Article published September 22, 2007
Hostility, pettiness jeopardize health-care 'war' in this region
Daniel J. Morissette was senior vice president for finance and strategy at the University of Toledo. He left UT in August to become chief financial officer of Stanford University's health-care system.
|
By DANIEL J. MORISSETTE
BY THE time you read this, my wife, Julie, and I and our three young sons will have moved to California, where I will help lead the Stanford University health-care system.
Stanford is one of the top education, research, and health-care institutions in the country and the world. Perhaps you're saying that it was a no-brainer for us to leave Toledo for this opportunity.
You might be right. Our sons are young enough to move without too much trauma and Julie and I flexible enough to be able to make this dramatic change. My compensation is better, but the housing cost is higher. The organization is larger and, I suppose, the stakes are higher.
However, leaving Toledo after just four years of working at the Medical University of Ohio and the University of Toledo was not an easy decision. The University of Toledo has made great progress in health-care quality, education, and market share. Toledo will never be for Julie and me just a dim memory on our career paths. Instead, the people we met and worked with and socialized with will stay with us.
But something else will stay with us that I suspect I will talk about for years to come. Something, in fact, that I will probably follow on The Blade's Web site. That something is the conflict, or "war" if you will, among the health-care systems of the city.
Please understand that I am not taking a holier-than-thou attitude now that I am more than 2,000 miles from the fray. After all, as the senior financial administrator at MUO and then UT after the merger, I was on one side and willing to do what was needed to promote our mission and point of view. I'm not apologizing for that. My point of view was that the education of future physicians, nurses, medical researchers, therapists, and other medical support personnel was of primary importance.But my career in medical education and health care in Chicago before I moved to Toledo did not prepare me for the pettiness of the health-care wars in Toledo.
As a newcomer to Toledo in late 2003, I did not know the history or understand the deep hostility that permeated the health-care systems here.
One of my first friends told me how over the years independent hospitals had been absorbed in one or another systems. I learned how physicians were professionally "owned" by one or another system and health insurers were prevented from including hospitals from other systems in their network. I saw competing services in pediatrics and trauma, for example, which would have been better combined in a city this size.
And, unfortunately, I saw how the teaching of health-care professionals was often used as a bargaining chip to gain an upper hand. Admittedly, I was not able to fix the problem. The fact is that no one inside any of the systems has been able to fix it. Instead, this is a community problem that both community leaders as well as ordinary citizens have to step in and solve. How can this happen?
First of all, Toledo's elected leaders at both local and state levels have to demand that the health-care system be fixed, both for the sake of education as well as for the well-being of the people. Elected officials also must do whatever they can to relieve the crushing burden of health-care costs that are borne by small companies, unions, and individuals.
Second, citizens who sit on boards connected with the health-care industry must insist that their CEOs and other senior administrators clean up this problem. Board members cannot put personal interests ahead of their corporate duties to run efficient and fair institutions.
Third, citizens and the media must look around the country and find models of cooperation. There must be viable solutions somewhere that are applicable to Toledo. For example, I know there are models in some cities where independent health-care education foundations have been established to ensure that education is taken out of the economic conflict.
Fourth and finally, institutions must come to the understanding themselves that cooperation in the long run will be even more profitable than continual battling.
For Toledo, solving this problem requires a new approach, a breakthrough strategy. What is at stake is the quality of health for all of the region's citizens and the availability of quality physicians and other health-care workers in the face of a growing national shortage.
Competition is generally good in health care; it spurs innovation in techniques, procedures, and technology. Thus, it promotes the safety and well-being of the people we serve. Education must be held harmless in this battle for the wellness of the community.
Let me repeat that Julie and I and our sons will truly miss Toledo. We will watch from a distance and come to visit. And we will hope that the city and region will recognize and achieve its promise of being one of the truly wonderful areas of America.
Daniel J. Morissette was senior vice president for finance and strategy at the University of Toledo. He left UT in August to become chief financial officer of Stanford University's health-care system.
Permanent Link
|
|
 |
|
Search
advertisement
