Two reasons it's the era of the woman in healthcare

Citation

(2010), "Two reasons it's the era of the woman in healthcare", Leadership in Health Services, Vol. 23 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/lhs.2010.21123aab.002

Two reasons it's the era of the woman in healthcare

Article Type: News and views From: Leadership in Health Services, Volume 23, Issue 1

Keywords: Hospital leadership, Women in healthcare, Hospital based healthcare

They’re still not the majority in terms of hospital leadership, but maybe it’s time to pay a little more attention to women and healthcare, at least as far as the strategic direction your hospital or health system should be taking. This information came from HCUP Facts and Figures: Statistics on Hospital-Based Care in the United States, 2007, from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

Even though its most recent information is from 2007, it’s a treasure trove of data that might help your strategic planning for years to come. The part of the extensive report that stands out most is Section 2, which probes deeply into inpatient hospital stays by diagnosis. It is known that women are big decision-makers in healthcare. Men often let their health and the health of their families take a back seat to other concerns. Not so women.

However, what is not commonly known is that women, particularly young women, could be the key to success or failure as a CEO in the coming years.

Conditions related to pregnancy and childbirth were the reason for more than one out of every five female hospitalisations in 2007.

When combined with stays for newborn infants, these hospitalizations accounted for one-quarter of all stays.

As mentioned previously, those are only two statistics in a report that bursts with them, but they stand out because if healthcare organisations are pouring money into orthopaedic or heart programs and paying little attention to women’s health, the cards may be being played at the wrong table, so to speak.

Taking time to study this report can help distinguish between the hype and the reality of where organisations should be investing critical and limited capital budget. For instance, it is constantly reported how the uninsured are putting extreme pressure on the healthcare system. There’s a lot of truth to that hype, but according to this report, the uninsured accounted for about 6 per cent of all hospital stays in 2007 – about the same as in 1997.

At least to the extent that the uninsured affect a hospital’s prospects as a going concern, those numbers do not create panic in the hearts of many CEOs. Still, the share of discharges billed to private insurance fell from 39 per cent to 35 per cent between 1997 and 2007, reflecting the decline in the population with private insurance coverage. This is not to minimise the struggles healthcare organisations are facing in getting paid, just that facts and statistics have a funny way of helping to uncover the truth behind the hype – and helping strategic decisions to be made based on reality and not noise level.

Maternal discharges increased to five million in 2007, a 16 per cent increase since 1997.

Infant hospitalisations increased to 4.7 million in 2007, a 21 per cent increase since 1997.

So what does that tell you about where you should be investing your capital dollars?

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