In July 2015, the new Martin Luther King Jr., Community Hospital opened its doors to much fanfare and to the delight of community members who unanimously agreed that it was well worth the wait. The L.A. Watts Times set down with the Chief Executive Officer of MLK, Elaine Batchlor, MD, MPH, to discuss quality care at the new MLK hospital.
LAWT: Congratulations on your selection to this position. You must be thrilled.
EB: Thank you. I’ve really enjoyed the journey that I’m on. It’s been a interesting undertaking. It’s really something that touches me deeply.
LAWT: I know that a goal of yours is to improve access to care for underserved areas. If you had to give the hospital a grade today in terms of that goal, what would that grade be?
EB: I don’t know what the grade would be but I can tell you that I am really thrilled that we opened the hospital on time, and that we are able to bring a state of the art, high quality hospital to a community that has an urgent need for it. I’ve been working on this project since 2010 and it feels good to bring quality health care to this community.
LAWT: Was it difficult to step into this position knowing that it was going to be an uphill battle?
EB: It wasn’t. It was an opportunity to build the hospital from the ground up based on patient safety, and family centered care. That motivated us and still guides us everyday.
LAWT: It had to be a daunting task to think about the needs of the community and how to overcome their apprehensions about the hospital…did you have sleepless night thinking about it.
EB: Los Angeles is a community of 1.35 million people who have had long-standing and chronic health disparities. You’ve got higher rates of health problems in this community and they are related to the fact that there is also a severe shortage of providers. 
We are missing 1700 physicians in this community and that combination of being medically underserved and having longstanding chronic health conditions; that’s what keeps me up at night, is figuring out how to overcome those challenges.
Because of MLK, we are able to bring new providers into the community, and to use technology to overcome some of those deficits of providers. We are also able to go out in the community and teach people how to manage chronic diseases.
LAWT: There has been a great deal of discussion about how technologically savvy the hospital is now. Are there any particular areas that you are most proud of?
EB: We are proud of the fact that we have opened the hospital with state of the art technology. We have all new equipment in the hospital. We have a brand new electronic health records system. We are paperless and all digital. And what I really love is that our medical equipment integrates with the electronic health records system.
Just to give you an example, we have beds that we call smart beds. These beds weigh patient’s everyday and that information goes directly into their electronic medical record. If a patient has an IV, as the bag runs down, a signal is sent to the pharmacy and the pharmacy knows to send the next bag of medicine. These are a few examples of how we are using technology to better serve our patients.
Another feature of our smart beds is that in hospitals, falls are a big challenge. Our smart beds are programmed so that if a patient who’s at risk for falls, tries to get out of bed by lowering the rails, a message is sent to their nurse, who is carrying a care phone and she knows that she needs to come and attend to that patient.
We have programmed quality, and safety into the care that we are delivering through these devices, the electronic medical records system and through our care protocols
LAWT: I read that when a patient is checked into the hospital, they are given the names of their nurses and doctors.
EB: The patient and their family are an important part of the care team.
On a board in their room are the names of their care team members. We have a patient interactive system that looks like a TV screen but its more than that. It’s a training and educational tool. We can monitor pain, patient’s can see the menu in the cafeteria, and they can watch television and movies.
LAWT: How are patients able to provide feedback once they leave your care?
EB: That’s a wonderful question. They actually start giving us feedback while they are here in the hospital through the patient interactive system. After a patient leaves, they receive a survey asking about their stay; we review those surveys and look at the experiences that our patients are having and identify opportunities to improve our services.
LAWT: In all of your experiences in the health care industry, what has helped prepare you most for your role as CEO of MLK?
EB: I’ve spent most of my career doing administration and working to expand access for underserved communities. Right before I took this job, I was the chief medical officer for LA Care Health Plan.
In that job, I got to know the communities in Los Angeles, including South LA. I got to know the providers and some of the challenges that people were facing in terms of having access to quality care.
LAWT: Did you always know that you wanted a career in medicine?
EB: I date my interest in medicine back to when I was a teenager. I read a book that had a big influence on me called “Dear and Glorious Physician.” It was about St. Luke who was a physician. And the way this story portrayed St. Luke was that as a physician he was involved in science, healing, public advocacy, and addressing health conditions in communities. And practicing that type of medicine appealed to me.
LAWT: You have become the main face of the new MLK hospital. How has the community responded to you?
EB: The community has been very excited and thrilled to have a beautiful, state of the art hospital opening up to serve them. Before the hospital opened, we began our community outreach to get to know the people and for them to get to know us. We invited members of the community to come in and tour the facility to see what its like. We are still conducting those tours and we are still out in the community advancing our wellness programs.
LAWT: This is a beautiful facility. I imagine that the morale of the staff is high. Have you given thought to how you will sustain the good will that you have?
EB: We have a marvelous staff and one of the things that I like to tell the staff is about the number of people who applied for jobs at the hospital so that they understand that they were selected from a very large pool. We do regular orientations for our new staff; we talk about our mission, our vision, values, and community programs.
The morale of the staff is terrific. People come to work here for two reasons:
One is the mission of the hospital and serving the community and the second reason is the opportunity to build a new organization from the ground up and to make it the best organization possible.
LAWT: With Obama Care, how will the hospital balance the surge in the number of persons who now have access to care and the costs of running the hospital.
EB: We are focused on providing access and making sure that the community is taking advantage of coverage programs that are new with Obama care. We conduct healthcare fairs; we go into beauty salons, barbershops, farmers markets, and grocery stores to let people know about the programs that they are newly eligible for.
We are a safety net hospital, which means that we were designed to serve the entire community regardless of their income, insurance coverage, or immigration status and we have sufficient funding to do that.
LAWT: If you had to name three facts that you would want the community to know about the new MLK, what would you say?
EB: The first thing is that we are here to serve them and that we have created the hospital thinking about the needs of our patients and making sure that they are getting the highest quality of care. I would also want people to know that we are brand new and we have a terrific team of people waiting to take care of them.
LAWT: Are there community partners who are crucial to the mission of the hospital?
EB: Collaboration is one of our core values. We are a part of a unique public-private partnership. One of the most important partners for us is the County of Los Angeles and the University of California is another key partner. We have key partners in the community; Churches, local schools that we’ve adopted, community organizations like the Boys & Girls Club, and senior centers.
Collaboration is how we got here and it’s a part of how we going to accomplish our mission of improving the health of the community. We are a small community hospital but we have a big vision of a healthy community and we know to achieve that, we will have to work collaboratively with everyone.
LAWT: There is still a stigma surrounding mental health care in underserved communities. Are you doing any outreach in the mental health area?
EB: Yes – we have a new psychiatric, urgent care/crisis center called the Exodus Center. It’s open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Patients can walk in- anytime and get mental health support. Law enforcement can also bring patients there instead of taking them to jail and they can get the help that they need there. We also have an in-patient psychiatric hospital that is a part of County USC.
In December, we will have a homeless, recuperative care program so that when we have homeless patients who are released but still not well enough to go to a shelter, they can go to this recuperative care program and receive supportive care.
LAWT: You are an African American, female CEO. Have you given any thought to what that actually means?
EB: Before I took this job, one of my former colleagues said, “You know, if you accept this position, you will be one of the few women leading a hospital?” I do realize that it makes me a role model in a certain sense.
I’m proud to show younger women what they can accomplish and I’m proud to lead this particular hospital.
LAWT: Your biggest wish for the hospital?
EB: It’s a pretty simple – that through the work that we do at this hospital that we improve the health of those we ‘re serving. I hope that we provide compassionate, high quality care inside the hospital and that we’re working outside of the hospital, to bring new resources to the community. Because it’s all about the health of the people who live here.
At the John M. Langston Bar Association’s 24th Annual Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony, Robert H. McNeill, Jr., a founding partner of Ivie, McNeill & Wyatt, was recognized for his significant contributions to the legal community, the practice of law and the community at large for the past 36 years. During the ceremony, Katie Murff Trotter, Honorable H. Elizabeth Harris, William H. Hastie, Jr., and Honorable Bob Bowers, Jr., were also inducted into the Hall of Fame. Ivie, McNeill & Wyatt co-founder Rickey Ivie was a 2013 Hall of Fame inductee. Ivie, McNeill & Wyatt is the largest and most successful Black-owned law firm in California.
Danny Bakewell, Sr., chairman of The Bakewell Company, which includes the Los Angeles Sentinel newspaper, introduced his close friend and ally before a capacity crowd at the L.A. Hotel Downtown. “Bob has been at the forefront of the fight for civil rights for over five decades. He marched with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to desegregate lunch counters in Virginia in the 60s. He has tried and won some of the most high profile cases in this city’s history and has set precedent for many others. He is one of the great leaders of our time,” said Bakewell.
Growing up in North Carolina in the 1950s, McNeill aspired to be a lawyer but didn’t think it was realistic. “I went to segregated schools – elementary, junior high, high school and all the way up through college. I didn’t encounter Black lawyers. I saw [Black] school teachers, I saw preachers, and I saw a limited number of Black doctors,” said McNeill. “The only lawyer I saw was a television lawyer, and he was White. His name was Perry Mason. I wanted to be a trial lawyer like Perry Mason.”
After obtaining his undergraduate degree from Virginia State College in 1962, McNeill moved to California and began postgraduate studies in Public Administration at California State University, Los Angeles. McNeill’s legal aspirations became a reality in the late 70s when he earned his Juris Doctorate Degree from Southwestern University Law School and was admitted to the State Bar of California. When Judge Charles R. Scarlett received his judicial appointment in 1980, McNeill teamed up with attorney Rickey Ivie to take over the law practice originated by Judge Earl C. Broady, Judge Scarlett, and Judge Robert Roberson and formed Ivie and McNeill. In 1991, with the addition of name partner Keith Wyatt, the firm became Ivie, McNeill, and Wyatt.
McNeill has served as a Deputy City Attorney for the City of Los Angeles and as Deputy District Attorney for the County of Los Angeles. He was appointed to the Los Angeles County Commission on Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs in 1993 on the nomination of County Supervisor Yvonne B. Burke and served more than three 4-year terms. McNeill served as a Deputy County Assessor from 1963 to 1977. He served as a member of the Los Angeles County Capital Case Fee Committee from 1993 to 1998 by appointment of the Honorable Patti Jo McKay, Supervising Judge of the Los Angeles Municipal Court. McNeill was appointed to the Board of Directors of the California Science Center in Exposition Park by California Governor Gray Davis in 2001.
As a trial lawyer, McNeill has successfully litigated death penalty cases, including one in which he obtained not guilty verdicts on all charges which consisted of four counts of first degree murder with special circumstances. He served as co-counsel in the successful litigation of a multimillion dollar health care class action lawsuit on behalf of insured men and women which settled and won a multimillion dollar award for the plaintiff. Most recently, McNeill provided legal counsel in a medical malpractice case against a major hospital and a personal injury case involving a motorcycle accident, both of which resulted in multimillion dollar awards for Ivie, McNeill & Wyatt’s clients. McNeill’s outstanding track record has earned him a lifetime membership in the prestigious Multi-Million Dollar Advocates Forum, which is reserved for the country’s top trial lawyers who have won multi-million dollar settlements and verdicts.
After receiving his Hall of Fame award, McNeill said, “I’ve been fortunate to try major litigation involving major crimes and major personal injury cases during my career. I’ve seen a lot of things, and I just want to encourage everyone to press on and just be thankful for what you have.”
Russell Simmons hasn’t slept much since news broke in mid-October that users of his RushCard couldn’t access their own money and were locked out of their accounts, due to a computer glitch, leaving some unable to make rent payments, pay utility bills or buy groceries for their families.
“Technology glitches happen, but this was a tsunami,” said Simmons in an exclusive, hour-long interview with the NNPA News Wire.
Users began experiencing problems when Simmons’ company switched to a new transaction-processing provider, something he said they’ve previously done successfully at least four times.
“We made the transfer of processes four separate times in the past and the next thing you know, I get a text message that we sent to our customers that we were down for two hours,” said Simmons, the business magnate who also founded Def Jam Records and the Phat Farm clothing line. “Our call center usually gets about 600 calls and now it’s [getting] 600,000 calls.”
Simmons said that three multi-billion dollar corporations were involved in the process and each has been helpful in resolving the technical issues related to the latest transition.
Simmons credited MasterCard CEO Ajaypal Singh Banga with immediately responding to the problem and helping to fix it.
“He’s the CEO of a $120 billion company and he picked the telephone up on the first ring,” Simmons said, adding that Banga has talked a lot about finding ways to reach underserved communities and others who don’t use traditional banks.
In the aftermath of the outage that wreaked havoc on the lives of thousands of cardholders, RushCard created a multi-million dollar fund to compensate customers who were affected.
Simmons also said that he has heard the criticism about the outage loud and clear and he’s accepted it and now he’s doing everything in his power to make his cardholders whole.
“The way I view it, I will take every complaint and claim and pay it, if it has any legitimacy,” said Simmons. “I’ve heard people being put out of their apartments or in the hospital needing medicine and what I have done, what I do, is if they say they [lost] $400, I’ve given them back that exact amount and I’ve also adjusted their fees.”
In addition to restoring customer accounts in full, Simmons said that from Nov. 1, 2015 through February 29, 2016, RushCard customers will enjoy a no-fee holiday, which will exempt card users from paying monthly, transaction and ATM fees during that period. People who open new accounts will also be eligible for the no-fee holiday benefits, but all cardholders will still be responsible for paying third-party fees.
While it will cost him money, he said it’s just one way of regaining the trust of his loyal customer base.
“I like when this company is really profitable, then we can go out and help the community in a way that no bank, no non-Black institution, ever will,” he said.
UniRush, LLC, the company that owns RushCard, was co-founded by Simmons 12 years ago to help low-to-moderate income individuals and families have an easier time paying bills and managing their money.
“The RushCard is the embodiment of my message of empowerment, because it is a better and more transparent option for millions of ‘underbanked’ and ‘unbanked’ Americans, who often suffer at the hands of large financial institutions,” Simmons said.
According to Bankrate.com, the Prepaid Visa RushCard “Pay As You Go Plan” is among a handful of cards that have no monthly maintenance fees. The card does carry an activation fee that ranges between $3.95 and $9.95 and users are also charged 50 cents for every out-of-network ATM balance inquiry.
In comparison, Walmart’s MoneyCard Plus has a $3 monthly maintenance fee, an activation fee that can be as high as $4 and charges $1 for every ATM balance inquiry, except for inquiries made at MoneyPass ATMs.
Simmons said his company has hired additional employees to help answer and resolve customer complaints and that cardholders should continue to report problems and any financial hardships caused by the two-week outage to the RushCard call center.
“I want my customers to know that we will restore RushCard as the gold standard of [prepaid debit card] services in our community,” said Simmons.
“I want to assure those who rely on the RushCard that I will not rest until we have regained your trust.”
Around the nation, and even in Compton itself, people are asking the same question: How is Compton doing it? How has Compton Unified School District become one of the nation’s great education turnaround stories?
“It started with a vision that the Compton schools could be a model for how an urban school district focused on student success could change lives for the better,” said Micah Ali, who is president of the Compton School Board.
A vision is one thing, but executing that vision is the challenge. And Ali says the community, teachers, staff, administration, school board and most importantly the students themselves have worked hard.
As most well know, things weren't always so good in the Compton schools. In fact just four years ago, the district was wallowing in red ink, with a $30 million operating deficit. The district was suffering from what had been some bad management.
The School Board appointed Darin Brawley as Superintendent. Brawley, a no-nonsense administrator put a fiscal team in place—appointing Alejandro Alvarez the chief budget officer and streamline how Compton managed its money.
“But education is a lot more than just balancing the budget,” said Ali. “We were focused on two critical strategic objectives—the success of our students and the safety of our students.”
The last four years of what Ali calls that “relentless focus” has paid off.
Just in the last twelve months, here are just some of the achievements that the Compton School District has achieved:
• Two Schools (Jefferson and Tibby) are named National Blue Ribbon Schools—the only school district in California to have two schools named.
• Dominguez High school students Jennifer Barrientos and Azcuena Castro win a national engineering design competition (MESA) for an economical prosthetic arm design for amputees.
• Two other Dominguez students—Luisa Rosa Silva and Amir Teixeira were named Gates Millennium Scholarship Winners. Luisa is now at UC San Diego and Amir is at UCLA.
• Compton High school beat over 1200 schools nationally to win the Taco Bell Foundation’s effort to support student success.
So what can other school districts learn from the Compton turnaround?
Talk to school reformers and they’ll tell you that a principal who is an entrepreneur and can both inspire and listen to teachers is a recipe for turning around a school. Find enough of those principals and you can turn around a district.
“In addition, we’ve invested literally millions of dollars in professional training for our leadership and our teachers,” said Ali. And on the issue of student safety, one of the key strategic objectives defined by the district, Ali says that Compton campuses are safer than many in more affluent communities.
The reform doesn’t stop with what has already been achieved. Compton continues to evolve its programs with a focused emphasis on getting its students college and career ready.
“We started an Early College program that allows student starting in the 9th grade this fall to earn community college credit,” Ali said. “Imagine being able to graduate from high school and have a two year college degree as well. That’s now possible right here in Compton.”
Compton has made great improvements in the classroom, but many of those classrooms are in desperate need of repair. In particular, Compton High School, over 100 years old, needs to be replaced.
This November, Compton is asking the voters to approve a bond that will let us build a new Compton High School, replace an elementary school and fund other improvements.
“For Compton High School, our students deserve a 21st century facility for a 21st century education” said Superintendent Brawley
Compton has even created a new website called www.comptonschoolsuccess.org, which trumpets the progress that the district and its students are making.