Healthy Career

Healthy Career Outlook for Healthcare Professionals with Law Skills

Career opportunities in the health care industry are expected to continue growing more quickly than in virtually any other industry, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Occupational Outlook Handbook. Not only is the health care industry expected to add more than 2 million new jobs by 2024, many existing roles will continue to evolve, creating additional opportunities for professionals currently working in what is a very broad field.

Health care law is one area seeing significant growth, thanks in part to the impact of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). It’s one of the fastest-growing disciplines for graduate and post-graduate degrees, according to Lawyer & Statesman. The changes spurred by the ACA are also inspiring many professionals to learn more about the law to enhance their career opportunities and boost their skill sets.

“Health care professionals routinely find their dayto-day tasks affected by legal issues like regulatory compliance, risk management, malpractice, ethics, and patient privacy,” says Scott Johnson, professor of law at Concord Law School, part of Kaplan University. “

Recent laws and regulations governing these issues and the delivery of health services generally make knowledge of health care law a real career asset these days. A background in law can help a wide range of professionals, from administrators to clinicians to technology entrepreneurs be more effective in their current roles and better positioned to seize emerging opportunities.”

Legal expertise can benefit health care professionals and their patients across many aspects of the industry, but it is particularly helpful in three key areas, Johnson notes:

* Regulatory compliance - Compliance professionals help providers prevent, detect, and correct any actions, policies, or procedures that are counter to the many regulations governing the health care industry. They also help promote ethical conduct. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996 propelled growth in this area and regulatory compliance has been one of the fastest-growing professions over the past 15 years. Health care professionals in a wide range of positions including those who work with electronic health records, Medicare or Medicaid requirements, or the various requirements from the Affordable Care Act (ACA) could benefit from knowledge of legal issues related to regulatory compliance.

* Ethics - A subspecialty of regulatory compliance, knowing legal issues related to ethics is particularly important for professionals working in facilities where research also takes place. Bioethical principles and standards cover areas such as human subject research, genetic privacy, patient rights, rehabilitation ethics and more.

* Risk management - This discipline focuses on reducing errors to protect patients as well as health care employers. This includes provider and institutional liability, notification and apology programs, risk assessments, patient safety, and adverse event reporting.

The growth of health care law has encouraged schools to create specialized degree programs for professionals seeking added legal expertise, but not planning to become practicing attorneys. For example, Kaplan’s Concord Law School offers a health care law track within its Executive Juris Doctorate (EJD) program. Since most industry professionals are working full-time, and often outside of the typical 9-5 work day, going back to school can be challenging. However, as the first fully online law school since 1998, Concord provides a unique solution.

“One of the great benefits of the online EJD Health Law program is that it is offered through our law school,” Johnson says. “EJD students take the same classes that our law students take and they learn from the same law professors. Attending our law school provides EJD students with a thorough understanding of the law. They enjoy the opportunity to develop the skills necessary to analyze the law and explain its impact. Plus, they get to do all of it in a flexible, online program. EJD students can apply these skills by helping health care providers and professionals comply with the myriad of state and federal laws that govern health care.”

To learn more about Concord Law School and the health care law track, visit www.concordlawschool. edu.—BPT

Innovation: A Fundamental Factor in Family-Owned Business Success

22 RuralLeaderMag.com |AUGUST 2016 It’s no secret that there are countless challenges facing today’s family-owned businesses. In fact, less than one-third of family businesses successfully migrate from first to second generation ownership. Another 50 percent never survive the transition from second to third generation, according to Forbes. While every organization has its own priorities and category-specific issues to manage, family businesses that fail to innovate run the risk of losing market share to competitors, losing key staff or simply operating inefficiently so that they cannot survive. Innovation is a key differentiator between market leaders and their rivals, and can ultimately ensure longevity.

IDEAL Industries, Inc., a manufacturing company based 60 miles west of Chicago, is consistently growing and expanding under four generations of family ownership, and is celebrating its centennial anniversary this year.

How has this electrical product supplier and hand tool company managed to stay relevant and produce results for 100 years? Their success story can be chalked up to their ongoing devotion to innovation and looking beyond traditional business pressures of hitting quarterly results.

Their philosophy is simple: focus on the markets that exist today, while ensuring that they are poised to serve those of tomorrow.

“The beauty of being family-owned is that we have the freedom to make executive decisions with the long-term in mind,” said IDEAL Chairman and CEO Jim James. “We think ten years ahead - how will our family, board and business be different? What are the risks that lie ahead and how can we mitigate them now? How do we put our core business out of business? Because if we don’t, someone else will.”

While IDEAL may best be known for their wire connectors, their innovations also touch the sky, as nearly every commercial jet flying today has been constructed using IDEAL wire strippers. They’ve even reached the moon, as part of the critical equipment on NASA missions. Their Audacy advanced wireless lighting system is installed at major league ballparks, college campuses and airports.

Best of all, they touch the daily lives of skilled tradesmen around the globe, who reach for IDEAL, Western Forge and SK brand hand tools to get the job done right.

However, innovation is not only about designing a new product or service to sell, but also focusing on the development of new business processes and best practices in order to improve efficiency, find new customers, cut down on waste, increase profits and keep employee retention rates up.

“At the end of the day, it’s very important for organizations to take a step back and ask themselves what is truly blocking the innovation process,” said Vicki Slomka, senior vice president of global human services at IDEAL. “Companies that constantly challenge themselves and are relentlessly focused on innovation will survive in this ever-changing globally competitive environment.”

Thus, in order to prevent becoming another failing statistic, companies have no choice but to prioritize innovation. Family stewardship must ensure their professional management team has the strategic alignment, patience and resources available to foster an innovative workplace environment - one that produces products and services that continuously cater to today’s competitive marketplace and consumer. Family-owned businesses must commit to a high reinvestment rate in order to support a robust innovative pipeline that will allow them to survive and thrive into the next generation.—BPT