Skip to main content
Subscribe
  • Sign Up Free
  • Login
  • Subscribe
  • News
    • Current News
    • Providers
    • Insurance
    • Government
    • Finance
    • Technology
    • Safety & Quality
    • Digital Health
    • Transformation
    • ESG
    • People
    • Regional News
    • Digital Edition (Web Version)
    • Patients
    • Operations
    • Care Delivery
    • Payment
    • Midwest
    • Northeast
    • South
    • West
  • Blogs
    • AI
    • Deals
    • Layoff Tracker
    • HIMSS 2023
  • Opinion
    • Breaking Bias
    • Commentaries
    • Letters
    • From the Editor
  • Events & Awards
    • Awards
    • Conferences
    • Galas
    • Virtual Briefings
    • Webinars
    • Nominate/Eligibility
    • 100 Most Influential People
    • 50 Most Influential Clinical Executives
    • Best Places to Work in Healthcare
    • Excellence in Governance
    • Health Care Hall of Fame
    • Healthcare Marketing Impact Awards
    • Top 25 Emerging Leaders
    • Top Innovators
    • Diversity in Healthcare
      • - Luminaries
      • - Top 25 Diversity Leaders
      • - Leaders to Watch
    • Women in Healthcare
      • - Luminaries
      • - Top 25 Women Leaders
      • - Women to Watch
    • Digital Health Transformation Summit
    • ESG: The Implementation Imperative Summit
    • Leadership Symposium
    • Social Determinants of Health Symposium
    • Women Leaders in Healthcare Conference
    • Best Places to Work Awards Gala
    • Health Care Hall of Fame Gala
    • Top 25 Diversity Leaders Gala
    • Top 25 Women Leaders Gala
    • - Hospital of the Future
    • - Value Based Care
    • - Hospital at Home
    • - Workplace of the Future
    • - AI and Digital Health
    • - Future of Staffing
    • - Hospital of the Future (Fall)
  • Multimedia
    • Podcast - Beyond the Byline
    • Sponsored Podcast - Healthcare Insider
    • Sponsored Video Series - One on One
    • Sponsored Video Series - Checking In with Dan Peres
  • Data & Insights
    • Data & Insights Home
    • Hospital Financials
    • Staffing & Compensation
    • Quality & Safety
    • Mergers & Acquisitions
    • Data Archive
    • Resource Guide: By the Numbers
    • Surveys
    • Data Points
  • Newsletters
  • MORE+
    • Contact Us
    • Advertise
    • Media Kit
    • Jobs
    • People on the Move
    • Reprints & Licensing
MENU
Breadcrumb
  1. Home
  2. Politics & Policy
February 17, 2022 10:55 AM

As politics infects public health, private companies profit

Vignesh Ramachandran, Kaiser Health News
  • Tweet
  • Share
  • Share
  • Email
  • More
    Reprints Print
    money-hospital_i.png
    MH Illustration/Getty Images

    For some counties and cities that share a public health agency with other local governments, differences over mask mandates, business restrictions, and other COVID preventive measures have strained those partnerships. At least two have been pushed past the breaking point.

    A county in Colorado and a small city in Southern California are splitting from their longtime public health agencies to set up their own local departments. Both Douglas County, Colorado, and West Covina, California, plan to contract some of their health services to private entities.

    In Douglas County, Colorado, which is just south of Denver and has one of the nation’s highest median household incomes, many residents had opposed mask mandate guidance from the Tri-County Health Department, a partnership among Adams, Arapahoe, and Douglas counties. Tri-County issued a mask order for the counties’ school districts in September 2021 and, within days, conservative Douglas County announced its commissioners had voted unanimously to form its own health department.

    Douglas County, which in 1966 joined what was then called the Tri-County District Health Department, is phasing out of the partnership, with plans to exit entirely by the end of this year. It has already taken over many of its own COVID relief efforts from Tri-County.

    It is contracting things like COVID case investigation, contact tracing, and isolation and quarantine guidance to a private consultant, Jogan Health Solutions, founded in early 2021. The contract is reportedly worth $1.5 million.

    “We believe the greatest challenges are behind us … those associated with being one of three counties with differing and competing public health demands, on a limited budget,” Douglas County spokesperson Wendy Manitta Holmes said in a statement.

    Daniel Dietrich, Jogan Health’s president, declined a request for an interview. “All of the data that Jogan Health is collecting is being relayed directly to Douglas County so that public policy aligns with real-time data to keep the residents of Douglas County safe,” Jogan Health spokesperson Sam Shaheen said in a prepared statement.

    A similar situation is playing out east of Los Angeles, in West Covina, California. Its City Council has voted to terminate its relationship with the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health over disagreements about COVID shutdowns.

    Not a Modern Healthcare subscriber? Sign up today.

    A county in Colorado and a small city in Southern California
    are splitting from their longtime public health agencies
    to set up their own local departments.

    MH Illustration/Getty Images

    West Covina officials have criticized the county health department’s COVID restrictions as a one-size-fits-all approach that may work for the second-largest city in the U.S., but not their suburb of about 109,500 people. West Covina plans to join Long Beach, Pasadena, and Berkeley as one of a small number of California cities with its own health agency. A date for the separation has not been set.

    As in Douglas County, West Covina plans to contract some services to a private consultant, Transtech Engineers, that works mainly on city engineering projects and federal contracts, according to its website. Transtech officials did not respond to requests for comment.

    West Covina Councilman Tony Wu and area family physician Dr. Basil Vassantachart are leading efforts to form the city’s own department. They hope L.A. County’s oversight of about 10 million people — “bigger than some states,” as Vassantachart noted — can be broken up into regional departments.

    Amitabh Chandra, who directs health policy research at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, said the private sector won’t necessarily have better answers to a public health problem. “It might be the case that they’re good at delivering on some parts of what needs to be done, but other parts still have to be done in-house,” Chandra said.

    Jeffrey Levi, a professor of health policy and management at the George Washington University, suggests there are too many local health departments in the U.S. and there should be more regionalization, rather than splitting into smaller departments.

    “It’s very hard to effectively spend money and build the foundational capabilities that are associated with a meaningful public health department,” Levi said. “Doing this just because of anger at something like a mask ordinance is really unfortunate.”

    Levi noted that public health departments are responsible for everything from restaurant and septic system inspections to administering the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, or WIC, a federal food assistance program. If a department is not adequately resourced or prepared, residents could see lapses in food or water safety efforts in their community, Levi said.

    “L.A. County Public Health Department is one of the most sophisticated, and one of the most robust health departments in the country,” Levi said. “You are losing access to just a wide, wide range of both expertise and services that will never be replicable at the local level. Never.”

    “The public will be hurt in ways that are not instantly measurable,” he added.

    The most recent major private-sector takeover of public health was a flop. A private nonprofit, the Institute for Population Health, took over Detroit’s public health functions in 2012 as the city was approaching bankruptcy.

    The experiment failed, leaving a private entity unable to properly oversee public funding and public health concerns placed on the back burner amid the city’s economic woes. Residents also didn’t have a say in where the money went, and the staff on the city’s side was stripped down and couldn’t properly monitor the nonprofit’s use of the funds. By 2015, most services transferred back to the city as Detroit emerged from bankruptcy in 2014.

    “That private institute thought it was going to issue governmental orders until it was informed it had no power,” said Denise Chrysler, who directs the Network for Public Health Law’s Mid-States Region at the University of Michigan School of Public Health.

    In Colorado, Tri-County’s deputy director, Jennifer Ludwig, expressed concerns about Douglas County creating non-COVID programs essential to the functioning of a public health department.

    “We have programs and services that many single-county health departments are not able to do just because of the resources that we can tap into,” Ludwig said. “Building that from scratch is a huge feat and will take many, many, many years.”

    There are also practical benefits. A larger health department, according to Ludwig, is more competitive in securing grant funding, can attract and retain high-quality expertise like a data team, and can buy supplies in bulk.

    But West Covina’s Wu accepts that the city will not be able to build its department overnight. “You have to start small,” he said.

    Douglas County and West Covina face another key snag: hiring amid a national public health worker shortage. Douglas County officials say they are conducting a national search for an executive director who will determine the new health department’s staffing needs.

    Kaiser Health News is a national health policy news service. It is an editorially independent program of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation which is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.

    Letter
    to the
    Editor

    Send us a letter

    Have an opinion about this story? Click here to submit a Letter to the Editor, and we may publish it in print.

    Recommended for You
    1920_masks-2_i.jpg
    New bill seeks safe staffing standards for Ohio nurses
    capitol hill
    Senate advances bill to temporarily aid hospitals, health centers
    Most Popular
    1
    Centene to lay off 2,000 workers
    2
    How health systems are battling price-gouging allegations
    3
    Senate advances bill to temporarily aid hospitals, health centers
    4
    Elevance, Blue Cross Louisiana halt $2.5B proposed deal
    5
    Tower Health to sell urgent care centers, close others
    Sponsored Content
    Modern Healthcare Alert: Sign up for this breaking news email to be kept in the loop as urgent healthcare business news unfolds.
    Get Newsletters

    Sign up for enewsletters and alerts to receive breaking news and in-depth coverage of healthcare events and trends, as they happen, right to your inbox.

    Subscribe Today
    MH Magazine Cover

    MH magazine offers content that sheds light on healthcare leaders’ complex choices and touch points—from strategy, governance, leadership development and finance to operations, clinical care, and marketing.

    Subscribe
    Connect with Us
    • LinkedIn
    • Twitter
    • Facebook
    • RSS

    Our Mission

    Modern Healthcare empowers industry leaders to succeed by providing unbiased reporting of the news, insights, analysis and data.

    Contact Us

    (877) 812-1581

    Email us

     

    Resources
    • Contact Us
    • Help Center
    • Advertise with Us
    • Ad Choices
    • Sitemap
    Editorial Dept
    • Submission Guidelines
    • Code of Ethics
    • Awards
    • About Us
    Legal
    • Terms and Conditions
    • Privacy Policy
    • Privacy Request
    Modern Healthcare
    Copyright © 1996-2023. Crain Communications, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
    • News
      • Current News
      • Providers
      • Insurance
      • Government
      • Finance
      • Technology
      • Safety & Quality
      • Digital Health
      • Transformation
        • Patients
        • Operations
        • Care Delivery
        • Payment
      • ESG
      • People
      • Regional News
        • Midwest
        • Northeast
        • South
        • West
      • Digital Edition (Web Version)
    • Blogs
      • AI
      • Deals
      • Layoff Tracker
      • HIMSS 2023
    • Opinion
      • Breaking Bias
      • Commentaries
      • Letters
      • From the Editor
    • Events & Awards
      • Awards
        • Nominate/Eligibility
        • 100 Most Influential People
        • 50 Most Influential Clinical Executives
        • Best Places to Work in Healthcare
        • Excellence in Governance
        • Health Care Hall of Fame
        • Healthcare Marketing Impact Awards
        • Top 25 Emerging Leaders
        • Top Innovators
        • Diversity in Healthcare
          • - Luminaries
          • - Top 25 Diversity Leaders
          • - Leaders to Watch
        • Women in Healthcare
          • - Luminaries
          • - Top 25 Women Leaders
          • - Women to Watch
      • Conferences
        • Digital Health Transformation Summit
        • ESG: The Implementation Imperative Summit
        • Leadership Symposium
        • Social Determinants of Health Symposium
        • Women Leaders in Healthcare Conference
      • Galas
        • Best Places to Work Awards Gala
        • Health Care Hall of Fame Gala
        • Top 25 Diversity Leaders Gala
        • Top 25 Women Leaders Gala
      • Virtual Briefings
        • - Hospital of the Future
        • - Value Based Care
        • - Hospital at Home
        • - Workplace of the Future
        • - AI and Digital Health
        • - Future of Staffing
        • - Hospital of the Future (Fall)
      • Webinars
    • Multimedia
      • Podcast - Beyond the Byline
      • Sponsored Podcast - Healthcare Insider
      • Sponsored Video Series - One on One
      • Sponsored Video Series - Checking In with Dan Peres
    • Data & Insights
      • Data & Insights Home
      • Hospital Financials
      • Staffing & Compensation
      • Quality & Safety
      • Mergers & Acquisitions
      • Data Archive
      • Resource Guide: By the Numbers
      • Surveys
      • Data Points
    • Newsletters
    • MORE+
      • Contact Us
      • Advertise
      • Media Kit
      • Jobs
      • People on the Move
      • Reprints & Licensing