In an effort to identify areas in healthcare that need improving, the Seattle-based Puget Sound Health Alliance conducted a "community checkup" of 1.6 million patients. Fewer than half of residents over 50 in the Washington counties surveyed have received recommended preventive care, the report found. While the Alliance hopes the findings will be a starting point for improvement, some physicians questioned how consumer-friendly the results will be and if anything beyond talking about the findings will be done.
Under a proposal from Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, health or social workers would visit some of the state's poorest neighborhoods looking for uninsured people to help them get medical attention or get enrolled in government healthcare programs. The $64 million pilot proposal would be aimed at neighborhoods in 14 counties with a high number of uninsured and where officials say the use of hospital emergency rooms for primary healthcare is particularly high.
Fox Chase Cancer Center will proceed with a planned $800 million expansion project after Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter brokered a deal between the hospital and a city council member. Fox Chase will be allowed to build on 19 acres in Burholme Park, and in exchange the center will contribute $4 million to the city's capital program to be earmarked for projects. A spokesperson for Fox Chase said that the hospital was optimistic that the expansion project "will move forward on a pretty rapid timetable."
State Rep. Mike Jacobs (R-Atlanta) has filed a bill to prohibit the head of the Grady Memorial Hospital board from also serving as the hospital CEO. The legislation came the day after Grady board chairwoman Pam Stephenson announced the board had fired hospital CEO Otis Story and named her to temporarily replace him at the Atlanta facility. Jacobs called Stephenson's new position "a conflict of interest of epic proportions."
In a hearing before the chairmen of two Washington, DC, City Council committees, administrators said of Greater Southeast Community Hospital will have a different name and an active community advisory board within months. The hospital's new board of directors has also approved the purchase of $5 million worth of radiology equipment and hiring is taking place in almost every department, administrators said.
Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann wants to ensure that the state's poor and uninsured pay the same prices for medical care as insurance companies. The move is part of Dann's push to define what nonprofit hospitals must do for their communities to remain exempt from paying property taxes. He is concerned that uninsured patients pay high prices for procedures because they do not get the hefty discounts that insurance companies negotiate.