Twenty years or more, I proudly state that I am a Hospital Administrator with a clinical provider background. I have applied hundreds of positions on the ACHE Job Bank for CEO over the last five years without one response or interview. I am a member and Fellow of the ACHE for over twenty years and have suspicions that MBA is preferred in closed doors over old school MHA overwhelmingly by the hospital Board of Directors of America who place our hospital CEOs.

My Hospital Administrator mentality is simple; patient service first in an efficient and effective community facility devoid of the lust for monumental “bricks & mortar” five sandwich eating bond begging business boys of Harvard or wherever. We say, Hospital Administrator for the chosen profession of serving as Administrator in a community hospital; Chief Executive Officer is an admirable business vocation for banking, retail, insurance companies, auto industry and all the other proud members of the TARP Bailout.

Happy Non-profit and/or For-profit New Year!

Strict privacy exisits in EU countries, more than in the US, and healthcare outcomes are generally better. The Confidentiality Coalition needs to actually promote privacy, for a change, or drink a tall cup of STFU.

RE: State-specific state-specific regulations relating to privacy, patient care, prescriptions, state billing, etc. “Nobody talks about the inefficiency they create and the questionable benefits they provide.”

HISPC talked about them (and was mostly ignored), HL7 meetings discuss them plus international data-sharing, and HITSP has made accomodations for those differences in its work products. What “nobody” does is enact laws and regulations that change the status quo. I hope this is on the 2009 agenda for the Obama administration and Congress.

As for Dr. Benovitz, …. he used to see three.

“I think it should improve quality of care,” he said of the city’s data mining, noting that “there are so many assumptions we have that are later disproven.”

And he is not afraid of being ranked: “Being told that I am subpar in a given area can only improve my performance, which is fine.”

This raises the age old question: Sould Dr. Benovitz see as many patients as he can or should he take the time to correctly treat the ones he can see?