This is the seventh installment of Five Tidbit Friday, and this week we’ve got news items ranging from near to far and back again.

CANCER WALK Congratulations to participants of this year’s cancer walk! The roughly thirteen thousand participants this year have raised nearly $400,000 for cancer research and care.

OTHER UNIONS, OTHER HOSPITALS The Kaiser Permanente Union Coalition has recently ratified a new contract agreement. The coalition represents over 100,000 healthcare employees, primarily in states along the west coast. This group of unions coordinates the largest Labor Management Partnership in the country. SHARE has been watching Kaiser Permanente closely, and in particular their “Unit-Based Teams” approach, which is designed to put employees directly in charge of important work-design decisions. Among other things, the new KP agreement includes:

Increased funds for employee training programs and for members’ tuition reimbursement,
Increased training and accountability for frontline managers, and
New tools and support to increase the effectiveness of the Unit Based Teams

You can find even more highlights from the Kaiser Permanante agreement online, and read more about the effectiveness of the Labor Management Partnership in this report out of MIT.

INNOVATIONS in HEALTHCARE The Legal Services Corporation recently announced that Community Legal Aid in Worcester, Massachusetts will receive a 24-month $209,524 Pro Bono Innovation Fund grant to develop a partnership with UMass Memorial Medical Center. The model will address legal needs that can negatively impact the health of low-income and minority communities and interfere with healthcare providers’ ability to improve the health of these patients.

FREE SPEECH at WORK In national news, an NLRB complaint against Quicken Loans could redefine the rules of free speech in the workplace, reports the Detroit Free Press. The case is likely to have implications for social media. The ruling is expected to uphold current standards, including that "employees have a ... right to discuss wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment with fellow employees, as well as with non-employees, such as union representatives." Meanwhile, the US Department of Labor has continued its emphasis on employee rights with a Worker Voice Summit, which will underscore the value of worker organizing and collective bargaining, as a new #starttheconvo initiative invites frontline voices from around the country into that conversation.

MOOSE! SHARE members are now using ICD-10 coding guidelines in our hospital. The new codes allow for far greater precision, including for those patients receiving care as a result of “Burn due to water-skis on fire, initial encounter (V91.07XA),” or even less-likely conditions. At the time of this publication, our research team has not yet uncovered a code for “Incident with urban moose in Worcester County,” although we hear that a moose has been recently seen on our local streets. Drive safe.

See you here next Friday. Hope you have a great weekend.