Printer-friendly format

While the State Board of Health continues the search for a permanent State Health Officer (SHO) and aims to hire an internal audit director, interim SHO Ed Thompson remains focused on quickly improving Mississippi Department of Health (MDH) operations and gaining greater funding in the 2008 legislative session.

“The big items remain our budget request and money for the new public health laboratory,” said Thompson. “For the lab, our legal staff came up with the suggestion that we not go for a new bill but ask to amend legislation already passed, to remove that funding mechanism.”

New human resources director Ronald P. Davis could play a key role in persuading legislators to fund Thompson’s request for an extra $16 million appropriation to “increase staff, expand the clinics, extend some hours, and better serve the people who need our services.” Davis already works to introduce best practices in human resources management from the business world and implement those that can be applied to state government.

Davis un-retired himself and joined the public sector to help restore Mississippi’s public health system. He came to MDH from a Fortune 500 company background. Having worked for Lucent Technologies and AT&T, and with his wife continuing to work, Davis determined to do something to give back to the state.

“He said he could think of nothing better than to be part of public health,” said Mitchell H. Adcock, the department’s director of health administration.

Adcock added that Davis “has a great deal of regulatory expertise and has had an immediate calming affect on the HR department and folks asking for their assistance.”

Since the August Board of Health meeting, at which Thompson detailed his budget proposal, 25 “new hires have been brought into the agency,” Davis noted. “Of the 10 new nursing positions created, seven are filled and the other three hopefully will be filled (by year-end). Of the four new disease intervention specialist positions created, one has been filled, and we’re actively recruiting to fill the others.”

Davis credits Thompson with “reenergizing our employees and focusing our efforts on areas with the highest priority. Since it’s only through our employees that we can achieve our goals, my personal mission is to help the agency’s leadership put into place plans, policies, practices, and personal actions that help optimize the individual and collective contributions of our employees. That may include some new practices and policies.

Davis said he “fully recognizes” that state government operates under regulations very different from those in the corporate world.

“Therefore, any approach we take here must be tailored for the environment in which we operate,” he said. “However, just because it has always been done this way does not mean that there isn’t a better way to do it. We have people who are doing a lot of great things very well. We’re going to be asking whether some of those things are still the right things to be doing. We must be exceptional stewards of our limited resources, and that will mean prioritizing more, targeted training or retraining, moving resources, more strategic recruiting and better alignment of all of our activities with our agency’s specific goal and timetables.”

State board chairman Luke Lampton offered more: “Public Health is much different than other areas in government. When public health is well done, no one notices, and public funding and interest declines. When public health is done poorly, people die. People notice then. This board must keep the citizens of this state focused on the supreme importance of having a strong public health department. We need the support of the governor and the legislature not only in this session, but in every session to come.”

Lampton reported the search process for the permanent state health officer is proceeding well.

“The Korn/Ferry firm has been extraordinarily helpful in the process,” he saied. “The search committee, chaired by Dr. Edward Hill of Tupelo, has narrowed more than a dozen viable candidates down to seven or eight, some of whom have been interviewed and some to be interviewed. The committee will narrow those seven down to three or four finalists, who will be interviewed by the entire board in early December. We hope to have the permanent officer named before the end of the year.”

The chairman added that soon after selecting the permanent SHO, the Board will work on “a long term strategic plan for the Department. Expect continued evaluation of the Department, its programs, and its mission by Dr. Thompson and the Board over the next several months.”

When the board met Oct. 17, the decision was made “that we need to reopen the search process for the internal auditor position,” said Lampton. “It’s a highly important position, and it’s critical to select the right candidate. The audit committee, chaired by CPA Carl Nicholson of Hattiesburg, will take the leadership role in the process and bring a candidate or candidates to the board for final selection.”

Lacking a director, five internal auditors continue the existing internal audit function; two staff positions remain vacant.

“This legislative session is especially important for the department,” Lampton emphasized, “and Dr. Thompson and his staff, as well as the board, will do what they need to do to have a successful session. Dr. Thompson continues his exemplary leadership of the department. Morale is up among employees. Most that I have talked to are confident we are headed in the right direction.”

For Thompson, securing money for a new public health laboratory stands second only to increased funding for more field staff. He thinks the agency can build the new lab for less than the originally-requested $25 million.
“And we hope for the amended bill to get early passage so that we can get started with the project,” he said. “If we have to wait unti
l July, we’ll be a good two years behind what needed to have happened.”

In the 2006 regular session, state lawmakers passed House Bill 1541, an act to authorize the issuance of general obligation bonds to construct a new facility for the MDH’s public health laboratory and to renovate, repair, and expand the Underwood Building.

Then SHO Brian Amy and his staff said the principal of and interest on the bonds would be “paid primarily from fees received by the Department of Health for newborn screening tests that are evaluated in the public health laboratory.”

But testimony in the Senate Committee on Public Health & Welfare’s sunset review hearings of MDH in August through November 2006 revealed the pay-back plan to be a sham.

Senate Public Health Chairman Alan Nunnelee said their proposed funding mechanism — upon examination of testimony given Nov. 8, 2006 — “fell upon itself like a house of cards.” The scheme, reportedly devised by then Deputy SHO Danny Miller — whose position Thompson and the current board deemed unnecessary and who no longer works for the agency — would have used Medicaid reimbursements for newborn screening tests performed in the new lab to pay for its building.

Testimony revealed no MDH employee even discussed the proposal with the Division of Medicaid until well after the bill’s passage. Further statements revealed that when public health officials did finally contact Medicaid, executive director Robert L. Robinson wrote Amy that the division would “not support bringing the genetic and newborn screening program into the public health laboratory.” He stated the division was pleased with the newborn screening program testing conducted by the commercial company, Pediatrics.

For now, though, Thompson said the department is well on its way to improved operations.

“The district health officers are re-established as a critical part of the management team,” Thompson pointed out. “They are my chief advisors and helping shape policy and solve problems; we meet at least once every month.

“Communications with the medical community are re-established. We’re e-mailing the Mississippi Morbidity Report to about two-thirds of the physicians and mailing a hard copy to all; the disease report for a given month gets posted on the Web site within two weeks of the close of the preceding month.

“When we determined the infant mortality rate, instead of having the media and others file public records request to get the information, we put out a news release,” he emphasized. “The information flow has been re-established and completely turned around. We have no artificial restrictions within the agency or with our staff and other agencies. Our people are empowered and encouraged to engage in open communications. We have to trust our own.”

Additionally, Thompson reported three internal special-subject committees have finished or almost completed their analyses and recommendations on infant mortality, tuberculosis, and syphilis.

“One recommendation from the infant mortality group was that we needed more out-stationed Medicaid eligibility staff in our clinics to expand enrollment of our clinic patients who are Medicaid-eligible,” he said. “We’ve already fully accomplished that in one district and are advancing in the others. The TB group recommended we dedicate clerical staff for entering data so that we could get the numbers in early and allow quicker follow-up on specific cases; that’s underway, too.”



December 2007

Tags:

None

Login and voice your opinion!