California's promising strides toward extending medical coverage to all its children has stalled, and thousands of kids are in danger of losing insurance. The trend is likely to further destabilize California's already shaky healthcare system: Uninsured children are more likely to end up in the hospital or in the state's clogged emergency rooms, where much of the cost of their care is passed along to insured people through higher premiums.
Resistance from staff, bad technology, delays, and worker shortages are hampering PricewaterhouseCoopers' makeover of Atlanta-baed Grady Memorial Hospital's cash flow, a report shows. The consultant saved Grady more than $34 million between October and June 30, the report says, but "significant barriers" stand in the way of transforming the public hospital into a profitable enterprise. The report also raised questions about whether the hospital can sustain all the savings Pricewaterhouse-Coopers has realized. Grady must attract more patients and grow more efficient, said Pricewaterhouse-Coopers representatives.
A New Jersey law will require hospitals to file monthly, rather than quarterly, reports on their financial health. State health officials say it's meant to be an "early warning system" for hospitals heading toward financial failure. The law also allows state officials to impose monitors at struggling hospitals. In extreme cases, the monitor could use veto power over a hospital's actions. Roughly half the state's 74 hospitals are running deficits, according to the New Jersey Hospital Association.
Americans who lack health insurance will spend about $30 billion out of pocket on medical care in 2007, but others will end up covering another $56 billion in costs, according to a study. The tab to cover all the uninsured would be $122.6 billion more than this year's projected total, mainly because people with insurance tend to use more healthcare services, the study found.
The Lenexa, KS, City Council has unanimously approved a plan for a complex of three medical facilities at City Center, a massive multi-use development. The complex will include a two-story, 38,000-square-foot care facility for critically ill patients, a 10,000 square-foot one-story emergency room, and a four-level, 54,000 square-foot building with an imaging center on the first floor and doctors' offices on the top three.
Through the efforts of the Patient Advisory Council at Memorial Regional Hospital in Hollywood, FL, the facility has opened a resource center for patients and their families. The center recently opened with three computer work stations, a photocopier, fax, and printing capabilities. It was designed to allow patients and their loved ones the ability to conduct research on-site, and to provide a means for them to give others updates on the patient’s condition.