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J O Hepner

Publications and source records attributed to J O Hepner.

17 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1991

Nurses and the new NLRB rules. Implications for healthcare management.

The inclusion of nurses as an allowable bargaining unit is one of the most significant aspects of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to uphold the National Labor Relations Board's new collective bargaining unit rules. For a number of reasons, the decision makes it more likely that nurses at a given hospital will vote to form a union. Union nurses receive, on average, 6 percent higher salaries than do their nonunion counterparts. In addition, being able to organize into a smaller unit gives nurses a much stronger bargaining position. Finally, because of the new collective bargaining unit rules, labor leaders now find hospitals an attractive place to attempt to establish unions. In responding to the possibility that nurses might unionize, hospital managers should acknowledge that nurses often have legitimate grievances concerning pay and working conditions. They should also be aware that changes in the healthcare system during the 1980s often led managers and administrators to neglect focusing on nurses' satisfaction in favor of an emphasis on the bottom line. In the future, if managers can offer nurses the same rewards a union organizer offers and at the same time establish a cooperative, employee-oriented hospital atmosphere, nurses will benefit from the Supreme Court Ruling, whether or not they ultimately join a union.

Collective Bargaining↗
PubMed1990

Physician unions: any doctor can join, but who can bargain collectively?

Employees in the health care industry, including physicians, have recently taken more interest in unions and collective bargaining. At the present time the health care industry is approximately 20 percent unionized. Labor leaders believe that existing conditions are fertile ground for significant union activity that has been on a recent upswing after a decline during the early 1980s. While current attention is being drawn to the shortage of and increased union organizational activities by nurses, physicians may not be far behind. It is conceivable that by the year 2000 the majority of physicians in the United States will work in full-time salaried positions. In addition, the antitrust laws that currently restrain independent physicians from collective bargaining are being challenged and are likely to change as more physicians become salaried and begin to resemble other professional employee groups. The ruling determining that interns and residents are students rather than hospital employees is also certain to be challenged and changed, especially as pressures on the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) are brought by house staff union organizations. After a 1987 ruling that the NLRB had been improperly interpreting the 1974 amendments to the Taft-Hartley Act, the NLRB was ordered to exercise its rule-making power in defining bargaining units for health care workers in acute care hospitals. Physicians would then be one of eight occupations defined as a separate health care bargaining unit.

American Hospital Association↗
PubMed1987

Determining appropriate healthcare bargaining units: NLRB's historic rule making move.

On August 25, 1974 the Taft-Hartley Amendments (Public Law 93-360) took effect and mandated that voluntary not-for-profit hospitals enter into the process of collective bargaining. The belated entrance of these hospitals into the process stems from a change in the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 where the law specifically exempted voluntary hospitals from the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) of 1935. In deleting this exemption, Congress extended labor relations protection to employees of voluntary hospitals and all other healthcare institutions except those under government and public ownership. As far as most hospital chief executive officers were concerned, labor relations would never be the same again.

American Hospital Association↗
PubMed1979

Six steps ease town-gown battle for educators and practitioners.

During the past 30 years, a "town-gown" conflict between health administration practice and education has evolved that parallels the situation between medical education and practice. The conflict has come about as a result of the change from practitioner-dominated education to education that is controlled by full-time university faculty. Six steps are proposed to bring the practitioners and the educators into harmony, using the medical education model as a base for professional preparation of master's degree graduates in health services administration.

Accreditation↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Can MHA graduates tackle financial management? Lessons from American corporate industry.

American industry, the major purchaser of medical services, is beginning to use its buying power to intervene in the healthcare system. Management committees hav been established to develop cost analysis and containment approaches to the utilization of medical services. With innovations by corporate industry, does the hospital CEO see an advocate or yet another adversary in addition to government regulation? Specifically, what preparation do master's degree graduates have, prior to their subsequent job experience, to make an informed contribution in financial decision making? Research was conducted to obtain data from health administration graduate programs in the United States and Canada to help find answers to these questions. This study addresses the strengths and weaknesses of the two major inputs to health financial management education--the proper mix and delivery of course presentations, and the student's motivation, maturity, and academic background. In some respects, both have been found wanting--not only from the findings of this investigation, but also by the AUPHA Task Force on Financial Management in the curriculum. About one-fourth of the entrants to master's degree programs have a business school background which includes courses in accounting, economics, and finance. However, the remaining 75% have other academic backgrounds, which suggests that teaching financially oriented courses to these graduate students is a major problem. The question of whether a health administration graduate with some finance training or a pure finance graduate is more desirable remains unanswered. This is especially true in meshing the immediate needs of the healthcare marketplace for financial management personnel and the long-range career goals of the graduate. This article presents the survey results and seven recommendations for action.

Commerce↗