The state's largest nurses union is pressing forward with a bid to require greater financial disclosure by Massachusetts hospitals and limit the pay of top hospital executives, moves being fiercely opposed by the hospital industry's trade organization. Massachusetts Nurses Association officials delivered a petition to Secretary of State William F. Galvin's office last week signed by more than 100,000 voters calling for a new state law mandating more transparency by hospital systems in reporting their finances and seeking to redress disparities between the state's richest and poorest hospitals.
The Detroit Medical Center says it has an exclusive partnership and ironclad contract with the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute and is asking a judge to block what it says is an improper merger and marketing partnership between the research center and Flint-based McLaren Health Care. Even though Karmanos would remain on the DMC campus in Midtown, the news of the acquisition in October stunned leaders at DMC and at the Wayne State University Physicians Group, which treats many Karmanos cancer patients. In its claim, filed late Friday in Oakland County Circuit Court, the DMC asked Judge Wendy Potts for an injunction.
New York State has pulled back the curtain on hospital charges. A new database shows what each hospital across the state charges for 1,400 different procedures. The differences can be dramatic: At Bellevue Hospital, the median charge for an uncomplicated birth is $6,330, and at NYU Langone Medical Center next door, the median charge is $12,222. Lutheran Medical Center in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, typically charges $5,686 and Maimonides Medical Center, a dozen miles away, $14,763. Patterns can be difficult to discern, and can vary from procedure to procedure. Overall, academic medical centers are more costly because of the additional staff needed for medical training, the greater use of technology, and the severity and complexity of patients.
In America's health-care dialogue, emergency rooms have come to symbolize the system's economic and medical defects. To critics, typical ERs are swamped by the uninsured, who — lacking a regular doctor or source of care — go where they will be treated. Performing routine medicine at high prices, ERs are crowded and costly. If the uninsured had insurance, these problems would recede. Better medicine at less cost. Who could oppose that? Well, nobody. It was a selling point for the Affordable Care Act. The trouble is that the story is mostly make-believe.
Patients at Parkland Memorial Hospital are still complaining about long waits, poor nursing care and the bad attitude of some workers. But there is reason to hope the situation is improving. Overall, the number of patient grievances and complaints at the county hospital has declined in recent months. And a serious effort is being made to resolve such patient problems within seven days, officials say. "The patients seem to be more satisfied with the new process," Regina Burks, Parkland's director of patient relations, told the hospital board at its monthly meeting Tuesday.
An annual state-by-state survey says the country is making good progress in improving its overall health — including a flat obesity rate and a lower rate of smoking. But individual states, especially in the South, continue to lag. The 2013 edition of "America's Health Rankings" by United Health Foundation, the American Public Health Association and Partnership for Prevention says that, "for the first time in decades," the nation's obesity rate did not rise between 2012 and 2013. Americans are also becoming more physically active, the report says.