I hear most often: "I."
Sit in on any senior-level meeting, and you're likely hear a lot of "I." Managers will say, "I've implemented a new system" or "I've launched a campaign" or "I analyzed the process." But how often have they actually done any of those things? Many leaders use the word "I" to describe every success and offer "he/she/they" only when it comes to explaining failure.
I met George Masi, executive vice president and chief operating officer of Harris County Hospital District in Houston, at the annual American College of Healthcare Executives conference this spring. As I've written before, Masi's an expert on leadership—both good and bad. In the days following Hurricane Katrina, Masi's organization treated thousands of displaced patients in a virtual hospital in Houston's Astrodome. Hard times are the ultimate test of leadership, Masi said—and what separates the "I" sayers from the "we."
"I'm very suspicious when I hear leadership speak about 'I'," Masi told us. "These people won't be the ones to help you in times of adversity."
As Masi explained, leadership is all about relationships—with unions, nurses, boards, physicians, patients, the media, and the community. Good leaders don't go it alone. They know it's not about them, it's about the organization. And to this end, they build on the work that others have done before them. They recognize that a project might outlast their tenure, so they pass their knowledge on and they credit others' knowledge.
At most organizations, aspiring leaders learn early on that saying "I" is what gets them noticed. Senior executives may need to gently retrain them to say "we." Most of all, leaders need to make sure they're not guilty of overusing that one-letter word themselves. Because as every parent knows, it's the dirty words that are most likely to be picked up and repeated.
Molly Rowe is leadership editor with HealthLeaders Media. She may be reached at mrowe@healthleadersmedia.com.
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A Seattle startup wants to create an online community with forums, profiles, messaging, and other tools for the more than 800,000 practicing U.S. physicians. IMedExchange hopes to create a place where doctors can openly exchange medical advice, business tips and even chat about leisure activities. The network is open only to practicing physicians, and Chief Executive Tobin Arthur saying the company hopes to create a virtual version of the doctors lounge at a hospital.
Like most other states, Florida offers few basic protections for consumers purchasing health insurance, according to a report sponsored by consumer group Families USA. The report found that strong lobbying efforts by the insurance industry have left "consumers with a patchwork of protections that are inadequate as a whole and that vary greatly from state to state." Assisted by such protections, the health maintenance organizations of all large health insurers in Florida are solidly profitable, according to state data.
Desperate for a liver transplant at UCLA Medical Center, the leader of Japan's third-largest organized crime group offered as much as $1 million to potential intermediaries to help him obtain a U.S. visa, according to sources. The sources said they were asked to use their connections, which included politicians and embassy contacts, to help acquire the visa. One source said UCLA's top liver transplant surgeon, Ronald W. Busuttil, MD, wrote a letter sent to U.S. officials saying that Inagawa needed a liver and that UCLA was willing to perform the transplant.
Dallas-area hospital managers, worried about the possibility of nurses unions, talked with labor lawyers about how to avoid their coming. The California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee began contract negotiations with a Tenet Healthcare Corp. hospital in Houston. A second Tenet hospital in Houston is also gearing up for a vote to authorize such a union.
Dallas is next, predicted the Dallas law firm Littler Mendelson PC, which sponsored a seminar titled, "The Unions are Coming! The Unions are Coming!"
