ASHHRA eNews Pulse
ASHHRA
ASHHRA e-News Brief: December 2012It’s the end of the year and a time for celebration in many of our communities and cultures. Hanukkah starts off the season, followed by Christmas, Boxing Day, Kwanzaa, and New Year’s Day. This is a time for family and friends, for prayer and peace. It is a time of renewal as we prepare for the coming of the New Year.
For me, this month is an opportunity to say thank you. It has been a true privilege to serve as ASHHRA president. The best part of the job is the opportunity to meet ASHHRA members throughout the year. It’s like being a member of a large extended family. We all live separate lives, but we all have the same mission in life: to care for others and lead people through change. We do this by helping each other. This is what family is all about.
A big part of our extended ASHHRA family is our staff in Chicago. They work behind the scenes each day to provide support to the Board, the committees, and task forces. But more importantly, they are our friends and we count on each other. A special thanks to Stephanie, Sharon, Shirley, Ferdinand, Emily, Jamie, and Ursula.
My final thank you goes to the ASHHRA Executive Committee and Board who made this year very special for me. They were engaged and supportive, fun and creative, practical, and down to earth when necessary. It’s been such a pleasure that I’m glad I get to enjoy the Board one more year. Thank you, Bob, Grace, Joe, Nicole, Tom, Karmen, Maureen, Paul, Amy, John, Marit, and Michael. You are the best board on the planet!
I want to end by sharing two favorite quotes. I hope you will find in them the inspiration I do.
The first is by Abraham Lincoln:
"And in the end it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years."
The second is by Edith Wharton:
"In spite of illness, in spite of the archenemy sorrow, one can remain alive long past the usual date of disintegration if one is unafraid of change, insatiable in intellectual curiosity, interested in big things, and happy in small ways."
Thank you for the opportunity to Lead People Through Change.
Health and happiness,
Irma L. Pye, SPHR
ASHHRA 2012 President
Senior Vice President & CHRO
Valley Baptist Health System
Harlingen, Texas
Visit http://www.naylornetwork.com/ahh-nwl/pdf/Client_Alert_Deadline_Approaching_for_Correcting_Release_Timing_Failures_Under_Section_409A.pdf to view the full article online.
Visit http://sso.aha.org/opensso/cdcservlet?goto=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ashhra.org%3A80%2Fmember%2Fhrpulse.shtml&RequestID=324272207&MajorVersion=1&MinorVersion=0&ProviderID=http%3A%2F%2Fs259722ch3vl49.uschcg6.savvis.net%3A80%2Famagent&IssueInstant=2012-12-11T14%3A23 to view the full article online.
Visit http://www.ashhra.org/conference/2013/schedule.shtml to view the full article online.
Visit http://www.ashhra.org/toolkits/f-m/health_reform.shtml#tools to view the full article online.
Visit http://www.ashhra.org/about/governance/thoughtleaderforum.shtml#tlf_2012_denver to view the full article online.
Employment at hospitals across the country grew by 0.17 percent last month, which reflects 8,300 more people than in October and 82,200 more compared to a year ago, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
SOURCE: BECKER’S HOSPITAL REVIEW
Visit http://www.beckershospitalreview.com/hospital-management-administration/hospital-employment-grew-by-8300-last-month.html to view the full article online.
More than three-quarters of U.S. medical students continue to shun primary care for higher-paying specialties, setting the stage for a shortage of doctors as the population ages and health care expands, a study found.
SOURCE: BLOOMBERG BUSINESSWEEK
Visit http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-12-04/medical-school-students-shun-primary-care-as-demand-rises to view the full article online.
Restrictions on the number of hours in a week that resident physicians can work have helped decrease fatigue among young physicians but may make them less prepared to practice medicine, according to an Annals of Surgery study published online Oct. 12.
SOURCE: AMERICAN MEDICAL NEWS
Visit http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2012/11/19/prsc1120.htm to view the full article online.
"Why are we spending money on useless data that’s not telling us anything?" Rick Bedlion, System Director for Organizational Development and Learning at INTEGRIS Health Inc., recalls asking about their previous exit interview process at a senior leadership meeting in early 2011. INTEGRIS Health is Oklahoma’s largest healthcare system and it had a unique problem—unlike other industries in the current economy, the healthcare industry was (and is) booming. INTEGRIS Health knew that exit interview systems are proven strategic tools that allow organizations to gain insight into why their quality employees were leaving, so they can make the necessary changes to retain them.
Visit http://www.naylornetwork.com/ahh-nwl/pdf/INTEGRIS_Health_ASHHRA1.pdf to view the full article online.
Cardiac surgeons and orthopedic surgeons continue to be among the most highly paid physicians, but hematologists and medical oncologists witnesses the largest one-year jump in compensation in 2011, according to the American Medical Group Association's 2012 medical group compensation and financial survey.
SOURCE: BECKER’S HOSPITAL REVIEW
Visit http://www.beckershospitalreview.com/compensation-issues/30-statistics-from-amga-on-median-physician-compensation-in-2011.html to view the full article online.
With the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act ushering in the pay-for-value era, health care organization compensation committees are scrutinizing executive compensation models to stay in step with new objectives. Though few external benchmark resources are available to help create the guiding metrics, boards continue to try to shift away from rewarding solely on organization-wide financial performance and move toward incentivizing for quality and patient satisfaction. Ultimately, though, fiscal goals still dominate when it comes to incentivizing the C-suite.
SOURCE: HEALTHLEADERS MEDIA
Visit http://www.healthleadersmedia.com/content/LED-287319/Healthcare-Exec-Compensation-Models-Play-Catchup to view the full article online.
During the past five years, Bon Secours Health System has seen both its system wide incidence of sepsis and its health-care associated infection rate drop by half. Similarly, the use of blood for open-heart surgery patients has been reduced 45 percent, both in the number of patients receiving blood and the amount of blood used. The improvements stem from the use of "Learning Communities" that develop and disseminate practices to advance Bon Secours' goal of improving quality outcomes, reducing costs and improving patient satisfaction in all its facilities.
SOURCE: HOSPITALS & HEALTH NETWORKS
Visit http://www.hhnmag.com/hhnmag/jsp/articledisplay.jsp?dcrpath=HHNMAG/Article/data/12DEC2012/1212HHN_Inbox_TeachableMoments&domain=HHNMAG to view the full article online.
What's in a name? "Accountable care organization" is the catch phrase of 2012. But the term describes just about any type of pay-for-performance, quality care-coordination, IT-focused, right-time right-place, cross provider-payer, value-based system change that the country is clamoring for.
SOURCE: FIERCE HEALTHCARE
Visit http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/story/acos-everyone/2012-12-06 to view the full article online.
Nurses and other UMass Memorial Medical Center staff members who have not been vaccinated against the flu were told this week that they must wear a mask on the job to protect patients from being infected during a hospital stay.
SOURCE: THE BOSTON GLOBE
Visit http://www.boston.com/whitecoatnotes/2012/11/30/umass-memorial-nurses-angered-policy-requiring-masks-for-those-who-decline-flu-shot/kDJVtHmDbdqG876aLUOBdN/story.html to view the full article online.
Hiring a good doctor can be hard enough, but it's doubly difficult if your hospital is in the middle of nowhere and the closest big department store is 100 miles away. That reality has been front and center for Kiley Floyd, the chief of Osborne County (Kan.) Memorial, a small critical access hospital in the northern part of the state. Convincing physicians to come aboard is challenging when they've never heard of the community, there are limited job opportunities for family members and it takes an hour to reach a larger facility.
SOURCE: HOSPITALS & HEALTH NETWORKS
Visit http://www.hhnmag.com/hhnmag/jsp/articledisplay.jsp?dcrpath=HHNMAG/Article/data/12DEC2012/1212HHN_Inbox_HiringHeadache&domain=HHNMAG to view the full article online.
The average age of physicians is on the rise: According to the American Medical Association, about 42 percent of the nation's physicians are more than 55 years old and 21 percent are older than 65. Aging physicians are more likely to lose competency and pose a safety threat to patients, and according to Kaiser Health News report, some hospitals and health systems are beginning to institute physical and cognitive tests to avoid these problems.
SOURCE: BECKER’S HOSPITAL REVIEW
Visit http://www.beckershospitalreview.com/hospital-physician-relationships/are-competency-tests-necessary-for-aging-physicians.html to view the full article online.
Medical practices have been aligning and integrating with hospitals, but the question being asked by those attending the recent MGMA-ACMPE annual meeting was this: Now that we’re aligned and integrated, how do we make it last?
SOURCE: AMERICAN MEDICAL NEWS
Visit http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2012/12/10/bisa1210.htm to view the full article online.
Roughly 38.2 percent of physicians said their income in 2012 is about the same compared with their income in 2011, while 10.4 percent said compensation was up by less than 5 percent, according to a survey from Physicians Practice.
SOURCE: BECKER’S HOSPITAL REVIEW
Visit http://www.beckershospitalreview.com/compensation-issues/physician-compensation-grows-modestly-in-2012.html to view the full article online.
Two years and $8.4 billion into the government's effort to get doctors to take their practices digital, some unintended consequences are starting to emerge. One is a lot of unhappy doctors. In a big survey by Medscape this summer 38 percent of the doctors polled said they were unhappy with their electronic medical records system.
SOURCE: KAISER HEALTH NEWS
Visit http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Stories/2012/December/04/doctors-discontent-electronic-health-records.aspx to view the full article online.
A successful quality approach involves everyone from the bedside to the boardroom to create a hospital-wide patient-oriented culture. This, combined with a systematic approach to delivering care that is safe, effective, efficient, patient-centered, timely, and equitable, is the heart of the American Hospital Association McKesson Quest for Quality Prize.
SOURCE: HOSPITALS & HEALTH NETWORKS
Visit http://www.hhnmag.com/hhnmag/jsp/articledisplay.jsp?dcrpath=HHNMAG/Article/data/08AUG2012/0812HHN_Ahavoices&domain=HHNMAG to view the full article online.
Hospitals would see revenues go up by more than $300 billion over a decade as a result of declining uncompensated care costs if all states expanded their Medicaid programs in 2014, according to a study on the health system reform provision.
SOURCE: AMERICAN MEDICAL NEWS
Visit http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2012/12/10/gvsc1210.htm to view the full article online.
In a recent webinar hosted by Becker's Hospital Review, Scott Regan, founder and CEO of Atlanta-based execution management and strategic planning software company AchieveIt, shared tips for creating a culture of individual accountability and execution. "We live in an era of hyper-execution in which, if we don't execute, somebody will come in, take our market share and surpass us," Mr. Regan said. "We have to figure out how to execute on a much higher level."
SOURCE: BECKER’S HOSPITAL REVIEW
Visit http://www.beckershospitalreview.com/strategic-planning/10-secrets-to-creating-a-culture-of-accountability-and-execution.html to view the full article online.
The rules of the game changed this past year in regards to the hospital's role in evaluating and meeting community need. In the past, hospitals were required to complete an annual community needs assessment, which usually ended up simply as an exercise to meet the requirement and put the plan on the shelf.
SOURCE: HOSPITAL IMPACT
Visit http://www.hospitalimpact.org/index.php/2012/12/05/title_78 to view the full article online.
At nonprofit and for-profit organizations alike, board members consistently identify the most important characteristic they seek in a CEO: an ability to make and execute decisions that are strategic. Strategic decisions are distinguished by their overall importance to the sustainability of the organization and the extent to which they involve uncertainty and resistance.
SOURCE: HOSPITALS & HEALTH NETWORKS
Visit http://www.hhnmag.com/hhnmag/HHNDaily/HHNDailyDisplay.dhtml?id=9540009268 to view the full article online.
While walking back to the infusion center from the hospital cafeteria, my mom briefly stopped and held the wall-railing to catch her breath. Enter a maintenance man 10 feet away who asked, "Would you like a wheelchair?" My mom thanked him but graciously declined and we were on our way once again heading to the elevators. We were both moved by his kind and proactive attention. This man exceeded our expectations and two weeks later we're still talking about him. With four key ingredients, he transformed an ordinary moment into an extraordinary one for us and delivered an exceptional patient experience.
SOURCE: HOSPITAL IMPACT
Visit http://www.hospitalimpact.org/index.php/2012/12/03/title_77 to view the full article online.
