Who should govern the Cook County Bureau of Health Services?
The current rubric gives the Cook County Board responsibility for oversight of public health and health care. We need experts who know how to run hopsitals and clinics. Most experts agree that the Cook County Board must relinquish oversight to an independent health commission. This is not new news. Earlier this year health experts, under the umbrella of Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine came together and recommended this.
You can read the whole report from Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine about important priorities and directions that can be taken by Cook County Bureau of Health. The authors of this report should know. They are all veterans of the Cook County Bureau of Health Care system. They have worked there. They know the inside information. There are successful models from around the country that they draw upon in the recommendations section.
Not to be left out, Cook County Board President Stroger appointed his own Blue Ribbon Commission. Read the Blue Ribbon Commission Report to get a sense that we run health care in our County as if it was some feifdom from the middle ages. Time to turn it over to the experts in hospital management, public health systems and financial outcomes. We'll see if President Stroger has the political courage to follow these recommendations.
Sunday, November 11, 2007
Saturday, November 3, 2007
Death and Health Insurance
This column by Bob Herbert column by Bob Herbert in the NY Times got me thinking about the relationship between health insurance and what physicians write on death certificates. Does lack of health insurance increase the risk of death?
This letter was not published, but 2 by others took a different approach.
November 3, 2007
To the Editor:
Re “Worsening the Odds” (Op-Ed, Nov 3): Bob Herbert describes the unfortunate case of a 45 year old medically uninsured craftsman with progressive headaches who died of metastatic cancer to the brain. He suggests that lack of health insurance contributed to the cause of death.
At our inner-city community health center, 70% of the adults we serve lack health insurance. We commonly see preventable complications of disease.
In Illinois, physicians must enter the official cause of death on the death certificate. On the following two lines physicians may choose to add that the death was “Due to or as a consequence of …” Perhaps we should routinely write “lack of health insurance” or “inability to obtain preventive care” on these lines. By doing so, the role played by this important factor will become an official part of the public record.
This letter was not published, but 2 by others took a different approach.
November 3, 2007
To the Editor:
Re “Worsening the Odds” (Op-Ed, Nov 3): Bob Herbert describes the unfortunate case of a 45 year old medically uninsured craftsman with progressive headaches who died of metastatic cancer to the brain. He suggests that lack of health insurance contributed to the cause of death.
At our inner-city community health center, 70% of the adults we serve lack health insurance. We commonly see preventable complications of disease.
In Illinois, physicians must enter the official cause of death on the death certificate. On the following two lines physicians may choose to add that the death was “Due to or as a consequence of …” Perhaps we should routinely write “lack of health insurance” or “inability to obtain preventive care” on these lines. By doing so, the role played by this important factor will become an official part of the public record.
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