Friday we had our quarterly leadership development institute. It is sort of a retreat day where we focus on a particular topic or issue. This one was a reflection of last year’s accomplishments and next year’s goals, but the day began with a presentation of a report, the result of a effort by the New Jersey Hospital Association to obtain an independent and objective analysis (a “warts and all” review) of the state of New Jersey’s hospitals. They chose Accenture, which I think did a great job.

Before I worked at Lourdes, I worked for a hospital trade association and I’ve seen a lot of reports. Some can be self-serving, but this one is quite good because it demonstates that everyone needs to try harder in order to make real improvements in the in the delivery of care.

Up until now, I’ve spent my healthcare career in Pennsylvania. When I started at Lourdes last year, I could tell that the regulatory environment was much different, and in particular the organization of physicians and their relationships with hospitals. The Accenture presentation helped to clarify those differences and to point out how public policy, government programs and compensatory behavior conspire to create circumstances that impact hospitals, and more importantly, the patients they serve.

As just one example: New Jersey ranks 33rd in the use of hospice care among Medicare patients in the last stages of life. That means a lot of things. It means patients are probably being overtreated. It can mean that doctors and nurses are failing to have good, honest discussions with families. It means families and patients are not facing reality and demanding that “everything be done” when in fact the compassionate and decent thing would be to make sure the patient is provided as many dignified and pain-free last days as possible.

A summary of the report can be found at: http://www.njha.com/publications/HCNJ/HCNJV15No6.pdf

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 27th, 2007 at 10:40 am and is filed under Health and Society, Healthcare Marketing, Lourdes Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.