Organization: The Service Employees International Union (SEIU)
Location: Washington, D.C.
The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is seeking a talented and forward-thinking individual for the position of HCBS Policy Manager. This is a senior-level position within SEIU Healthcare, one of the union’s three operating divisions, and will report to the Home Care Director. The HCBS Policy Manager will have lead-level responsibility for the following:
Organization: The Service Employees International Union (SEIU)
Location: Los Angeles, CA
SEIU is seeking to hire an expert in health care administration and financing to help analyze, develop, and implement policy recommendations that support the members of Local 721 and the communities served by the safety net system, focusing on Los Angeles County.
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I sat at home with a sense of relief. I had just finished my first month of residency – a grueling inpatient hospital month where I was pushed to new limits. I now finally had my first “golden weekend” (meaning I had both Saturday and Sunday off). More importantly, I had survived my first month without any patient deaths on my service. Given how sick people are when they come to the hospital, I felt pretty good about this result.
That feeling lasted less than 24 hours. As I logged in from home onto the electronic medical record to finish some documentation, I realized one of my patients was in coma due to a sudden stroke. This patient had few clinical symptoms and appeared the healthiest amongst all the patients I managed the entire month. A heavy knot quickly developed in my stomach, as I could not shed the feeling that perhaps I did something wrong. I scoured the medical records, retracing my management. Over the next couple of days I discussed the case with other colleagues and experts in the field, and read in depth on the management of this condition. To my relief it was clear that I did not nor did anyone involved in the patient’s care make an error in management. Unfortunately, however, this patient eventually passed away.
As I reflect on the experience, an important point stands out in my mind. This patient exhibited few signs of being “sick” and was managed very well by all the physicians during the course of the hospital stay, but died. On the other end of the spectrum are patients who appear incredibly sick, and despite a poor prognosis survive against odds. One of the goals of residency is to learn to assess a patient and quickly identify who is in imminent danger and may need immediate attention. Unfortunately, however, physicians cannot predict everything, as situations similar to the one above are not uncommon scenarios. Given this fact it makes the discussion about measuring healthcare and pay for performance very cloudy.
Health 2.0 is excited to announce the two winners of the Enabling Community Use of Data for Cancer Prevention and Control challenge, sponsored by the National Cancer Institute (NCI).
NCI sponsored this challenge to promote the sharing of cancer data between public health entities and communities. Teams were asked to create a web-based or mobile application using datasets from the National Cancer Institute and Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences (DCCPS). The solution needed to enable communities’ use of population data for cancer prevention and control.
The winners of this challenge won a trip to and a speaking role at the 2011 Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences in Koloa, Kauai this coming January.
Congratulations to Teams Oziomo and GSAREH!
To view the official press release, please follow the link to Health 2.0 announces winners of online developer challenge.
If you are interested in participating in a developer challenge please go to http://health2challenge.org and check out the five new challenges live on the site.
“Check Back in a Generation to See if the Health Law Withstands Challenge” suggests the New York Times in an insightful piece that ran earlier this week, which suggests Social Security as a useful comparison. Social Security was enacted in 1935 but benefits didn‚Äôt start until 1941. During that long lag conservatives tried hard to get rid of Social Security and it took 10 years or so before it was firmly entrenched. Now of course conservatives love Social Security and other big entitlement programs they previously railed against, with Medicare being Exhibit A.
Democrats and Republicans realize the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) is most vulnerable over the next few years before it is fully in effect, which is why Democrats designed it to have at least some elements kick in soon and why Republicans are mounting such a furious attack on it now.
It seems to me that history is likely to be on the side of the Democrats. Repeal isn’t going to happen with Obama in office, and if Republicans are somehow successful in having the Supreme Court declare the individual mandate unconstitutional and shave off some of the Act’s edges, what exactly are they going to do then? Health plans are going to scream bloody murder if they don’t get a bunch of healthy new customers –which the mandate is designed to deliver– and I can’t believe Republicans are going to bring back medical underwriting, i.e., exclusion from coverage based on pre-existing conditions.
If Republicans are successful in breaking the back of PPACA, they’ll have handed themselves a poisoned chalice. They have no viable alternative to PPACA, and a collapse is likely to lead to nationalized health care within a few years as employers find health insurance unaffordable and health care costs continue to bankrupt the country.
David E. Williams is co-founder of MedPharma Partners LLC, strategy consultant in technology enabled health care services, pharma, biotech, and medical devices. Formerly with BCG and LEK. MBA (Harvard), BA (Wesleyan)
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