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In Search of
Common Ground
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Business New Haven
11/16/1998
By: BNH
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Laurie Kendall-Ellis is a member of the Greater New Haven Chamber of Commerce's Health Care Council, as well as chairperson of its legislative committee. The Health Care Council comprises members representing different aspects of health care in the region. The legislative committee is the arm of the council that looks at legislative issues.
What kind of issues are you
looking at on the legislative committee?
The health care council is made up of large businesses, small businesses, corporately owned, privately owned, as well as hospital-based skilled nursing facilities, home-care agencies, rehab agencies. Every aspect of health care has its own individual concerns, but as a health care council we need to find a communality that can bring us together and promote the council moving forward on various issues and topics.
What are some of those?
The major theme of the past year was on quality issues. Looking at professional quality, who is providing care to patients? Are they licensed professionals vs. somebody trained on the job, and how does that impact the patient's quality of care? We also looked at the federal government's role as to the Balanced Budget Act and how that is going to impact, particularly on the frail and elderly and delivery of service. We also looked at managed care and how that is effecting length of stay and mandates that effect each of us on the health care council.
Is there a commonalty of interests between providers and insurers on the council?
Absolutely. One of the goals that we would like to accomplish in the legislative committee is to offer our services and expertise to managed-care organizations. We're the people that are delivering the face-to-face treatment and service. [We're examining] peer review, looking at length of stay and how that is impacting patients' health. A managed-care organization could really benefit networking with the health care council members.
Has the legislative committee come up with any specific items that it is trying to get addressed at this point?
No, it is a relatively new committee and we've been trying to identify what common ground we could all work for. There isn't anything we've taken up to Hartford at this point. What we've been trying to do is to let local legislators know that there is a health care council and that there is a legislative committee. State Sen. [Toni] Harp [D-10] has come to one of our council meetings and did a presentation and met us.
Looking ahead, do you expect
to present any issues in the upcoming legislative session?
Yes. The moratorium has been lifted as far as managed-care organization mandates go. We will be determining the concerns of the health care council and how we can bring them to the public health care committee, which will be looking at managed care in the coming year.
Are there issues that are more mundane or things like taxes that have been discussed?
We really haven't looked at the business of being in the health care business. We've been very concerned about being advocates for consumers and focusing on that, rather than looking inside our own pocketbooks and saying how are we as businesses going to survive.
Where did that approach come
out of?
I think it is fair to say that in being an advocate for patients and looking at the way managed care works and how the Balanced Budget Act is going to impact us, we're looking for creative ways to stay in business to market ourselves and yet make sure that the quality issue isn't lost in that scramble of staying alive. In my opinion, people have joined the health care council because they are very concerned about patient care - not only looking internally.
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