Opinion
Kansan
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY
Published daily since 1912
Spencer Duncan, Editor Sarah Scherwinski, Business manager Lindsey Henry, Managing editor Brian Pagel, Retail sales manager Andrea Albright, Managing advisor Dan Simon, Sales and marketing adviser Tom Eblen, General manager, news adviser Justin Knupp, Technology coordinator
4A
Tuesday, August 26, 1997
Andrew Saeger / KANSAN
Examining
Medical Center's hospital needs less bureaucracy for survival
Many KU medical students call the University's medical center hospital their second home. It serves not only as a health care facility but also as an intensive hands-on training ground for students hoping to become doctors, nurses and other medical professionals.
However, this center for education and medical care is currently fearing a downward spiral under the jurisdiction of the Board of Regents. The administrative hierarchy—KU officials report to the Board which then reports to the legislature and Governor Bill Graves—has raised concerns about the effects bureaucratic red tape has upon the hospital's competitive edge in the health care community.
In a period of a rapidly changing and increasingly competitive health care market, university hospitals nationwide have felt the burdens of cost-cutting and competition. The KU hospital is no exception. Recently, the bureaucracy has hindered the hospital's ability to react quickly to shifts in the health care industry increasingly influenced by managed care plans resulting in declining in-patient utilization.
Under the current legislative budget process it takes an average of two years to make significant and often necessary changes within the hospital. In addition, although the hospital operates in a free market, it does not have the flexibility other private or non-profit Kansas City hospitals do in dealing with wages, personnel, purchasing, program decisions and construction projects. Legislative restrictions insisting the hospital sign no long-term contracts or issue bonds prevent, among other things, the development of special clinics and increases in market share.
On their own
The state legislature allocates 80 million dollars annually to the KU Medical Center but none of these funds are available to the hospital. The medical center budget increases in accordance with state employee pay raises while the hospital itself is responsible for generating additional revenues to comply with salary edicts from the state. The hospital's 140 million dollar budget is generated solely by Medicare provided patients, a rarity among the nation's university hospitals. With a 74 million dollar payroll making it the largest employer in Wyandotte County and 22 million dollars in expenses toward indigent care for patients without insurance or other financial means, the hospital is challenged in the face of a legislative budget system restraining it from moving ahead in the health care market. For example, one department within the hospital maintains a budget with 8,000 line items leading to frequent supply problems. In addition, the drop in patient care hospital revenue limits education and research subsidies.
Time for change
Earlier this year, a Washington based consulting group hired by the state outlined the need for change within the governing structure of the hospital. By the insistence of Donald Hagen, executive vice chancellor of the Medical Center, Chancellor Robert Menenway, with permission from the Board of Regents, crafted a bill proposing the elimination of the Board and legislature's jurisdiction over the hospital. The proposal, similar to those proven successful in university hospitals in Colorado and Arizona, calls for a 16-member public governing board to obtain management and decision-making control of the hospital. The public authority would consist of community leaders with expertise in business and legal affairs, the chancellor, regents, legislators, governor's appointees and KU administrators. All 3,000 hospital personnel would be
offered positions with the new authority and the hospital would remain a state-affiliated organization and continue to operate in sync with the medical center. The bill also requests the legislature and authority to establish a formula for financing hospital education programs and indigenic care.
The end result
The elimination of red tape would immediately provide the hospital with more flexibility while retaining governmental immunity and funding. With the administration of the public authority, it would become easier to raise capital and streamline purchasing procedures resulting in equipment upgrades and improved billing. The hospital would be in a better position to form partnerships with other health care providers and medical care organizations. Aside from increasing overall net income, the implementation of the proposal also promises to increase impatient admissions and outpatient visits, expand cash reserves, improve employee morale, increase market share, generate money for investment in clinical programs and almost double research grants and contracts.
Graves supported the bill and the Senate approved it 40-0. The House passed an amended version 102-20 but they failed to reach a compromise with the Senate this year. Debate centered around the number and types of people to serve on the governing board and an amendment banning abortion in the hospital. For now, KU officials hope to gain passage of a similar bill in 1998.
Hemenway, faced with ensuring the survival of the hospital, admits that reform seems to be sweeping the nation's academic and medical centers' governance structures. The University's 91-year old hospital and its medical students and professionals alike would greatly benefit from similar reform.
Nadia Mustafa for the editorial board
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Broaden your mind: Today's quote
"You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows."
—Bob Dylan
Letters: Should be double-spaced typed and fewer than 200 words. Letters must include the author's signature, name, address and telephone number plus class and home-town if a University student. Faculty or staff must identify their positions.
How to submit letters and quest columns
Guest columns: Should be double-spaced typed with fewer than 700 words. The writer must be willing to be photographed for the column to run.
All letter and guest columns should be submitted to the Kansan newsroom, 111 Staufer-Flint Hall. The Kansan reserves the right to edit, cut to length or reject all submissions. For any questions, call Bradley Brooks (brooks@kansan.com) or Jason Strait (jstrait@kansan.com) at 864-4810. If you have generic questions or comments, e-mail the page staff (opinion@kansan.com) or call 864-4810.
Observing
Veteran of campus life longs for days of old
Another year, another book of coupons. After seven Hawk Weeks, the thrill is gone.
Hawk Week once featured the traditional
rites of passage for most new Jayhawks: your first roommate, your first waving of the wheat, your first hangover, etc. Now, thanks to rampant commercialization, students can score their first cellular phones, credit cards and J Crew catalogs.
I once had a fondness for pizza coupons, credit card solicitors and poster sales. Seven years after first enrolling here, I'm a few pounds heavier, somewhat
Rob
MacRae
ipinion@kansan.com
in debt, and deathly bored with my House Party movie poster (never mind that it throws off my bedroom's color scheme something awful). Just a warning for anyone eyeing that Pulp Fiction poster.
Lately I've been yearning for my days as a young KU student during the idyllic early 1990s. Ah, that halcyon time, the early 90s.
You could enjoy a Pepsi or even a Diet Rite without fear of losing corporate sponsorship. Instead, you'd only lose a tooth. All this flap about unhealthy carbonated beverages, and not one mention of our chlordane-tainted local water supply.
Financially strapped student organizations (that is, 99 percent of all student organizations) had free access to the "On Campus" events calendar in the "Kansan." To hear the editor explain it, this new policy ensures the quality of listings. (In other words, one must pay for fair treatment.) Never mind that our student fees already help cover the paper's printing costs. Whose fault is it that those full-page phone company ads restrict the space available for student groups?
Candidates for student government managed to keep their indiscretions under wraps until after the election. Oh, the stories I could tell to the new students unaware of any wrongdoing on the part of their elected representatives.
Fols smoked inside Wescoe Hall, drank beer on the Hill at football games, and spent hours in line enrolling inside the sauna called Strong Hall ... I guess some things never change.
What brought about my latest bout of nostal
gia? Blame VH-1 and its relentless marathons of retro-gramming. They have inflicted us with episodes of "The Monkees," a day of "Grease," and even an "Elvis Pop-Up Video." I suppose VH-1 could sponsor more inane marathons, such as "Sewing With Nancy" or "The Torkelsons." Speaking of which, accidentally caught an episode of "The Torkelsons" on the Disney channel that featured Patty Duke as a guest star. And not a week before I'd been admiring her star turn as Neele O'Hara in "Valley of the Dolls." How the mighty have fallen.
Anyway, this time around VH-1 aired "Eight Days of 80s." Whip it good, indeed.
Sometimes I fell for it. For instance, listening to Joan Jett and Billy Squier brought to mind those far-off and tempestuous days of my unruly childhood. If you're thinking of the movie "Kids," with foul-mouthed pre-teens indulging in illegal drugs and casual sex, forget it. Think "Xanadu," the rock musical with Olivia Newton-John as a Greek muse on roller skates.
The local roller rink stayed open until midnight on Saturdays, and I showed up each weekend with wheels on. We yelled along to "I Love Rock N'Roll" and made rude gestures during "The Stroke." After getting knocked down early during a game of "War," I'd play air hockey, Ms. Pac-man, or Tron. This was one rough-and-tumble roller rink for a 10-year old like myself. Come over sometime and I'll show you the scars.
Courtess of VH-1, I relived those memories. Unfortunately, for each transcendent moment when VH-1 struck a chord, along came some over-played rubbish such as "Tainted Love" or an AM-radio anthem like "Kyrie." Then, during each commercial break, were a slew of commercials for 80s compilations. This "nostalgia for sale" attitude on VH-1 cheapened the precious uniqueness of my memories, reducing my childhood into three easy monthly installments.
Both VH-1 and Hawk Week demonstrate to me that modern living seems to be less about profoundly experiencing life first-hand and more about buying into a fad fabricated by corporations.
That's the one good thing about those omnipresent coupon books: everything may have its price, but it has its discount as well.
MacRae is a Lawrence graduate student in urban planning.
Who says there isn't a lot to learn on the Hill?
There are some people out there that seem to think the University of Kansas is teaching us nothing. Some whiny people are suggesting that the University doesn't prepare
The University has taught me a lot about how to succeed in the real world. First is the fact that when you run a monopoly, you can charge anything and people will pay it. I'm speaking specifically aboutthe parking department, where in order to get a parking pass, or as I
suggesting that the universi us for the real world. Well I say balderdash. In fact I'll keep saying "balderdash, balderdash" for upward of thirty minutes until the medication kicks in.
Nick Bartkoski opinion@kansan.com
like to call it, a hunting license, you have to sign a paper promising to spend a whole week as the parking director's personal cabana boy.
The University has taught me other valuable lessons. For example, our (and by our I mean Chancellor Robert Hemenway and the athletic department's) new Coca-Cola deal shows me that everyone has their price. Not only does everyone have their price, but their are many people out their willing to pay that price.
Now I don't want to suggest that being a cabana boy is bad, but to be quite honest, I wonder how many Mai Tais the director can down himself.
Now, buying off a respected University is obviously very expensive. I usually would have mistaken this for a serious research institution, until I noticed the Nike swoosh on my student ID.
But the University is too pricey for your average business. They'll need to look for someone with less prestige or pride on which to display their logos. With this in mind I'd like to make the following announcement to businesses of all kind: I am for sale.
There are tremendous applications for morals like that, especially when you consider that there's plenty time for counting when the dealing is done.
But despite the ease with which I'm selling out, I want to assuage everyone's fears that I'm a calious man without morals. I'm sure many alert readers don't need to be told that Hitler funded his Nazi war machine by signing an exclusivity contract with Coke. But I assure you that I've got bales of morals. I've got morals left and right, such as "You shouldn't count your chickens while you're sitting at the table" or "A penny saved is absolutely worthless unless you get those damned penny rolls" and "Watched pot never gets harvested."
Let's say you're a food chain looking for some extra publicity. Furthermore, let's say that you have a few crates of E-Z Cheez you're looking to get rid of. We talk deal and next thing you know your company will find its name placed in an influential joke about heavily medicated squirrels in my next column. With product placement like that, you'll probably need to lock the doors to keep the sudden massing throng of crazed shoppers from overworking your staff. This deal is, of course, open to record stores, clothing shops (I'm a 68 waist 26 inseam), Pricilla's, etc.
This is just the tip of the exploitation iceberg. We could be looking at a column by yours truly on Final Fantasy VII if the Playstation people want to kick something in.'
Bartkoski is a Baseer junior in liberal arts and sciences.
Feedback
An invitation to Student Senate
On behalf of the KU Student Senate, I would like to welcome everyone back to campus. In the next few weeks, you will likely be bombarded by representatives from a multitude of student organizations on campus in an attempt to recruit your membership. Although these organizations are worthwhile and deserve your attention, I would like to urge you to get involved with Senate. In case you are not aware or have been misled by negative comments about the
organization, Senate serves a valuable purpose.
First, the Senate acts as the primary legislative voice for students at the University. Also, Senate allocates $1.7 million from your student activity fee. These responsibilities are heavy, and we need all students to stand up, speak out, and make a difference.
If this sounds appealing to you, Senate committee applications are available in the Student Senate office at 410 Kansas Union. Also, senators will have an information table this week on Wescroe Beach from 10:30 am until 1:30 pm. Please feel free to stop by, pick
up an application, and ask questions of your elected representatives. Although you do have to fill out an application, I can assure you that Senate has a place for every student who would like to get involved.
We are putting together an e-mail list for anyone who would like information regarding meeting times and agenda items. If you want on the list, e-mail me at walden@ukans.edu
Please take advantage of your opportunity to make a difference at KU.
Mike Waiden Student body vice-president