North Texas health industry leaders will gather for a meeting to see if they can shake Dallas out of its declining health and soaring medical spending. One option they'll hear about, called an accountable-care organization, attacks those problems by pushing family doctors, hospitals, surgeons, and other specialists to work together using evidence-based medicine and even sharing payments, the Dallas Morning News reports. Baylor Health Care System is already embracing such an approach. Baylor says it will convert its 13 hospitals and 4,500 network physicians into an accountable-care organization by 2015.
A California spine surgeon who leads a medical ethics organization has written to the Army Surgeon General raising questions about a 2002 Army study that used Medtronic spine products on soldiers in ways not approved by federal regulators. One of the physicians leading the study at Walter Reed Army Medical Center was David Polly, MD, now chief of the spine unit at the University of Minnesota's Department of Orthopaedic Surgery. Although Polly was not a Medtronic consultant while at Walter Reed, his subsequent relationship with the medical device giant has come under scrutiny from congressional investigators after he was paid at least $1.2 million by the company between 2003 and 2007, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports.
Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen and Nashville Mayor Karl Dean have scheduled an announcement that is expected to feature architectural renderings of a redesigned Nashville Convention Center and a lease agreement with the Dallas-based company planning to open a medical trade center in the city. The announcement is billed as "a major investment linked to healthcare in downtown Nashville." Dallas-based Market Center Management Co. has been looking at the convention center and other downtown properties as potential sites for the medical trade center, which would showcase healthcare products and services.
Americans could pay billions of dollars more in new taxes for a few years before they're likely to see significant change in the nation's healthcare system under legislation that Congress is considering. Some analysts said that's not necessarily bad. Delaying major healthcare changes until at least 2013, as the pending Senate and House of Representatives bills would do, would give the government sufficient money and time to get things right. Critics counter that there's no guarantee that the money will be enough, and in the meantime, higher taxes could stifle an ailing economy.
Raising the U.S. government's $12.2 trillion borrowing limit tops an agenda of must-pass legislation that imperils Senate Democrats' ability to pass a healthcare bill this year. As the senators struggle to meet President Barack Obama's year-end deadline to overhaul the health system, they must also act to keep the government running and prevent a 21% drop in payments to doctors who treat Medicare patients. They need to approve measures to avert a Dec. 31 expiration of the estate tax, extend jobless benefits, and renew key provisions of the anti-terrorism USA Patriot Act. Pushing the measure into 2010 may create problems for Democrats because Republicans would have more opportunity to make the overhaul an issue in the congressional election year.
Feeling the pressure of a weakened economy, nonprofit Resurrection Health Care is selling two of its Illinois hospitals to a Tennessee-based for-profit company. Resurrection said Tuesday that it will transfer Westlake Hospital in Melrose Park and West Suburban Medical Center in Oak Park to Vanguard Health Systems, which operates 15 hospitals across the country, including two in the Chicago area. Financial terms of the deal, expected to close by midyear 2010, were not disclosed.