Category Archives: employment

Intuit’s Inaugural Consumer Spending Index Confirms a “Nation on the Rebound”

Thomas Finn - May 9, 2013 5:49 AM | Categories: employment, General News and Commentary, government policy, Healthcare Providers

U.S. consumers are spending again. After a prolonged lull following the 2008 recession’s historic spending lows, consumers are now spending about nine percent more than they did just four years ago. Gasoline, gift and healthcare spending have increased significantly, and the biggest spenders are men. These are among the findings of the new Intuit Consumer Spending Index, from Intuit Inc. (Nasdaq: INTU), which provides a unique view into the U.S. economy. The Intuit Consumer Spending Index findings are based on anonymized, aggregated, transactional data from Mint.com, Intuit’s leading online and mobile personal finance software. The key takeaway? Americans are rebounding. [...]

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Medicaid Expansion Receives Single Digit Salute from AAPS

Thomas Finn - April 8, 2013 9:04 AM | Categories: doctors, employment, General News and Commentary, government policy, Healthcare Providers

The public relations campaign to support Medicaid expansion frequently uses testimony by patients with serious medical conditions who have lost their private insurance. It is assumed that once they qualify for Medicaid, they will easily get their chemotherapy, hepatitis c treatment, or defibrillator battery replacement. Unfortunately, “the messages talk only about coverage, not care,” states Jane Orient, M.D., executive director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS). “But the real question is whether Medicaid provides access to care.” An Internet survey of AAPS members shows that about 47% of respondents think that it is more difficult for a [...]

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Big Data Analytics Professionals –Who Are They & How Do We Find Them?

Thomas Finn - January 14, 2013 6:59 AM | Categories: Big Data, employment, General News and Commentary, Healthcare Providers, Supply Chains, Technology

Amidst all the hullabaloo surrounding “big data” and how “new age analytics” are going to deliver us from variance in all of its evil forms, a recent study caught my attention.  The International Institute for Analytics and Talent Analytics Corporation collaborated on a study (“the 2012 Analytics Professionals Study”) to determine the specific characteristics shared by the most talented professionals in the field. The survey parsed responses from 302 analytics professionals across various enterprises in the summer of 2012. Drum roll: Across all analytic positions, the top workplace characteristic found in the survey was “curiosity.” The best and brightest enterprise [...]

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Physician Shortfall is a Process Problem –Not Just a Med School Issue

Thomas Finn - August 14, 2012 2:53 PM | Categories: doctors, employment, government policy, Healthcare Providers, Human Resources, Supply Chains, telemedicine

We all know the definition of insanity. Einstein had his own twist on the same thought, stating that a problem will never be solved with the same mindset that created it. Kay Plantes, a MIT-trained economist has suggested that Einstein’s thinking is “sorely needed” to address the coming shortfall of physicians. In fact, it’s a supply chain problem and the supply chain for producing US-trained physicians is broken. It’s expensive and restrictive. Health care reform is not only making prevention and early treatment the focus, but it is making such care available to more people, adding up to 300,000 more [...]

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Applying SCM Practice to Human Resource Management

Thomas Finn - May 15, 2012 12:06 PM | Categories: employment, Healthcare Providers, Human Resources, Supply Chains

The supply chain sector is facing a major talent crisis. Baby Boomers are retiring in bunches and a career in supply chain management (SCM) is not the enticing draw that those of us who currently work in the profession might think it is. We need to fix that. Thank goodness the core principles of SCM transfer well across industries, otherwise, the situation in healthcare would be especially dire. Passive approaches to recruiting talent, whether in supply chain or elsewhere, have been widely discredited. And while social media has provided new recruiting channels, far too many HR departments continue to do [...]

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Flatter Organizations Require Different Career Strategies: Don’t Just Look Up; Look Around

Thomas Finn - April 11, 2012 5:03 PM | Categories: employment, General News and Commentary, Healthcare Providers, Supply Chains

I’ve been all over the employment statistics in healthcare lately. Whether pulling information from government sources like the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) or compiling information from various healthcare head hunters, several interesting trends emerge that are unique to healthcare: The healthcare sector stands alone as the most promising employer over the next decade. As said in a previous post, roughly 1 in 8 or 9 Americans are going to hold jobs in this marketplace. The personal nature of healthcare; the fact that it’s our nation’s dominant employer and most likely the largest employer in our home towns makes “everything [...]

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