This article is reprinted from the Speak Out Now healthcare newsletter at Kaiser and Highland Hospitals in Oakland, CA.
AHS is about to face severe budget deficits thanks to new Medicaid cuts, something CEO James Jackson has called the ‘nuclear option.’ In a stunning display of “collaboration,” he asked for our ideas on how to save money. Not that they ever listen to us (the people who actually do the work), but here are some commonsense solutions:
- Stop outsourcing to management companies and hire AHS managers. Cut out the middle man. And do we really need 5 assistant managers??
- Stop paying expensive travel contracts, and idk, give us the resources we need so nurses actually want to stay.
- No one at the top should make more than the highest-paid frontline worker. So maybe don’t pay executives a small fortune to preside over a crisis they apparently didn’t see coming.
- Stop paying so many damn consultants to tell us to use both sides of the paper towel. We know. If you want good advice on what we need to do our jobs efficiently, ask us. We’ll tell you for free.
Click here to read the article printed in the 08-20-25 Healthcare Newsletter
