As Baby Boomers continue to age, the demand for healthcare professionals in many different fields will continue to grow. And with these opportunities comes the need for properly trained professionals who have the right skills set, from nurses and pharmacists to CEOs.

“There will be numerous career opportunities in 2007, especially in areas where we are seeing shortages, such as nursing, radiology, and pharmacy,” said J. Don Haney, principal and senior partner of Haney/Lowderman, which provides career transition services to healthcare executives. “There are always opportunities at the senior executive level, whether it’s a CEO moving into another CEO role at a different facility, or a COO moving into a CEO position.”

“Individuals in acute healthcare administration are now finding more positions outside traditional hospitals, including in rehabilitation hospitals and LTAC (long-term acute care) facilities,” added Haney/Lowderman principal, Bill Lowderman. “We’re also seeing a real proliferation of jobs for consultants in interim or turnaround management companies—not just for the CEO, COO and CFO, but in emergency, surgery, and other departments as well.”

According to Haney and Lowderman, while there may be a proliferation of healthcare jobs available, candidates are undergoing a more thorough selection process than ever before. “Especially in upper level positions, employers are relying less on chemistry during the interview, and are spending more time scrutinizing potential employees’ track records and references,” said Lowderman. “They are using behavioral-based interviewing (BBI) related to the issues, projects and challenges the management position requires based on the belief that the best indicator of an applicant’s future performance is his or her past performance.” Behavioral-based interviewing is also a way of discovering an applicant’s values, temperament, decision-making processes, conflict resolution style and personality.

“Employers who use to consider three candidates for a position now often look at six,” added Haney. “They also conduct more thorough reference checking and even second-generation reference checking, so candidates really need to have their acts together.”

In order to help healthcare executives succeed in their employment quest, Haney/Lowderman, formerly known as Haney & Associates, provides comprehensive career transition services, which include outplacement training techniques designed to help executives minimize mistakes during the job search. Two- to three-day workshops help individuals learn how to build a powerful resume, prepare for interviews, manage references and learn to network. “We believe that it’s not what you know or who you know, but who knows what you know that determines future career success,” said Lowderman.

With more than 45-plus years of experience between them, Haney and Lowderman understand what skills employers require. “A candidate must have strong leadership skills, as well as strong technology skills and financial skills,” said Haney. “Even non IT-mangers must be more technologically savvy. And if a candidate doesn’t have a thorough understanding of the financial aspects of their organization, they are at a definite disadvantage.”

“Executives must have the ability to improve clinical quality ratings and customer service ratings,” added Lowderman, who says that with more of this data available on the Internet, customers who are making the purchasing decision are increasingly focusing on these statistics. “The federal government and customers who are making healthcare decisions are looking for increased transparency in quality and in pricing.”

Being able to work with a myriad of people is also an important skill. “An executive’s physician-relationship skills must be outstanding,” said Lowderman. “Physicians expect a hospital administrator to be attentive, responsive and honest. And anyone who takes this position needs to realize what a complex relationship it is—a physician can be a hospital’s competitor, partner, collaborator, customer, and employee, all at the same time.”

“Physicians have more power now than ever before,” added Haney. “They can develop outpatient projects on their own, and there is also a trend toward more physician equity positions. To succeed as an executive requires political astuteness and savvy—not only in physician relationships, but with the hospital board, medical staff, employees, consumers and the community.”

Though jobs in healthcare can be extremely rigorous, finding the right position can make it all worthwhile. “Hospital management is one of the most labor-intensive jobs in the world, and one of the most difficult industries for management due to multiple constituencies and the political skills required,” said Lowderman. “Still, for people who relish a challenge, healthcare remains an exciting and dynamic field.”



Keiser University received a National Award for Superior Volunteer Efforts in the Community from the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation (CFF).

The CFF recognized Keiser University’s unique fundraising effort, designated “Freedom to Live, Freedom to Fly,” that offered actual butterfly cocoons for a donation. The butterflies would hatch over time, symbolizing the birth of new possibilities for people living with cystic fibrosis. The campaign raised $50,000 and resulted in hundreds of butterflies being hatched and released across the state of Florida, including at elementary schools in each of Keiser University’s campus communities that received donated cocoons. The Keiser effort was part of an event led by former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, who is the honorary chairman of the annual Jeb Bush Florida Classic, which raised $1 million in 2006 for cystic fibrosis research.



Jackson Health System, which is continually striving to advance the frontiers of medicine to improve its quality of care, is once again providing an innovative technology. Holtz Children’s Hospital is the first hospital in the world to use a new, CereTom portable CT scan technology to obtain images of pediatric patients in its Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and Pediatric Intensive Care Unit thus avoiding moving the critically ill children to the radiology department for tests.

The CereTom CT from NeuroLogica Corp. is a compact, portable, multi-slice scanner being used in a few intensive care units and emergency rooms around the country to scan adults. Unlike traditional CT scan machines, which are extremely large and must be kept in temperature-controlled settings, this device can easily be brought to any area of the hospital. This is especially meaningful in critical care and trauma cases where it is dangerous for patients to be moved.

Due to the machine’s small size, it has been used for mostly head scans on adults and has been particularly helpful to treat traumatic head injuries, where prompt detection of injury, swelling or bleeding is critical. But radiology technologists at Holtz Children’s Hospital are using the machine to scan children who are critically ill and require much monitoring and life support equipment and several caregivers to remain in stable condition.

“Transporting critical care patients out of the intensive care units, especially infants, can be extremely difficult,” said Barbara Ana Perez, R.T.(R.)(M.)(QM), R.D.M.S.FACHE, director of Imaging and Therapeutic Services. “Not only do we sometimes have to remove the patient from life support equipment but due to their acuity, moving the patient also requires numerous nurses, physicians, and specialists to follow them through the hospital to the radiology department for tests. With this new device, we can bring the machine and one or two radiology specialists to the patient.”

Radiologists at Jackson teamed up with NeuroLogica, the makers of CereTom, to design a curved platform that attaches to the machine specially made to hold infants and young children. The platform attaches to an infant’s crib or child’s bed enabling physicians to easily move the patient only a short distance to the platform to be scanned. So far at Holtz, the machine has been used to scan premature infants in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit – which is one of the largest in the nation – and in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit. Many of these children, who are in critical condition and in need of constant care from a team of specialists, are scanned close to their beds with their team of caregivers nearby.

The machine is also unique in the way that it scans patients. Instead of the patient moving through the machine, which is how a traditional CT scan works, patients remain still while the scanner moves over them. The machine also has a low radiation emission due to its small size.

“The technology has made it a lot easier and safer to get scans of critically ill children here at Holtz,” said Carlos Rivero, R.T., chief technologist for the Radiology Department at Jackson. “With our one-of-a-kind platform to hold young children, we are able to get the scans and give the doctors the time-sensitive results needed to provide the best medical care to our patients.”



October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month (NBCAM). NBCAM educates women about the importance of early detection for breast cancer. Since the program began in 1985, mammography rates have more than doubled for women age 50 and older and breast cancer deaths have declined.

This is exciting progress, but there are still women who do not take advantage of early detection at all and others who do not get screening mammograms and clinical breast exams at regular intervals.

  • Women age 65 and older are less likely to get mammograms than younger women, even though breast cancer risk increases with age.
  • Hispanic women have fewer mammograms than Caucasian women and African American women.
  • Women below poverty level are less likely than women at higher incomes to have had a mammogram within the past two years.
  • Mammography use has increased for all groups except American Indians and Alaska Natives.

If all women age 40 and older took advantage of early detection methods – mammography plus clinical breast exam – breast cancer death rates would drop much further, up to 30 percent. The key to mammography screening is that it be done routinely – once is not enough.



Neurology and Science come together in a novel private practice offering personalized health services and the latest and greatest in the advances of science. The Florida Neuroscience Center, headed by Dr. Eduardo Locatelli, has opened its doors in Fort Lauderdale. Dr. Locatelli, a neurologist, is expert in Epilepsy with triple boards in Neurology, Neurophysiology, and Neuroimaging. He adds a master’s of public health to his medical doctorate degree as well as a certification as a Six Sigma champion.