Happy 4th!

Listening to Meg Hutchinson radio this morning on Pandora, sipping coffee, and enjoying the start to the long weekend, I contemplate life after my stint as CEO at Hilltown Community Health Center.  In my years at the health center, I focussed on improving the infrastructure to support a more efficient operation and one that would improve patient safety.  Hence, the introduction of an EMR, for example.  I also worked hard to be as transparent as possible in corporate decision making, budgeting, and strategic planning.  And although I made some progress on these issues, largely, I am leaving the health center pretty much the way I found it–a sleepy, backwater of a place reluctantly finding itself in the 21st century–dressed in 19th century clothing.  You get the feel in the place that the technology, the transparency, the patient-centered medical home systems put in to place are simply skin grafts that will ultimately be rejected by the host organism.  I am disappointed.  

 

Welcome!

Now that I am finally leaving my 24X7 job as CEO of a federally qualified health center after nearly ten years, it occurred to me that I might have some interesting observations about healthcare worth sharing and discussing with anyone interested in how healthcare works in this country.  I think the time is now for the people to observe, comment, suggest, and recommend about what really matters in healthcare delivery systems.

I hope that this blog will be interesting and useful for practice administrators, thought leaders in healthcare, consumers and staff of federally qualified health centers, and particularly those of us who are dissatisfied with the current experience of getting care.  I also plan to focus from time to time on the use of technology in healthcare–the good and the bad.

I look forward to sharing with you.

Ed