In this issue:

• For the First Time, MHA Endorses House Candidates
• Reducing Medical Errors, Improving Patient Safety
• The Nursing Shortage: Seeking Solutions
• Viewpoint: Health Care in The Perfect Storm

Hospitals Endorse State House Candidates as Health Care
Emerges as Key Issue

The MHA, for the first time, has formally endorsed candidates in a general election, throwing its support to state House incumbents and candidates who have demonstrated support for health care.

“This election year, for the first time, the Michigan Health & Hospital Association (MHA) has formally endorsed candidates for the state House of Representatives,” said MHA President Spencer Johnson. “Given the crisis condition of Medicaid and the private health insurance marketplace, and the overall poor health status of Michigan citizens, Michigan hospitals must do everything possible to elect candidates who are committed to making health care a state budget and policy priority.”

The MHA has formally endorsed 13 state House candidates — six Democrats and seven Republicans. Nine of the candidates signed the MHA’s Legislative Health Care Champion pledge, which affirmed their support for boosting funding for Michigan’s Medicaid program, protecting the state’s teaching hospitals, supporting programs aimed at improving the health of Michigan citizens, and supporting extensive Medicaid program reforms. Each candidate has a strong record of supporting health care.

MHA-endorsed candidates are incumbent Dianne Byrum (D-Onondaga), Craig DeRoche (R-Novi), Dave Farhat (R-Muskegon), Barbara Farrah (D-Southgate), Ed Gaffney (R-Grosse Pointe Farms), Bill Huizenga (R-Zeeland), Tupac Hunter (D-Detroit), Bill McConico (D-Detroit), Gary Newell (R-Saranac), and Gretchen Whitmer (D-Okemos). Three non-incumbents were also endorsed: Dave Hildenbrand (R-Lowell), Roger Kahn, MD (R-Saginaw Township), and Alma Wheeler Smith (D-Ypsilanti).

“Every public opinion survey conducted during this election season has identified health care as one of the leading issues on the minds of voters, behind worries about the economy and the war on terrorism,” Johnson said. “Each of the candidates the MHA endorsed is committed to keeping health care affordable and accessible, and we urge voters in their districts to keep that in mind on Nov. 2.”

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Michigan Hospitals Lead Nation in New Program to Improve
Patient Safety

A nation-leading partnership between Michigan hospitals and Johns Hopkins University is showing early solid progress in improving patient safety by reducing medical errors.

In October 2003, the Keystone Center for Patient Safety and Quality at the MHA received a $1 million federal grant to partner with patient safety experts from Johns Hopkins on a two-year project to boost patient safety in 110 Michigan intensive care units.

“With this project, Michigan hospitals are going where no other hospitals in the nation have gone before,” said Keystone Executive Director Chris Goeschel, RN, MPA, MPS. “We are leading the nation in patient safety and quality improvement practices.”

The goals of the project are to eliminate bloodstream infections, reduce lengths of stay by one day, reduce patient deaths by 30 percent, reduce staff turnover, and reduce direct costs by 30 percent. Goeschel said the MHA is meeting with the pilot hospitals later this month and plans are under way to showcase findings in early 2005.

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MHA Seeking Solutions to Growing Nursing Shortage

The MHA is in the early stages of developing strategies to address the growing shortage of nurses in Michigan, a looming crisis that threatens the delivery of critical health care services in hospitals and long-term-care facilities statewide.

The United American Nurses, AFL-CIO, projects that by 2020, Michigan will have a shortage of 18,000 nurses. Most other states are experiencing similar shortages, setting up a fierce and expensive nationwide competition for the most important caregivers in the system.

The MHA is in discussions with representatives of higher education, the nursing profession and others to begin crafting an action plan to increase the number of nurses in Michigan.

“In the effort to recruit and retain nurses, most Michigan hospitals are in a constant process of taking two steps forward and one step backward,” said MHA President Spencer Johnson. “Because of the shortage, the competition for the existing pool of nurses is intense and expensive. As a state, we simply must begin taking concrete actions to boost the number of nurses, or health care delivery will suffer in the future.”

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Will Health Care Survive the Perfect Storm?

In Election Year 2004, health care is on the most-important-issues list of just about every voter and political candidate.

Almost daily, newspapers publish stories about skyrocketing health care costs, soaring Medicaid caseloads, hospitals and doctors slashing services, the nursing shortage, the strain of higher medical costs on employers, and more. Virtually every public opinion poll this year has pegged health care as one of the most important issues to voters, right behind the war on terrorism and economic concerns.

Unfortunately, even darker days are in health care’s future. A perfect storm is brewing that threatens to capsize a system that is already taking on water:

• Michigan’s Medicaid system is in near total disrepair. Only sweeping reforms can save it. The system spends too much on administrative costs and has failed to provide adequate health care to the children, families and elderly citizens it is supposed to help.

• Since 1998, state government funding for Michigan hospitals and doctors to care for Medicaid patients has been cut more than $505 million. During those same years, the number of Medicaid patients seeking care has skyrocketed from about 900,000 to a record high of 1.4 million.

• In part because government does not pay its fair share for health care, costs for employers and employees are increasing at an alarming rate.

• Michigan citizens are among the least healthy in the nation. Smoking rates are higher than the national average. Obesity rates are far higher than the national average. As a state, we don’t get nearly enough exercise. A recent study for the Michigan Economic Development Corporation concludes that Michigan has the highest rates of death from coronary heart disease, ranks second for obesity and diabetes, and ranks sixth in terms of smoking rates compared to the 17 states we compete with most for new jobs and manufacturing investments. Despite Michigan’s deplorable health status, spending on health care in Michigan is about the same as in the 17 benchmark states, the MEDC study found.

• Michigan is facing a severe and growing shortage of nurses. With an ever-aging population and baby boomer retirements in full swing, the nursing shortage will produce severe consequences in the future unless we take steps to increase the supply of nurses very soon.

Throughout an arduous state budgeting process over the last year, both Gov. Granholm and Republican and Democratic leaders in the state legislature have clearly identified health care as a top priority. Building on this foundation, it is now time for state and national political leaders to commit — really commit — to a process that can lead to tangible solutions to our mounting health care crisis.

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