Hospital Finance from the First Space Pirate

Recently, NASA verified that they are investigating what might be the first crime in space. The short version is that Anne McClain accessed her ex-wife’s bank account while stationed aboard the International Space Station. It should be noted that Ms. McClain denies any wrongdoing, but the incident has raised some interesting questions about crime in space.

Specifically, what do we do about crimes in space?

In case you’re curious, the short answer here is that the offender would be subject to the laws of the country from which they originated. The five nations involved in the ISS have also set up laws dealing with any cross over, including extradition.

So what does this teach us about hospital finance? Well, as you can read in the above paragraph, NASA, and indeed all the space agencies, weren’t caught completely off guard by this event. A group of people placed, literally, under pressure in a tiny space was going to produce chaotic results at some point. NASA has long expected some kind of ill intent in space, and conversations about it date back to long before the agency was even called NASA. This type of forward thinking, trying to anticipate issues and planning fixes ahead of time, is exactly the kind of thing we should be doing in our own organizations.

Hospital finance strategy, data acquisition and storage, bundled payment impact testing, competition from non-hospital institutions, employer group challenges, constantly shifting healthcare law, can all be nebulous obstacles with a variety of consequences. It is always worth the time and effort to sit down and try to plot out the possible pitfalls of any new situation or complication.

If this is something you think we can help with, give us a call at [X]. (Unfortunately, at this time, our international space consultations are extremely limited.)