The bosses obviously on vacation, the Arizona Republic committed real journalism today. The newspaper dug out the serious accreditation crisis facing the Maricopa Integrated Health System, which serves 400,000 mostly poor residents and operates the "county hospital." According to the story by Yvonne Wingett and Amanda Crawford, two of the few surviving serious reporters at the joint:
A detailed inspection of the county’s health-care system obtained by The Arizona Republic revealed widespread record-keeping problems and other flaws that could have posed risks to patients’ safety.
Since the inspection, the Maricopa Integrated Health System has been
overhauling operations and has spent about $1.5 million so far to
address the deficiencies, which were identified in September by the
Joint Commission, a national accrediting body. MIHS, which operates the
Maricopa Medical Center, says it has fixed many of the problems and
continues to address others.
The reports revealed a culture of incomplete or inaccurate medical
record-keeping that meant, in some cases, there was no proof that vital
patient-care processes were conducted.
The danger is the people see the headline and the photo of Maricopa Medical Center, then shake their heads and murmur about wasted tax dollars and freeloading Mexicans. In fact, this is an intriguing political disaster and a lost opportunity of the first magnitude.
The "county hospital" suffered for years from neglect by the county supervisors, who were desperate to unload it. The main hospital was planned in the 1960s, when the county had a quarter of its current population, and it was located inconveniently for transit required by many users. County voters, against the usual right-wing onslaught, passed a measure to fund the system. Under interim CEO Dr. Jim Kennedy, the ailing system was smartly turned around and headed in the right direction, despite the supervisors’ shameful attempt to avoid the necessary transitional funding.
Then Arizona politics intervened. The voter initiative established an elected board to oversee the system, and this body was quickly co-oped by the radical right, which began its ascendancy by winning seats on just such "boring" boards. Most members were ignorant of the system and healthcare, and mostly had the anti-tax, "starve the beast" religion common to their kind. They kicked the highly qualified and apolitical Kennedy to the curb and installed Betsey Bayless as CEO. Bayless is a nice woman, a moderate Republican who understands many of the state’s challenges but dares not discuss them publicly, and comes from an old Arizona family. She was also utterly unqualified to run a large, urban healthcare system.
It’s telling that Bayless spent taxpayers money to keep the Republic from getting these audits (which were apparently also available from the state Department of Health Services). Otherwise, it appears she has spent her tenure largely insulated from the reality of the system, failing to build on Kennedy’s turnaround, declining to make some competent hires and trying to set herself up for another run for governor. (Good luck with that, you "liberal" RINO).
Here’s the rest of the story.
MIHS should have been the keystone for the "meds and eds" policy, first articulated by Mary Jo Waits, for Arizona to leapfrog into a large, holistic 21st century economy. It would be based on quality healthcare, medical education, research, medical manufacturing and pharmaceutical production. It would have provided large numbers of jobs at all levels, and improved quality of life in a city with a scandalously inadequate medical system — except for the Scottsdale boob-job and Botox purveyors. Other pieces were coming into place: T-Gen, IGC, ASU’s nursing college and the University of Arizona medical and pharmacy schools in downtown Phoenix. MIHS should have been the anchor research/teaching/bench-to-bedside hospital, built on the biomed campus downtown. The model is the world-famous Texas Medical Center in Houston.
Instead, progress has moved at a glacial, perhaps fatal, pace. Banner helped hold things up and keep the (profitable) paralysis going with a long bait-switch-goodbye on a hospital. (Downtown "leaders" didn’t want poor people near "their" billions of dollars in stadiums, etc.) And MIHS is out in the cold. It’s not just that a fresh start for a once-troubled hospital has turned into a newly troubled hospital. It’s that the best chance to quickly diversify the Arizona economy, improve healthcare for all and build breakthrough research has been flushed down the toilet.
Such a shame that we are rapidly losing this opportunity. A well-respected county hospital would bring in innovative programs, better doctors, more patients, and would likely be self-sustaining to boot while initiating a better health care across the board.