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Showing posts with label community health. Show all posts
Showing posts with label community health. Show all posts
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
MBGH 2010 Health & Productivity Forum Panel Featured in Business Insurance
Click here to read the Business Insurance article.
Friday, February 19, 2010
MBGH Leading Employer Contributions to Improving Health in Memphis
MBGH supports the Commercial Appeal's call for employers, churches, civic organizations, and government to get involved in improving health in Memphis..each group should work within their sphere of influence & responsibility to contribute to the overall improvement in our community's health...MBGH is taking leadership in working with employers by sharing solutions and providing employers tools includng health benefit design, worksite health-related programs, and building an overall culture of health to improve the health and productivity of their employees and to use their health benefit dollars efficiently.
Click here to read the editorial.
Click here to read the editorial.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Check Out How Shelby County Ranks
Check out how Shelby County ranks in the County Health Rankings just released by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation & the University of Wisconsin. Click here to get to a snapshot of Shelby County's results.
Our biggest opportunities are in improving health behaviors (especially obesity, binge drinking, chlamydia rate, and teen pregnancy rate) and our physical environment (including air pollution, access to healthy foods, and liquor store density).
Shelby County's socieo-economic status also significantly affects our rankings. Our low high school graduation rates, high rates of children in poverty, high percentage of single-parent households, and high violent crime rate all impact our score.
We scored ok on clinical care with moderate improvement opportunities in most measures.
The rankings consider:
Mortality
Morbidity
Health behaviors
Clinical care
Social & economic factors
Physical environment.
Our biggest opportunities are in improving health behaviors (especially obesity, binge drinking, chlamydia rate, and teen pregnancy rate) and our physical environment (including air pollution, access to healthy foods, and liquor store density).
Shelby County's socieo-economic status also significantly affects our rankings. Our low high school graduation rates, high rates of children in poverty, high percentage of single-parent households, and high violent crime rate all impact our score.
We scored ok on clinical care with moderate improvement opportunities in most measures.
The rankings consider:
Mortality
Morbidity
Health behaviors
Clinical care
Social & economic factors
Physical environment.
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
How Do We Save the Med?
The discussion on how to save the Regional Medical Center at Memphis (the Med) is heating up. The Med's Board has indicated that it will close the emergency room, 70 medical/surgical beds, and outpatient clinics if $32 million is not found by February 2010.
An idea floated by Shelby County Commissioner Mike Ritz is to add a 2% tax on all hospital services in Shelby County (click here). A letter to the editor from Gary Shorb, CEO of Methodist Healthcare calls for "public support" of the Med (click here), but is unclear as to what form that support should take. Gary Gunderson and Scott Morris, in a special Viewpoint column today (click here), call upon us to "pray with all of your might for the health of our city, for those who will be affected if The Med emergency room is closed. We also call on all to pray for the strength to make wise decisions that will lead Memphis to be a city where rich and poor alike have the benefit of being cared for when we are most vulnerable."
This last call by Gunderson & Morris is a call to action to make "wise decisions". But what is the wisest decision? To burden those who are paying the high cost of health care by adding an additional 2% tax to their already high bill could have dire unintended consequences. One of those consequences could be pricing health care services out of reach of even more people, adding to the community burden of the uninsured. The call for public support could possibly take the form of a broad-based strategy to raise revenue for the Med. After all, if it is indeed a community resource or "utility" then don't we all have a role to play in keeping it viable?
One last thought: as I wrote to the CA back in August 2008 (click here), the Med owes us something in return for our financial support. It owes us a well-run, efficient hospital offering our community the highest quality care for the services it provides. As Gary Shorb points out, the Med has made progress in these areas. However, the Med should make a commitment to be held publicly accountable for the cost and quality of their care by agreeing to publicly report their progress in implementing critical patient safety and quality improvements by reporting, like the other Memphis-area hospitals, to The Leapfrog Group Annual Hospital Survey (click here).
We are being asked to dig deep into our pockets as citizens to support the Med, and the Med should prioritize showing us that it is worthy of this support.
An idea floated by Shelby County Commissioner Mike Ritz is to add a 2% tax on all hospital services in Shelby County (click here). A letter to the editor from Gary Shorb, CEO of Methodist Healthcare calls for "public support" of the Med (click here), but is unclear as to what form that support should take. Gary Gunderson and Scott Morris, in a special Viewpoint column today (click here), call upon us to "pray with all of your might for the health of our city, for those who will be affected if The Med emergency room is closed. We also call on all to pray for the strength to make wise decisions that will lead Memphis to be a city where rich and poor alike have the benefit of being cared for when we are most vulnerable."
This last call by Gunderson & Morris is a call to action to make "wise decisions". But what is the wisest decision? To burden those who are paying the high cost of health care by adding an additional 2% tax to their already high bill could have dire unintended consequences. One of those consequences could be pricing health care services out of reach of even more people, adding to the community burden of the uninsured. The call for public support could possibly take the form of a broad-based strategy to raise revenue for the Med. After all, if it is indeed a community resource or "utility" then don't we all have a role to play in keeping it viable?
One last thought: as I wrote to the CA back in August 2008 (click here), the Med owes us something in return for our financial support. It owes us a well-run, efficient hospital offering our community the highest quality care for the services it provides. As Gary Shorb points out, the Med has made progress in these areas. However, the Med should make a commitment to be held publicly accountable for the cost and quality of their care by agreeing to publicly report their progress in implementing critical patient safety and quality improvements by reporting, like the other Memphis-area hospitals, to The Leapfrog Group Annual Hospital Survey (click here).
We are being asked to dig deep into our pockets as citizens to support the Med, and the Med should prioritize showing us that it is worthy of this support.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Leaving Dallas with my head swimming over Baylor's "Southern Sector Health Initiative"
I learned that Baylor healthcare system has an equity project in South Dallas that is partnering with City of Dallas using a parks & rec facility to create a "medical mansion" (vs. a medical home) that will integrate health, wellness, recreation, medical care and focus on the social-determinants of health as well as health care. WOW!!!! Could we do that in Memphis too?
Click here to read more on this project.
Click here to read more on this project.
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