A Year in Review at WMHS

Over the Christmas holiday and that's what it was, "the Christmas Holiday" not the “Happy Holiday,” I had the opportunity to reflect on my many blogs throughout 2013.  Although it's tough to come up with a blog topic everyday, I really do enjoy it.

To recap, some of my more memorable blogs during the year included:  health care spending down for three consecutive years and the process necessary for continuing to get cost out of the system; our Door-to-Balloon team winning the Maryland Patient Safety Center's award for patient safety innovation; our many accomplishments under Meeting the Challenge of Health Care Change; the formation of Alliance Health between WMHS, Frederick Regional Health System in Frederick and Meritus Health in Hagerstown; the impact of Sequestration on hospitals, especially WMHS; a personal call from Senator Paul Sarbanes in reaction to some recent blogs (which turned out fine); the impact of social media in health care; efforts to legalize marijuana in Maryland; just how wrong Consumer Reports Hospital Compare data really is; the 86% increase in the gasoline tax in Maryland; my platform for success as shared with the business students at Frostburg State University; the “how to” of becoming a CEO; the senselessness of the bombing at the Boston Marathon; the importance of mentorship; some of the many books that I read during the year: Lean In; Patients Come Second; Linchpin; A Culture of High Performance; The Advantage; How to be Exceptional - Drive Leadership Success; the criticality of organ donation; Total Patient Revenue and disruptive innovation; the dual role of hospitals in communities across the US - economic engines and deliverers of patient care; recognition of WMHS physicians; the value of iTriage for consumers; recognition of our nurses; our high school wellness ambassadors; recognition of WMHS employees for their service awards; the roll out of our pay for performance for our docs; blogs on Governance; recognition of outgoing board member Don Alexander; lessons from the Joint Commission after their five-day survey;  joining CEOs against cancer; the absurdity of the Recovery Audit Contracting on the part of the feds; a Tribute to my father; a tribute to my daughter when she was promoted to Navy Lieutenant; the problems with wind power; critical thinking skills and common sense; many blogs on leadership; over-regulation of the health care industry (122,000 federal regulations......really); the opening of the Center for Clinical Resources; the failure of the Health.gov website and last, but not least how unforgiving the Feds would be toward any other organization's failure of a similar magnitude and the government's shut down.

Let me know if there are any of the blogs mentioned above that you may have missed and would like to see.  

Anyway, have a safe and happy New Year's Eve.  Here's hoping that 2014 will be as memorable as 2013.