"O Administrator, DON, Where Art Thou?". (Letters to the Editor).Dear Editor: I read with a lot of interest the article "O Administrator, DON, Where Art Thou?" (Nursing Homes/Long Term Care Management, January 2003, p. 42). In a lot of ways, the shortage of new administrators has been created, sadly enough, by industry leaders themselves. There is a source of administrators/executive directors that has never been taken seriously--never groomed or mentored. We have come to understand that many of long-term care s long-term care (LTC), n the provision of medical, social, and personal care services on a recurring or continuing basis to persons with chronic physical or mental disorders. problems are financial in nature: challenges such as cost identification and subsequent containment, cash management (AIR reduction, A/P A/P Airport A/P Accounts Payable A/P Advanced Placement (education) A/P Anterior/Posterior A/P Active/Passive A/P Assessment & Plan (medical) A/P Automatic Pilot A/P Aircrew Personnel management, treasury function! lines of credit), inventory management, debt refinancing, etc. It amounts to managing a nursing home like a business. Let's dare to use ROI (Return On Investment) The monetary benefits derived from having spent money on developing or revising a system. In the IT world, there are more ways to compute ROI than Carter has liver pills (and for those of you who never heard of that expression, it means a lot). and ROA ROA See: Return on assets ROA See: Right of accumulation ROA See return on assets (ROA). analysis, explore lease versus purchase for new equipment, make better decisions on risk management/insurance options, cost out our product lines and make difficult decisions concerning them. Yes, industry leaders have been unwilling to accept new administrators coming from, of all places, finance. I've been told that CFOs are not people-oriented, are not skilled enough on the clinical side, and are too narrow-minded/rigid in their thinking. My strong feeling is that the current crop of new administrators should not necessarily all come from the universities--many should be recruited from finance. They have the 10 to 20 years of experience that is so helpful in this field. Why would we not want to promote a CFO--who has strong financial skills (even an MBA MBA abbr. Master of Business Administration Noun 1. MBA - a master's degree in business Master in Business, Master in Business Administration ), and who took the time, studied, and got his or her nursing home administrator's license--to administrator? I understand that there'd be some risk-taking with this, but I'd still like to know why we don't do the obvious. John G. Matchison Foundation President, CFO See Chief Financial Officer. Peoria, Arizona |
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