How Healthcare Works, LLC

In finding the core of "creating unhappiness," the concept is essentially a form of top-down workplace bullying.  The manager institutes a bullying style to get an employee to leave.  It is easy to identify because anyone who has ever been on the outside of some clique or social group has experienced it. A group of girls refuses to let you sit at their table at lunch. Friends invite everyone to the party but one person, or they refuse to show up to her party. Work colleagues go through someone's desk, rummage through their purse, and file complaints to management. When examined in this manner, "creating unhappiness" is nothing more than petty, passive-aggressive, bullying behavior. At the root of this problem is that the department director was creating chaos within her division. For months, she encouraged and allowed other managers and staff members to be distracted from their work and their duties in order to bully this person out of the department. Imagine ...

The past few elections it seems at least one candidate for each party has campaigned promising change . The two most recent U.S. presidents used the idea of change in their campaigns effectively, ultimately leading to their elections.  The candidates convinced the citizenry that change was necessary, and the citizens elected those candidates.  Now, the citizens want to see change. The citizens want to initiate change. However, they are unsure how to make sure change happens. Politicians, lobbyists, special interest groups, and even change-makers have a method for creating change and affecting policy in American society. Outlined below is a method that can be used for how one person, one group, one community, one citizenry, can affect change in policy in this country. 1. Center on One Issue . One thing lobbyists and special interest groups do really well is center, or focus, on one issue.  An environmental lobby is not going to spend its time discussing healthcare, just ...

High school students across the country planned a protest. They weren't protesting school lunches, teachers, grades or even educational curriculum.  They were protesting for their rights to feel safe in their schools.  Their rights to know that if an "active shooter" arrived on their school grounds with a gun, then their likelihood of returning to their homes that evening would be high.  The kids stated that the reasons they were protesting is that no one seems to be doing anything.  The kids felt that they had to sit idly by and watch and wait and hope and fear.  These young people have declared gun violence in the United States a public health issue. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has recently been given permission by Congress to study gun violence. The CDC's mission statement indicates that "The CDC works...to protect America from health, safety and security threats, both foreign and in the U.S." Gun violence in schools is all t...

Another school shooting flashes across headlines.  In ways, the stories seem to repeat themselves. A mentally ill student or young adult attacks a school. Sometimes, it isn't a school. It's a movie theater or a political rally.  Then, the finger-pointing begins. Who is to blame? Where did we go wrong as a society? It's the school. No, it's the police officers who failed to follow up on complaints. No, it's the gun lobby that allows guns in America. No, it's the manufacturers of guns. No, it's bullying. No, it's society. The thing is, there is no single answer to this complex issue. There is no one person or one thing to blame.  There is one thing that is true. There is something wrong in American society that is causing these issues to occur.  In order to solve the problem as a whole, each problem must be addressed independently. One of those problems is understanding, funding, and appropriately treating mental health issues. In America, it's no se...

Across news media, television, newspaper, and social media, reports have come in that this is the worst flu season in years.  Individuals are at home from work and school, coughing, sneezing, sniffling, aching with fevers.  They curse the fact that they contracted the flu in the first place.  Those that received the flu shot, curse the flu shot claiming it is ineffective and didn't work. How the Flu Shot Works In order to understand why someone would get the flu even though they got a flu shot, one must first understand how the flu shot works. The flu shot is determined every year by the World Health Organization (WHO).  They determine which strains of the flu are most likely to occur in the population based on the flu virus that is present in the population. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the United States work with the WHO to determine which viruses will be most prevalent in our country. The virus selected is injected into eggs.  (T...

In the early 2000s, the buzz phrase for hospitals and healthcare organizations was "core competencies" or a set of behaviors organizations wanted all staff members to exhibit.  One of those behaviors was "treating others with dignity and respect." To some employees, they wondered the reason that was even a behavioral issue.  They felt that they pursued healthcare careers to preserve the rights, health, and dignity of patients and others.  Unfortunately, that is not the case for everyone. Considerable research has been done regarding treating patients with dignity and respect.  The focus of the research is how care providers can enhance the autonomy of the patient while also caring for the patient.  Calling patients by their preferred names, engaging them as care partners, and not talking to them in sing-song voices as one would a small child, are all measures that have been taken.  However, dignity and respect goes beyond patient care in a healthcare orga...

While some Americans may cry for government to get out of their healthcare, the probability of that occurring is slim to none.  Healthcare is one of the most regulated industries in the United States. The regulations are to protect the health, safety, welfare, quality and cost of healthcare services in this country.  Moreover, close to 18% of the United States' gross domestic product is spent  on health care. Gross domestic product is the total of all goods and services that are made in a country in one year.  That means, in one year, almost $1 out of every $5 is spent on healthcare. The federal government spends over $1 trillion a year on healthcare. As such, politics and healthcare are not a marriage of convenience.  They are a marriage of necessity. Of course, healthcare and politicians are dependent upon the millions of Americans who consume healthcare services every year.  Healthcare organizations can have the best hospitals, the best equipment, the ...