Oneironaut: New and Used Poems

From dream invading penguins to retired poker players, Hermes on a skateboard and Dionysus drinking Mad Dog, butterflies and stock markets, astronomy explained with Jell-O, flying pianos and elves who work at the grocery store - this second collection of poetry from Mark Bonica, following up on Accounting, An Introduction , explores a variety of emotions, moods, and life moments using devices from the understated ordinary to the fantastical

Healthcare Management Primer

This primer was written by students enrolled in HMP 721.01, Management of Health Care Organizations, in the Health Management & Policy Program, College of Health and Human Services, University of New Hampshire. This course was taught by Professor Mark Bonica in Fall 2017

Risk Factors Associated with Opioid Misuse Among Military Personnel

Risk Factors Associated with Opioid Misuse Among Military Personnel Opioid overdoses are increasing among military personnel. Opioids are a class of drugs that include heroin, synthetic opioids, and pain relievers. Almost half of all Veterans returning from deployment in Afghanistan and Iraq have chronic pain; one in six veterans turn to opioids for pain relief. Veterans between the ages of eighteen and fifty-three are five times as likely to have a Substance Use Disorder and two times as likely to have Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in contrast to the general public. Risk factors that have been shown to increase the probability of misusing opioids in the literature include prior history of substance abuse, alcohol use, mental illness, age, and male gender. However, these risk factors are not always consistent. Methods: Data were obtained from the Opioid Registry for the military. The opioid registry contains information about opioid data management and reporting platform developed through Carepoint Military Health System Population Health Portal. For this research, hospice, palliative, and cancer treatment patients as well as all nonmilitary personnel were removed from the data set. The final analytic sample was N=10,422. An opioid misuse variable was developed which represented patients using opioids for over 30 days. Multivariate logistic regression models were utilized to estimate associations between opioid misuse and patient-level risk factors (N=10,422). Results: Results from the logistic regression models showed that: Air Force service (compared to Army) and Active Duty status had lower risk of opioid misuse Depression, PTSD, and serious mental illness have are associated with increased risk of opioid misuse for both genders. These associations were further explored in gender-stratified models. Age slightly increases the risk of opioid misuse. Sleep apnea increases the risk of opioid misuse, particularly for males

Learned the Hard Way: A Model of Executive Leadership Competencies

Earlier this fall, Bonica was able to publish a paper with his colleagues Chris Mayhugh and Mark Mellott, based on the Health Leader Forge podcast interviews. The paper is called Learned the Hard Way: A Model of Executive Leadership Competencies. Using qualitative research methods, we analyzed the interviews and focused especially, though not exclusively, on answers executives gave to one of his favorite questions, what is a leadership lesson you learned the hard way? The paper was originally presented at the 2019 American College of Healthcare Executives annual congress. He recorded the presentation live, so the sound quality isn’t studio, You can check out the full paper here (free): https://globaljournals.org/GJMBR_Volume20/5-Learned-the-Hard-Way-A-Model.pd

Quarantine Graduation Special

A special edition of the Health Leader Forge dedicated to the University of New Hampshire Health Management and Policy Class of 2020 and all of the future health leaders who are graduating this spring. In this podcast, Bonica goes back through the archives and gather advice for early careerists from nine previous guests. Bonica then share a little advice of his own, and closes with a reading of a passage from Henry David Thoreau\u27s Walden

Mark Mellott, Senior Director, Cerner Corporation

Mark Mellott is a senior director with the Cerner Corporation. Prior to joining Cerner in 2017, Mark served in the Army first as a combat medic, and later as a Medical Service Corps officer specializing in health information systems management. He describes the field of health information systems management as the confluence of people, problems, and technology, and it was helping people solve problems through the appropriate and efficient use of technology that drew him to the field. In particular, some fifteen years ago Mark began thinking about the problem of electronic health records in combat zones and how to ensure the information about injured soldiers was being captured and preserved. Mark had observed this problem during his deployments to Kosovo and Iraq. This passion led him to earn a PhD in policy and to deploy to Afghanistan to test his theories. After retiring from the Army, he followed his passion for improving medical records to the Cerner Corporation where he is part of the team working to deploy an integrated electronic medical record to both the Department of Defense and Veterans Administration

Christopher M. Callahan, VP of HR, Exeter Health Resources

The guest in this episode of The Health Leader Forge is Christopher Callahan, the Vice President of Human Resources for Exeter Health Systems in Exeter, New Hampshire. Exeter Health Resources is a healthcare system that includes the Exeter Hospital, a 100-bed community hospital, Core Physicians, a multispecialty physician group, and Rockingham VNA. Chris has over 35 years of experience in human resource management in the healthcare industry, having served in a number of hospitals and health systems prior to coming to Exeter Health Resources. Human resources is a critical support function in any organization, and it has evolved dramatically, as Chris explains in the interview, from a tactical, routine paper work driven service to a strategic asset that can have a powerful impact on an organization’s success

Marie Vienneau, FACHE, President & CEO, Mayo Hospital

Marie Vienneau is the President and CEO of Mayo Hospital in Dover Foxcroft, Maine. Mayo Hospital is a critical access hospital in rural central Maine. Mayo Hospital is the primary hospital for the 17,000 residents of Piscataquis county, spread over a land mass roughly the size of Connecticut. Prior to coming to Mayo Hospital, Marie worked at Millinocket Regional Hospital, in her home town of Millinocket, Maine, where she rose from staff nurse to President and CEO. During her tenure, like much of rural Maine, the two paper mills that were the economic engines of her community closed down. Vienneau and Marc Bonica talk at length about what it is like leading a non-profit community hospital during a time of economic downturn, and how she led the organization and worked with the community to care for her fellow residents. Marie has been the President and CEO of Mayo Hospital since 2014. Mayo Hospital has a unique governance structure: it is a quasi-governmental entity governed by a Hospital Administrative District, which Bonica was not familiar with. They discuss how this governance structure is different from the typical non-profit hospital’s governance structure and the challenges of working in this different environment. Mayo Hospital is currently in negotiations to merge with Northern Light Health, formerly the Eastern Maine Health System, one of the three largest health systems in Maine, and they discuss some of the challenges of going through a merger process. They close on a discussion of leadership

Colonel Tanya Peacock, Commander, BG Crawford F. Sams Army Health Clinic/MEDDAC-Japan

Today’s guest is my friend and former colleague, Colonel Tanya Peacock. Colonel Peacock has had a fascinating career from being a medevac pilot flying black hawks to being the vice provost of the Army Medical Department’s facility for training the majority of medical specialties in the Army, to being the Commander of the BG Crawford F. Sams Army Health Clinic in Camp Zama Japan. In this podcast, Colonel Peacock shares her career journey, what it was like to command a military clinic in a foreign country during a pandemic, and we conclude with advice for emerging leaders