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A sure sign of good times for the local apartment industry: Owners are reinvesting millions — P. 3 Police reform is going to be very costly for Cleveland, but business leaders are willing to help — P. 3
Parker could be cracking case on mysterious crash
Clinic believes posting ratings of physicians is a healthy step
Mayfield Heights manufacturer believes its search for answers to Earhart’s death is on point
MetroHealth and UH also plan to post their docs’ scores in coming months
By DAN SHINGLER dshingler@crain.com
By TIMOTHY MAGAW tmagaw@crain.com
Executives at Parker Hannifin believe they found the crash site of Amelia Earhart. Below, parts they found that are being tested for validitiy.
GETTY IMAGES (2), CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
Talk about a great quarter — Parker Hannifin had one that might even be historic. Increase net income, check. Increase earnings per share, check. Find Amelia Earhart’s crash site, check. Well, probably. Company executives think so, and we’ll probably know soon if they’re right. The Mayfield Heights-based maker of motion control products says an expedition led by veteran Earhart researchers Mike Harris and Dick Spink, which Parker sponsored and participated in, has struck gold. Or some of the world’s most sought-after aluminum, at least. “We’re looking, really, for the technical compositions of the (aircraft) pieces we found,” said John Jeffery, director of Parker Aerospace technology and business development, who participated in the search. “Also, one has some paint that we think might be a match to her airplane,” he said. “I have good confidence we’re going to have some success here.” So how did Jeffery, a California-based engineer and executive of an Ohio-based company, end up halfway around the world in the remote Pacific Ocean, looking for a famous plane that crashed in 1937? And why does Parker even care? The answer to the second question is fairly simple. Parker found out that it made parts for Earhart’s Lockheed Electra 10E plane, including the fuel gauges and other parts of the plane’s fuel system, which had been heavily modified to enable the pilot to cross the Pacific in her attempt to circle the globe. As for how the company got involved, that’s a longer and better story. It began last year when Jeffery’s brother, Jim, heard from an old friend who was a professional explorer and Earhart researcher. “Just before Christmas, my brother called me, he had a friend, that I know also, who has been a professional explorer all his life. Mike Harris,” John Jeffery recalled. “He said he had an exploration and knew Parker was an aerospace company and wanted to know if we wanted to be involved.” Harris had been looking for Earhart’s plane for
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Cleveland Clinic docs are seeing stars, and hopefully five of them. The regional health care giant recently joined a handful of hospitals around the country that are posting physician ratings — the good, bad and the ugly — on their own websites. Doc reviews aren’t necessarily a new thing, but with the limited number of writeups on websites such as Vitals.com or Healthgrades.com, health systems like the Clinic believe they can offer prospective patients a more accurate picture of what’s happening with their caregivers. And soon the Clinic won’t be alone in Northeast Ohio, as University Hospitals and MetroHealth plan to do the same in the coming months. “We believe that what’s out there isn’t data that’s valid or of reasonable numbers to truly reflect the care people are getting,” said Dr. Adrienne Boissy, the Clinic’s chief experience officer. “We can provide more meaningful data for patients. Transparency isn’t just posting good stuff. When I say we mean it, we mean it.” The Clinic’s scores, which can be accessed through its online Find a Doctor tool, are an average of all responses to the system’s outpatient and inpatient surveys, which are administered by a third-party vendor. To ensure they’re accurate, ratings are displayed only for those providers with at least 30 returned surveys. Clinic officials insist the anonymous comments aren’t cherry picked and are monitored only to ensure protected health information or vulgarity doesn’t make it onto the site. Moreover, the Clinic is posting data gleaned from surveys sent directly to patients, so not just anyone can post a negative review. The surveys are administered by Press Ganey, an independent patient satisfaction company that works with roughly half of all U.S. hospitals. Boissy, a neurologist, doesn’t have much to hide, as she carries a perfect five-star rating (“Nothing bad to say,” one patient said). On average, the Clinic’s docs boast 4.8 stars out of five, but if you dig deep enough, you’ll find some less-than-flattering comments. For example, despite a
WHO TO WATCH Crain’s looks at some of the people who are making their mark in the Northeast Ohio technology sector ■ Pages 13-18
Entire contents © 2015 by Crain Communications Inc. Vol. 36, No. 25