The Retail Revolution In Health Care: Who Will Win And Who Will Lose?

Retailers are expected to profoundly affect health care delivery by providing an alternative site for basic medical care. Retail health services are described together with their potential impacts on patient\u27s health care providers and payors. This article concludes with implications for health care executives. © 2006 Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, Inc

Blogging And The Health Care Manager

The use of blogs in the workplace has emerged as a communication tool that can rapidly and simultaneously connect managers with their employees, customers, their peers, and other key stakeholders. Nowhere is this connection more critical than in health care, especially because of the uncertainty surrounding health care reform and the need for managers to have access to timely and authentic information. However, most health care managers have been slow to join the blogging bandwagon. This article examines the phenomenon of blogging and offers a list of blogs that every health care manager should read and why. This article also presents a simplified step-by-step process to set up a blog. © 2009 Wolters Kluwer Health | Lippincott Williams & Wilkins

Hidden Workplace Violence: What Your Nurses May Not Be Telling You

Violence in the health care workplace is occurring in a covert fashion; it is occurring at the patient bedside. However, data on workplace violence tend to be underreported and relatively scarce. This article identifies and examines the phenomenon of unreported and underreported workplace violence against nursing staff that is virtually hidden. Health care executives need to be attuned to this type of violence because it may significantly affect their ability to recruit and retain nursing staff. This article provides a synthesis of literature and data from health services administration and nursing and human resources, as well as the experience of the first author. Workplace violence in health care is a critical issue that must be addressed from legal, financial, ethical, and human resources management perspectives. It is a problem for staff providing direct care services to patients with Alzheimer disease. This article suggests strategies and offers a framework for meeting the challenges of managing hidden workplace violence. In addition to the more discrete consequences of violence including physical injury, physical disability, trauma, or even death, the complementary organizational effects call for thoughtful managerial planning and critical thinking. Guidelines for preventing and addressing workplace violence in health care organizations are also published by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. © 2008 Lippincott Williams & Wilkins

The Fear Factor In Healthcare: Employee Information Sharing

This study looks at employee information sharing among hospitals, a topic that is underresearched, underreported, and under the radar for most healthcare leaders. We initiated the research under the assumption that executives in healthcare are reluctant to share employment reference information about staff beyond the employee\u27s name, dates of employment, and position held. We believed executives take this precaution because they fear being sued by the employee for defamation. However, not obtaining the necessary and critical information to hire a competent employee can open the potential employer up to a negligence lawsuit if it hires someone who jeopardizes the safety of patients or staff. Hence, the hiring organization faces a double-edged sword: On one side, it cannot get the critical information on a potential applicant from the previous employer due to a culture of fear in sharing information; on the other side, if it unwittingly hires a poor or dangerous applicant who threatens safety, it runs the risk of a negligence lawsuit for failure to ascertain information before the hire. Prior studies demonstrate that the likelihood of a successful defamation lawsuit is low and information sharing of factual incidents is unlikely to result in successful lawsuits. Why, then, are healthcare executives unwilling to provide comprehensive references when they should be aware that sustaining a culture of silence increases the potential for hiring a bad employee and seriously jeopardizes the security and safety of patients, other staff, and the public? This article\u27s primary contribution to the literature is to offer the first nationwide study to empirically test the current levels of employee information sharing among hospitals. It is also the first study to focus exclusively on healthcare. Furthermore, this research considers factors that might influence executives in their willingness to share employee reference information. The study reveals that a culture of silence is pervasive among hospitals. Although many hospital executives are reluctant to share information, they tend to overestimate the likelihood of being sued (successfully or otherwise) by previous employees for defamation. In addition, this study shows that some hospital executives share negative information about former employees but may do so off the record