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Getting Serious About Health Care
New chamber group focuses on education, advocacy
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Business New Haven
10/19/1998
By: BNH
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One of the most urgent issues facing businesses and residents in Connecticut is health care, and members of the Health Care Council of the Greater New Haven Chamber of Commerce are determined to help disseminate information that's timely, useful and educational.
According to chairperson Leslie Mills, owner of Griswold Special Care in New Haven, Milford, Clinton, Waterbury and Meriden, the 60-member council was formed two years ago with four principal goals:
• to educate consumers;
• to support employers and their employees;
• to track health-care legislation and lobby for health care issues; and
• to provide a means for health-care providers to network.
“The council's first undertaking was an employer survey,” Mills says, “which helped us identify the critical health-care issues facing employers.”
The survey asked which issues employers felt were the most “pressing,” including the rising cost of health care and preventive care.
It also asked employers to identify the issues that directly affect their workers' performance (ergonomics, stress, fitness, smoking, etc.) and whether employees understood their coverage and how to use it.
With those results in hand, the council decided to publish “Chamber Care: The Health-Care Resource Guide,” which is expected to be published early next year and made available on the Internet, according to Mills.
On the Internet, it will be readily accessible and much easier to update the information, Mills says.
The guide will include a glossary of health-care terms which Mills says is being included to “demystify insurance language.
“There will also be a section on diseases and procedures to explain to consumers what will happen during specific procedures like EKGs and cataract surgery,” explains Mills.
Also included will be an encyclopedia-type list of community health-care providers and a referral section for specialists and an explanation of patients' rights.
“We're also including educational and informational pages provided by health-care organizations and companies,” Mills says.
“For example, my company provides home health aides, so my page might include information on how to screen home health caregivers,” she explains.
Mills says the most difficult part of putting the guide together has been translating a vast array of information into layman's terms.
“Those in the health-care field know all the jargon, but consumers and employers don't, so it's been a challenge making it user-friendly,” Mills says.
The legislative arm of the council has lobbied for a statewide registry of home caregivers and the need for emergency medical personnel to have defibrillators on hand when they respond to emergencies in order to provide a more detailed picture of a patient's condition to emergency-room staff.
Mills also testified at U.S. Rep. James Maloney's house hearings on the affect managed care has on the elderly.
As both an employer and a member of the team putting the guide together, Mills brings a unusual perspective to her chairmanship.
Within five years, 40 percent of Connecticut's workforce will be involved in elder care. This is significant to employers because the Washington Group on Health has shown that each worker who is caring for an older relative costs an employer $3,000 on average in absences, illness, work interruptions and increased medical costs,” Mills says.
“It's significant to the workers because they are stretched beyond belief, trying to balance work, children and parents. They are truly the 'sandwich' generation,” she says.
“Griswold Special Care was founded 15 years ago as an alternative to nursing homes. We provide personal care, homemakers and companions for those who need it in their homes. With a two-percent profit mission and low overhead, we can provide the most affordable rates for hourly and live-in care,” Mills says.
“For us, this resource guide is a way to let employers and employees know about our services,” she adds.
The group hopes to make the guide as comprehensive as possible and urges health care providers and health-related organizations who would like to be included or provide specific information on a health care topic to contact her at 203-776-2273.
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