HealthLeaders Media Community and Rural Hospital Weekly

HealthLeaders Media Community and Rural Hospital Weekly - December 9, 2009


Providers Should Get Used To Hand Hygiene Demands Cheryl Clark, Editor, Community Hospitals Every week, it seems, there's another story about a creative way to promote self-disinfection. Now the federal government is getting more involved with a video that urges hospital patients and their visitors to make sure they witness doctors and nurses—and anybody else who touches them—washing their hands at the bedside. [Read More]
		December 9, 2009

Editor's Picks
Senate may drop public option Democratic Senate negotiators struck a tentative agreement to drop the government-run insurance plan from their overhaul of the healthcare system, hoping to remove a last major roadblock preventing the bill from moving to a final vote, the Washington Post reports. Under the deal, the government plan would be replaced with a program that would create several national insurance policies administered by private companies but negotiated by the Office of Personnel Management. The announcement came after negotiations among 10 Democrats appointed by Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid to work out differences between the two camps on the public option and other pressing issues. [Read More] FDA Issues Interim Recommendations on CT Scans In response to highly publicized mishaps and ongoing concerns that patients are being subjected to excess radiation during CT scans, the FDA issued interim recommendations to help prevent additional problems. The FDA is also working with manufacturers, professional organizations, and state and local public health authorities to investigate the scope of these excess exposures, and is asking manufacturers to review training for users, reassess information provided to healthcare facilities, and put into place new surveillance systems to identify problems quickly. [Read More] President Obama allocates $600 million to community health centers President Barack Obama announced he will allocate nearly $600 million from the $787 billion economic stimulus plan to help create jobs at 85 community health centers. Obama also announced a new demonstration initiative to support the delivery of advanced primary care to elderly and disabled Medicare patients through community health centers, the Associated Press reports. [Read More] Survey: Stimulus Money Protected Medicaid/CHIP Thanks largely to federal stimulus money, despite the recession most states protected and even expanded coverage under Medicaid and CHIP for children and parents in 2009, according to a new 50-state survey from the Kaiser Family Foundation's Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured. However, Kaiser noted that coverage could be threatened if the economy continues to sputter. Diane Rowland, executive vice president of the foundation and executive director of the KCMU, said in a media release that in 2010 "fiscal shortfalls are likely to cause states to consider significant cuts to Medicaid and CHIP." [Read More]

Leaders Forum
Providing Quality Healthcare in a Values-Driven Culture While healthcare has not been hit as hard by the economic downtown as some market niches, our industry has not escaped completely and there have been job cuts. Whether from inside the industry, or as a result of career changes from other disciplines, in this bad economy we have the chance to find good people and bring them onto our teams. [Read More]

This Week's Headlines
Tufts, Signature Healthcare form affiliation Boston Globe ? December 9, 2009 80-bed hospital in western Port St. Lucie, FL, a step closer to being built TCPalm.com ? December 9, 2009 Survey: Health Costs, Reform a Source of Stress for Americans Ben Cole, for HealthLeaders Media ? December 8, 2009 Blue Cross of Florida goes public with Manatee Memorial, LRMC talks Tampa Bay Business Journal ? December 8, 2009
Webcasts/Audio Conferences
Joint Replacement Service Lines: Alignment and Business Strategies for a Changing Environment (January 22) Women's Health: Building a More Profitable Service Line With Existing Assets (December 17) Marketing Cardiology: Service Line Strategies for Marketers (On Demand)
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From HealthLeaders Magazine

Carving Out a New CEO Model

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Don't Count on Colonoscopies

New procedural developments and a shifting market are changing how physicians and hospitals work together to deliver digestive health services. [Read More]



	Audio Feature Retail Clinics a Disruptive Innovation: Paul Keckley, director of Deloitte's Center for Health Solutions, discusses the latest business developments in retail clinics. [Listen Now]


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