Molly Gamble, Vice President of Editorial at Becker’s Healthcare

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This is Scott Becker with the Becker's Healthcare podcast. I'm joined by the brilliant leader, Molly Gamble. And Molly talks us regularly about issues that she's following in health care. Molly, let me tee it up and ask you to take it away. What are a couple of stories that you're watching closely in health care currently?

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Yeah, thank you, Scott. I have two developments for listeners that were kind of sleepy to me, Scott. So I just want to make sure that I'm leveling them up and our listeners don't miss them. But the first is a handful of CFO moves at some pretty big health systems. Ascension just named its new CFO this week. They will, the system, the nonprofit Catholic multi-state health system has more than 2,600 sites of care will welcome its next CFO who spent some time with the insurer and the insurer world. So Sir Rob Tripathi is his next CFO.He comes to the organization after serving for about four years at Highmark, where he also there served as a CFO and treasurer. He will succeed ascensioned CFO Liz Fasage, who's retiring from the organization. And those two leaders will serve as co-CFOs until September, and at that time, Sir Tripathi will take the reins. Some other systems worth noting, Scott Renown, out in Nevada, it named Legacy Health's Anna Loomis as CFO, effective July 1st.In Baltimore, Johns Hopkins Medicine, will welcome Cheryl Sadro from UC Davis Health as its CFO, and then Novant will welcome Alice Pope from Innova Health as its next CFO. So a few moves there of CFOs from health system to health system. Ascensions, like I said, will be welcoming its CFO from the health

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insurer world. I mean, that's fascinating. Actually, that a number of movements in so many well-known names there as well. That's absolutely fascinating. And tell us, what else are you watching currently? What else is fascinating right now?

Speaker 1110.72s - 209.24s

There's probably a lot to discuss here. But quietly, Kentucky has become the first state in the nation to decriminalize medical errors. This was a development. The governor enacted and signed into law in March legislation that now shields health care providers from being criminally charged for medical errors. So under the law, health care providers, including nurses, will be immune from criminal liability for any harm or damages alleged to arise from an act or omission relating to the provision of health services. It includes exceptions for negligence and intentional harm.Erica Carbohal on our team has done some great reporting on this. I would encourage readers to take a look at her work. It was a quiet development, Scott. We were kind of surprised in the newsroom that Kentucky was the first to enact this, given the level of attention that criminalization medical errors received with the case of the nurse at Vanderbilt in neighboring Tennessee in 2022.Listeners will remember then Redonda Vaugh was convicted of criminally negligent homicide and abuse of an impaired adult for a fatal medication error she made in 2017. And that conviction came down in 2022. So at least one Kentucky health system that we've spoken to has tied this new law to its workforce recruitment efforts. A spokesperson for Baptist Health in Louisville told us at Becker's that the new law in Kentucky provides reassurance to our caregivers to help and support our patients that they will not be subject to criminal prosecution for unintentional mistakes. And that spokesperson also said just adds level comfort that will help the system

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in its recruitment efforts. No, thank you. We're a fan. I know that's unpopular amongst some circles, but we're certainly a fan of what they did and at fasting. I mean, obviously something's still intentional if you're, you know, the doctor death or somebody else, you could still be sued. That's not a, you know, that's not a comment from euthanasia, et cetera. But you could still be suited for using intentionally. You're trying to kill somebody.You're trying to arm's body. But in terms of a medical error, not being criminal, it seems like to make great sense to me, especially when we've such a challenge with having health care providers in our country. We don't want to make it the, we don't want to make the hurdles higher to be a healthcare provider in our country. So we're a fan, fascinating. And Molly, anything else that's

Speaker 1250.42s - 316.26s

top of mind currently. Those are the two developments. I wanted to voice over for our listeners today, Scott. I think, you know, this, this week, no stories to point to just yet on some other conversations I've been having, but some really interesting findings and learnings out of a roundtable discussion with experts at MD Anderson. I think one thing worth noting there, Scott, is this ongoing conversation, the medical community around some of these lower risk cancers, the risk of calling them cancer and the pressing demand that can place on the health care system when I'm sure you'veheard of this too, but you'll likely die with cancers, but that won't be the cause of your death. So that was a really interesting conversation, how the medical community, there's a lot of controversy around that and the need for patient education. So people aren't unexpectedly placing greater demand on the health care system than is really needed with a diagnosis like that. So some more to come there, but a fascinating conversation in a totally different topic from what we were just discussing. Molly Gamble, thank you so much for joining us.

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A lot of interesting stuff around decriminalizing medical errors in Kentucky, and that's just maybe a sign for things to come. I don't know. It certainly won't happen to a lot of other states, but it may be some states. Second, CFO turnover, third, trying to redefine and oncology and cancer issues and, you know, what's really life-threatening, what's not, although all of it seems scary to me. Thank you so much for joining us again, Molly, in the Becker's Healthcare podcast and for all theleadership and all that you do. Thank you very much.

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Thanks so much, Scott.