health care

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Listen to Regents Retreat on Health & Pension Benefits

Byuclafaculty

In the discussion on health and pension costs at the Sept. 12 Regents retreat, there were a number of disturbing elements.  Some regents seemed to have forgotten their own 2010 decision to go to a two tier pension but retain the basic defined benefits format.  The whole defined benefit vs. defined contribution debate seemed to start up again as if it had not occurred earlier. Erroneous statements were made by one Regent that Stanford and Harvard had no pension plan, when – as was pointed out – what they have is a generous defined contribution plan (although not a defined…

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Listen to Regents Meeting of Sept. 11, 2012 in Two Parts

Byuclafaculty

We have previously posted audio excerpts from the Sept. 11, 2012 session of the Regents dealing with the UCLA hotel and the UCLA teaching center.  The web source on which we park audio from the Regents is again operational so here is the full meeting, divided into two parts as per the agenda below. Tuesday, September 11, 2012 Meeting Agenda, University of California Regents Part 1 1:00 pm Committee on Compliance and Audit (Regents only session) 1:10 pm Committee of the Whole – Public Comment (open session) – includes public testimony on UCLA hotel project 1:30 pm Committee on Compliance…

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Listen to Hotel Echoes in Regents Reluctant Go-Ahead for UCLA Medical Facility

Byuclafaculty

We noted yesterday that the website where we usually park audio for Regents meetings, archives.org, is having a tech heart attack.  Recovery is promised, maybe by the end of today.  In the meanwhile, we will continue to post excerpts. After the Regents Building and Grounds Committee rubber stamped the hotel (except for bathrooms and loading docks!), it went on to consider a proposal for a new Teaching and Learning Center for the Health Sciences.  The presentation was by Steve Olsen and Dean Eugene Washington of the Med School.  In this case, we came close to a repeat of the March…

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Food for Thought on Retirement at UC

Byuclafaculty

Inside Higher Ed today unveiled a survey of human resource executives in higher education.  The full survey can be downloaded from that source and the link is at the bottom of this post.  But start with the observation that much of higher ed operates with defined contribution pension plans such as TIAA-CREF.  Thus, there is no particular incentive for older faculty to retire built into the pension. As can be seen below, higher ed HR execs thus worry that older faculty are not retiring, making it difficult to recruit new faculty.  UC, with its defined benefit system, does have a…

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Waiting for Details on the September 11-13 Regents Meeting

Byuclafaculty

The Regents are meeting Sept. 11-13 at UC-San Francisco.  Below is the preliminary agenda – which includes the architectural plans for UCLA’s Hotel Super-Grandeand an “Action Approval” for some plans related to Health Sciences at UCLA.  At the moment (7 am today), the detailed agenda items are not yet posted. Tuesday September 11 1:00 pm Committee on Compliance and Audit (Regents only session) 1:10 pm Committee of the Whole – Public Comment (open session) 1:30 pm Committee on Compliance and Audit (open session) 3:00 pm Committee on Grounds and Buildings (open session) including: GB3 Action Amendment of the Long Range…

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Good News/Bad News

Byuclafaculty

The good news is that reading this blog every day will keep you informed about UCLA and UC concerns. The bad news, according to our friends down the road in Santa Monica at the Milken Institute, is that it can make you fat:===== Waistlines of the World: The Effect of Information and Communications Technology on Obesity Summary: Information and communications technologies have improved living standards around the world. But the increased amount of time that people devote to using computers, watching TV and playing video games- so-called “screen time” -is a significant factor in the global rise of obesity. In Waistlines of the World:…

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No Meds for Riverside

Byuclafaculty

UC-Riverside keeps trying to get state funding to open a med school.  But not successfully, so far: From the Press-Enterprise (excerpt):The latest Capitol attempt to secure state funding for UC Riverside’s school of medicine is all but dead after a key Senate committee blocked a bill to allocate $15 million from an expected legal settlement…Full story at:http://www.pe.com/local-news/politics/jim-miller-headlines/20120816-uc-riverside-med-school-funding-bill-stalls.ece

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Blue Deal

Byuclafaculty

From the LA Times yesterday:===Nonprofit insurer Blue Shield of California said it resolved a lengthy contract dispute with UCLA and other UC system hospitals over reimbursements for patient care. Effective Sept. 1, Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center and the Santa Monica-UCLA Medical Center and Orthopaedic Hospital will be back in the Blue Shield network. The San Francisco health insurer said this new contract with all UC providers statewide runs through June 30, 2015… Full story at http://www.latimes.com/business/money/la-fi-mo-ucla-blue-shield-20120810,0,3160712.story Fact of the matter is that although we have these disputes from time to time, big insurers don’t want to cut UC medical centers out of their…

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U-CVS-LA?

Byuclafaculty

Why does the item below make me nervous?  From the LA Times (excerpt): UCLA doctors to oversee 11 CVS in-store clinics: Doctors will serve as medical directors for 11 CVS MinuteClinics in Los Angeles County through an agreement with UCLA Health System. Pharmacy giant CVS Caremark Corp. and UCLA Health System are teaming up to treat patients in 11 in-store clinics in Los Angeles County as one remedy to a growing shortage of primary care physicians. Under this arrangement, UCLA physicians will serve as medical directors overseeing 11 CVS MinuteClinics and the two entities will share electronic medical records. …Drugstore…

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Beyond the Headlines

Byuclafaculty

The headline on a story in today’s Sacramento Beereads: “2 UC Davis neurosurgeons accused of experimental surgery are banned from human research” But, as is often the case, the story that follows is more complicated than the headline suggests.  It raises issues of bioethics related to the specific procedures described and also questions about management control in medical facilities.  I mention the latter because some readers will recall the body parts scandal at UCLA and the scrambled eggs/fertility clinic scandal at UC-Irvine. We have a comment option on this blog which is rarely used but if medical professionals in particula…