The Fulton-DeKalb Hospital Authority was essentially pushed aside when officials at Atlanta-based Grady Memorial Hospital signed the agreement that created a new corporate board early last year. In recent weeks, however, the authority has become Grady's chief communicator on money issues with the Fulton County Commission, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports. The Fulton commission provides about $80 million a year toward Grady's approximately $650 million budget. And as tension has mounted between the Fulton County Commission and Grady's corporate board, commissioners have used the opportunity to largely bypass the corporation in favor of the more familiar authority, according to this article from the Journal-Constitution.
Tampa General Hospital paid $4.8 million for three pieces of property, where it intends to move office staff to open up space at the facility. The hospital plans to move some of its non-medical support office staff to the recently acquired building in about a year, said a spokesman, and vacated hospital space will be remodeled to house patients. The hospital is licensed for 988 beds.
The Illinois Hospital Association's new president is bracing the group's member hospitals for a wave of mandates and regulations brought by federal reform of the healthcare system. Maryjane Wurth, who became president of the 200-member hospital association in October, said that hospitals face many implications regardless of which bill is signed into law by President Barack Obama. As part of Obama's push to improve quality and lower costs, for example, hospitals could see reduced payments from the federal Medicare health program for the elderly if mistakes or poor service were to lead to readmission of patients, Wurth told the Chicago Tribune.
As labor leaders fight to sign up 10,000 healthcare workers, a California-based union is charging the Service Employees International Union with changing ballots and threatening to report a worker to immigration officials. The SEIU and the National Union of Healthcare Workers have been fighting for the right to represent 10,000 home healthcare workers in Fresno, CA. An election earlier this year gave the SEIU the victory, but the NUHW is asking that election be invalidated and a new one ordered because of what it says is evidence of intimidation. The NUHW filed charges Nov. 6 with the California Public Employment Relations Board, which oversees the election.
The nation's 5,010 nonfederal community hospitals saw profits fall to $17 billion in recession-wracked 2008, thanks in large part to investment portfolio losses that accounted for $4.4 billion in red ink, according to the newly released 2010 AHA Hospital Statistics guide.
Hospitals reported total net revenue of $643.6 billion while claiming total expenses of $626.6 billion, for a net gain of about $17 billion in 2008, according to the survey, which was compiled by AHA's Health Forum with data gleaned from all AHA-registered hospitals.
In 2007, bolstered by a record $17 billion in investment income, hospitals reported net revenues of $626.3 billion against total expenses of $583.2 billion for net profits of $43.1 billion, the survey reported.
The survey also reported that hospital admissions grew to 35.8 million in 2008, an increase of more than 400,000 when compared with 2007, while inpatient days hit more than 196 million, an increase of more than 1.5 million when compared with 2007. The average length of stay has remained flat at 5.5 days for at least the last five years. More than 10.1 million inpatient surgeries were reported in 2008, a decrease of 84,474 surgeries when compared with 2007.
The survey also showed that full-time hospital personnel increased by about 80,000 positions, while part-time employees grew by about 20,000 between 2007 and 2008. The Bureau of Labor Statistics recently reported that the hospital sector has reported about 37,000 new payroll additions so far this year with nearly half of those additions coming within the last two months.
The AHA survey reflects data from 2008. Since then, however, there have been encouraging signs that hospitals may be on the rebound. In addition to the recent spate of payroll additions reported by BLS, a new study by Thomson Reuters shows that 80% of the nation's hospitals were back in black in the second quarter of 2009. In the third quarter of 2008, more than half of all hospitals reported that they were losing money.
Kellogg Co. announced will pull immunity claims from its Rice Krispies and Cocoa Krispies cereal boxes amid the public's growing concern about swine flu. Kellogg began adding extra antioxidants to its cereal last year, which it says help support the immune system. The company began advertising the change with large labels on cereal boxes that read in bold letters: "Now helps support your child's immunity." But representatives from the food maker said that given the public attention to swine flu, it has decided to phase out the message from its packages.