“Health Care Summit”
The turmoil and uncertainty surrounding Rhode Island’s health care industry has gone on long enough. We have heard enough about strikes and lockouts. We have heard enough about mergers, acquisitions and layoffs. There are serious questions surrounding the health care industry and health care insurers in Rhode Island, and they need to be answered.
And above all, what we need to focus on is Quality of Care.
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Listen privately to what some of those in the trenches of health care are saying – the visiting nurses, many of whom are now without jobs, the social workers and other care deliverers – and they will say what health care executives have consistently been denying, that yes, indeed, the quality of care is suffering.
We are calling on Dr. Patricia Nolan, director of the Rhode Island Department of Health, Attorney General Sheldon Whitehouse and leaders of the General Assembly to spearhead a health care summit – a forum at which all the parties are present and where we can have an open and honest dialogue about the state of Rhode Island’s health care system, and where it’s going.
It’s not enough to wait and see what happens with the Lifespan/Care New England merger. Nor is it acceptable to stand by and see what happens with the labor dispute at Women & Infants Hospital, or to find out how our home-bound elderly will be able to cope with a system that now has nearly 100 fewer visiting nurses.
The General Assembly is poised to debate several health care bills, including a proposal by Rep. Edward Inman, III, a Democrat from Coventry, that would prevent a health care entity from controlling more than 50 percent of the hospital beds in the state.
We share Inman’s concerns – but not his solution. What really has to happen is that the entire health care environment must be examined. Every angle of the industry – from quality of care to insurance coverage — must be carefully scrutinized.
There is no better example of the need for such scrutiny than the Hospital Conversions Act – adopted two years ago by the General Assembly.
The Act was designed to expand the state’s role regulating hospital mergers and acquisitions. But now two years later, the future of Rhode Island’s $1.5 billion hospital industry is still uncertain.
A health care summit would help make some sense of what is becoming a senseless situation. The public deserves it. The hospitals and their dedicated employees deserve it.
Poor report card
Rhode Island has won another distinction – this one from Governing Magazine. We are the only state to “earn” an F (for flunking) grade for managing our state workforce.
The magazine describes a system that promotes solely by seniority; that ignores job performance when doling out pay raises and promotions; that gives “hefty longevity” bonuses at six-year intervals; and where efforts at personnel reform have never gained any real momentum, falling to the pressures of the unions that represent state employees, and a General Assembly the magazine describes as labor-friendly.
The “F” grade, however, can be misconstrued by some to reflect the quality of work performed by all state workers. That would be unfair. We believe that the majority of the 16,000 state employees are competent and dedicated. However, we also believe that their will to serve the public is often thwarted by a system that fails to reward performance, and that is mired in rules that often discourage employees from going that extra step for the very people for whom they work, the residents of our state.
It’s time that Gov. Lincoln Almond, who very early on in his first term championed personnel reform but never followed through, become aggressive in revamping the system. With no election ahead, the governor can take the risks that -it is hoped– will result in meaningful reform, and maybe earn the state a passing grade the next time Governing Magazine looks at our personnel system.
