In honor of last month’s Women’s History Month, Healthcare Finance News asked some of the women leaders in the nation’s healthcare industry to talk about the role of women in healthcare. Those conversations take us into April.
Today, we hear from Ana Pujols McKee, MD, the executive vice president and chief medical officer of the Joint Commission. For the Joint Commission, McKee promotes patient safety and healthcare quality improvement, two areas in which she has long been involved. Prior to joining the Joint Commission, McKee’s public health and safety work included tenures as the board chair of the Pennsylvania Patient Safety Authority, the vice chair for the Public Health Management Corporation and as the chief medical officer at Penn Presbyterian Medical Center.
Q: What role do women have as decision-makers/leaders in today's healthcare sector?
A: I’m not sure it’s any different for anybody else. I think leaders, in general, have to be responsible for improving patient safety, improving access to care and improving the quality of care. I think that women may be better positioned to address women’s health and children’s health issues and that they may come from a background where they are the decision makers in their families' lives. The data has shown that typically there’s a woman in the family who decides where the healthcare is going and where it will be received and that kind of thing. But I think the role is basically the same as any good leader's – making sure that the care is accessible, affordable and efficient.
Q: What do women bring to the table to shape the future of healthcare?
A: Again, we’re talking in general, very stereotypic terms, but I do think women may enter healthcare for different reasons. Clearly they come into (it) if they have been the family decision makers. They may have a particularly distinct focus on healthcare as being the ones who decide where the children go and as the voice of advocacy for their children and their family members in healthcare. That alone might give them a unique perspective of healthcare.
Q: What do you personally believe should be the path forward to better care and lower costs?
A: You’re talking about utopia, but if there was one path I would say that it would be to remember that in healthcare it’s all about the patient. If there was one path, it would be some way, miraculously, that decisions would not be influenced by financial or political or other influences that oftentimes, on a national level, or even on a local level, affect how healthcare is delivered. And, that we would have, basically, decisions that were really primarily patient centered and that would lead the strategic thinking of healthcare moving forward.
Follow HFN associate editor Stephanie Bouchard on Twitter @SBouchardHFN.