Town Meeting Questions- BWH Bulletin - For and about the People of Brigham and Women's Hospital
Town Meeting Questions- BWH Bulletin - For and about the People of Brigham and Women's Hospital
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February 18, 2000
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In This Issue:
BWH to double daycare slots
Town Meeting Questions
Rein is OB/GYN’s new vice chair
Black History Month continues
Partners names Materials Management Director
Pike Notes
The following is a continuation of questions asked at the February 4 Town Meeting. For complete coverage, see the February 11 issue of Bulletin.
Q. Why did we change to the Merck-Medco drug plan and how was the change communicated to employees?
A. Cheryl Locke:
Pharmaceuticals have become one of the most important cost-drivers for health care in recent years, so Partners Benefits have been studying the issue carefully and found that Blue Cross, Tufts, Harvard Pilgrim, and other vendors were going to change their pharmacy plans effective January 1, 2000. Rather than let each of those vendors choose which drugs should be covered and at what level, we went with the Merck-Medco plan because Partners physicians sit on the committee that makes those decisions. Partners now has a strong voice in its own pharmacy plan, a voice we would have lost had we not acted. We announced the program in the open enrollment process packages that each employee received. We’ve heard that employees who were not making changes did not look at the packages and were thus unaware of the change in drug benefits. To address any questions that still remain, we are planning several post-open enrollment BeneFairs. Dates and times will be announced soon, and we are in the process of staffing up the Benefits line to improve service.
Q. The media are reporting issues on the integrity of research efforts in other academic medical centers. What is BWH doing to ensure informed consent and proper reporting of adverse events?
A. Anthony Whittemore:
Great pains are taken to make sure that investigators are in compliance with a number of regulatory agencies. At BWH we have very active institutional review boards (IRBs) that put each proposed research project through rigorous review to ensure that patients are informed and that the studies do not compromise patients’ rights. I feel confident in our system and in our investigators who are required to navigate regulations from several agencies in order to remain compliant.
Q. Who is responsible for picking up patients returning to the floors? The floor will tell us that Transport is responsible, and Transport will say the floor is responsible. Sometimes two or three calls have to be placed just to get the request in.
A. Art Mombourquette:
Patients should not have to wait an inordinate amount of time because there are ample resources available to transport them. By the same token, clinicians shouldn’t have to make an inordinate numbers of calls to get that transport made. The process has changed, and perhaps we need to look at ways to better communicate the change. In the near future we will bring an automated transport request service online, which should increase the accuracy of the transport system.