Medical facilities will face increased difficulty obtaining credit at favorable terms to fund capital expenditures in 2009 due to the ongoing U.S. economic crisis, according to a study by Millennium Research Group's US Markets for Video and High-Tech Hardware Devices 2009 report. The operating room integration segment will be hit hard by reduced capital equipment funding, according to the report.
During these tough economic times, don't underestimate the difficulty of internal process improvement and cost reduction, says this piece from Sg2. The long-term success or failure of your internal process improvement can, to a large extent, be predicted based on how internal teams are structured, deployed and positioned in the organization, according to the article.
Investors who sought refuge in healthcare have reason to feel less queasy than most in an economy where no industry has been recession-proof. Healthcare stocks posted the second-smallest loss over the past year among 10 sectors tracked by Standard & Poor's, with an average decline of 21.6% through the end of January. But now comes the tricky part: figuring out how much safe-harbor staying power healthcare has left 14 months into the recession.
Patients who got hepatitis from contaminated syringes and medicine vials are joining infection control advocates to warn Americans about the problem. A recent federal study found more than 60,000 people were exposed to hepatitis, and at least 400 people were infected with it in 33 outbreaks linked with blatant safety violations. The report covered the period from 1998 to 2008, and
many of the cases involved reuse of syringes: Health workers likely thought they were being safe by discarding the syringes' used needles and snapping on sterile ones. They were apparently unaware that the plastic barrel part of a syringe can become contaminated, and reusing it even with a fresh needle also can contaminate the medicine vial.
Officials at Atlanta-based Grady Memorial Hospital are investigating a spike in Legionnaires' disease. Four patients who were recently hospitalized at Grady have contracted the bacterial infection in the past month, according to Grady's Web site. In a typical year, the hospital might see two or three cases. Matt Gove, Grady senior vice president, said parts of the 11th and 12th floors have been shut down while the hospital tests water and tries to determine if the disease is originating inside the hospital. About 80 beds out of 953 are closed for now.
Surgeon Beth DuPree's dream of a specialized hospital for breast-cancer patients has closed. She says the Comprehensive Breast Care Institute at DSI of Bucks County, PA, was a victim of the economy and naive business planning. But for her, the closing of the freestanding, for-profit hospital in Bensalem, PA, is both cautionary tale and learning experience.