Thursday, March 30, 2006

Do Health Care Managers Think "L'Organisation de la Sante C'est Moi?"

The thinking behind a comment that recently appeared on this blog bears examination beyond the reply I added in our "comments" section.

An anonymous commentator, responding to a post that addressed questions raised in the media about managers who left the troubled University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ) to work for Drexel University Medical School, wrote,

Through Drexel leadership, the medical school just finished an outstanding LCME review, a very good match, outstanding board scores and fiscal solvency.
"Through Drexel leadership?" Based on my experience in medical education, I would argue, instead, that the people most responsible for good results in an accreditation review, in placing students into residencies, and in board examinations are the students themselves (especially related to the latter two), and the faculty who taught them. Medical school managers, of course, help provide the infrastructure and manage the financing that enables medical education to succeed. But giving the management first credit for educational results is somewhat grandiose. Managers may deserve more credit for fiscal solvency. But so do the students who pay the tuition, and the hard-working health care professionals and support personnel who actually do most of the work.

We have posted previously about how health care managers and bureaucrats seem to believe that what they do is central and more important than anyone else's work to their organizations.

For example, see this post which quotes the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Pheobe Putney Health System, "we'll manage it the way we damn well want."

Also, see this post about how the merger with UnitedHealth Group resulted in rich rewards for Pacificare executives. Wall Street analysts thought that the executives were deserving of huge financial rewards for the "risk" they took in trying to turn around a troubled health care company. However, it was their stock-holders who were at financial risk. The executives were paid employees, whose salaries were no more, and possibly less at risk than any other employees if the corporation were to fail.

The attitudes in these three cases seem analogous to that attributed to the French King Louis XIV, "l'etat c'est moi." Managers' apparent beliefs that they are of the most central importance to the medical school, the hospital system, or the managed care company negate the contributions of all the other dedicated people who make these organizations work. The managers perhaps believe that they in effect are owners of these organizations, which, of course, they do not actually own.

This notion that "l'organisation de la sante c'est moi" may represent some of the garbled thinking underlying our presently mismanged health care system.

(I apologize to all and sundry if I have made any errors using the French language. My language education was unfortunately stunted.)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

MHRA - In whose Interests?

The recent TeGenero drug trial debacle was an accident waiting to happen. As long as the Pharmaceutical Industry continues to suppress clinical trial data the MHRA (Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency) will walk blindly and feed the British public false information.

News this week that GlaxoSmithKline knowingly withheld clinical trial data from the MHRA regarding the top selling anti-depressant drug Seroxat will add further fuel to the fire and hopefully push for an independent review into how the MHRA could be duped into believing that a drug they have reviewed on numerous occasions was safe.

The MHRA are made up of medical experts, some of whom are former employees and shareholders of the pharmaceutical companies they grant licenses to. Surely this is wrong and at the very least there is the suspicion of a conflict of interest?

For too long now the MHRA have been hoodwinked by the Pharmaceutical Industry. Lawsuits for damages in respect of harm caused to patients are popping up all over the place, but avoid media and public scrutiny because they are usually settled out of court on the proviso that evidence is not made public.

A public enquiry is needed to examine how the MHRA is run and why former Pharmaceutical Industry directors are allowed onto the board. Would a convicted drink driver be allowed to adjudicate on a road safety panel?

The MHRA need to pull the plug NOW on their close associations with the Pharmaceutical Industry. The British public expects and naively assumes impartiality and not a regulatory authority whose main interest seems to be one of ‘delivering jobs for the boys.’



Mr Robert Fiddaman (Group Moderator of the Online Seroxat Support Group)

Steve said...

Not too many people have commented. That's too bad. I found the post because I googled "l'organisation, c'est moi." I thought I made up that phrase. In fact, you apparently did. I am concerned, like you, that as health care becomes more "organizational" that it becomes less likely to provide quality care because the people running it don't have the slightest notion what medical quality looks like. The guy that ran BC/BS Indiana in 2004 justified his $5M salary because he "improved quality." His previous job was to run a trucking company.
Clinicians must define and defend quality. We're stuck with the results of bad management, anyway. Heck the trucking guy will just go back to trucking when healthcare fails. Where will docs go?
P. Stephen novack, D.O.
founder: PhysicansWorkplace.com