Glasnost at Broward Health?
They must be ice-skating in hell.
After more than a half-century of government in the darkest shade, the North Broward Hospital District has made it's spending habits (budget) easily available (open) to the public via its website at browardhealth.org.
Or as Motel Kamzoil the Tailor sang in Fiddle on the Roof:
“Wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles...”
In this case, the wonder of wonders happened within the past week or so.
North Broward taxpayers and patients can thank District Commissioners Rhonda Calhoun and Robert Bernstein for ordering a startled hospital staff to post the basics of giant hospital conglomerate's $2.1 billion budget on the internet.
Call it a remarkable bit of local glasnost in a healthcare system that has defied public scrutiny for years.
Okay.
The North District's budgetary data on the internet is far less comprehensive (and meaningful) than the more detailed charts, graphs, numbers and notes the South Broward (Memorial Regional) Hospital District posts on its website at mhs.net.
However...
As a longtime and very public critic of the North District's culture of extreme shade and backroom politics, I'm delighted with Broward Health's decision to go even modestly public with its spending habits.
Why?
Cultures change slowly – be they political, religious, or corporate.
But amazing things can and do happen when a culture's innate resistance to change is broken by even the slightest shift from has always been to what should be.
Which is why, in my cynical book, Commissioners Calhoun and Bernstein are deserving of huzzahs, hosannas and kudos for challenging the siege mentality and paranoia that – for decades – has dominated one of the largest tax-funded health care systems in the nation.
How so?
For years, Broward's two giant tax-funded hospital systems have been defined by two highly disparate cultures:
Under the strong leadership of South District CEO Frank Sacco, the healthcare culture at Memorial Regional has been one of, "Face it and fix it."
But this has hardly been the case at Broward Health, where -- driven by politics and greed -- the culture has been one of "Deny it and hide it."
So now Broward Health Commissioners Calhoun and Bernstein have challenged the North Broward Hospital District's historic denial system -- by ordering hospital officials to start telling the public the truth..
Which, in my book, is where and how real health care reform must begin.
After more than a half-century of government in the darkest shade, the North Broward Hospital District has made it's spending habits (budget) easily available (open) to the public via its website at browardhealth.org.
Or as Motel Kamzoil the Tailor sang in Fiddle on the Roof:
“Wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles...”
In this case, the wonder of wonders happened within the past week or so.
North Broward taxpayers and patients can thank District Commissioners Rhonda Calhoun and Robert Bernstein for ordering a startled hospital staff to post the basics of giant hospital conglomerate's $2.1 billion budget on the internet.
Call it a remarkable bit of local glasnost in a healthcare system that has defied public scrutiny for years.
Okay.
The North District's budgetary data on the internet is far less comprehensive (and meaningful) than the more detailed charts, graphs, numbers and notes the South Broward (Memorial Regional) Hospital District posts on its website at mhs.net.
However...
As a longtime and very public critic of the North District's culture of extreme shade and backroom politics, I'm delighted with Broward Health's decision to go even modestly public with its spending habits.
Why?
Cultures change slowly – be they political, religious, or corporate.
But amazing things can and do happen when a culture's innate resistance to change is broken by even the slightest shift from has always been to what should be.
Which is why, in my cynical book, Commissioners Calhoun and Bernstein are deserving of huzzahs, hosannas and kudos for challenging the siege mentality and paranoia that – for decades – has dominated one of the largest tax-funded health care systems in the nation.
How so?
For years, Broward's two giant tax-funded hospital systems have been defined by two highly disparate cultures:
Under the strong leadership of South District CEO Frank Sacco, the healthcare culture at Memorial Regional has been one of, "Face it and fix it."
But this has hardly been the case at Broward Health, where -- driven by politics and greed -- the culture has been one of "Deny it and hide it."
So now Broward Health Commissioners Calhoun and Bernstein have challenged the North Broward Hospital District's historic denial system -- by ordering hospital officials to start telling the public the truth..
Which, in my book, is where and how real health care reform must begin.
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