It should come as no surprise that pharmaceutical companies pay doctors for a variety of reasons such as research, lecturing, and teaching. Such payments are justified as these physicians tend to be in demand as experts and their expertise is valued. They can't be expected to do this work pro bono – their time is valuable. However, such payments are viewed with great suspicion. Industry critics are quick to charge that what companies are really doing is currying favor with doctors so that they will write more prescriptions for their drugs. This type of "manipulation" is believed to be a conflict-of-interest.
A new study suggests that cash-strapped Medicare missed an opportunity to save more than $1 billion by not addressing the varying costs and use of prescription drugs. Comparing Medicare enrollees and those on the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) health plan, researchers found that Medicare beneficiaries were up to three times more likely than VA patients to choose higher-cost brand name drugs over generic brands, according to the Annals of Internal Medicine report. "The main issue, and the only way to fix this, is to change what physicians are doing," said Dr. Walid Gellad, a lead author and internist with the VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System and the University of Pittsburgh.
The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) is one of the most powerful institutions in Pennsylvania, employing some 55,000 people at more than 20 hospitals and 400 outpatient clinics. Like many powerful organizations, UPMC has detractors. The health care system is under fire from local labor organizers who want to unionize its workforce, a competing health care system that's eyeing its customer base and, lately, the mayor of Pittsburgh, who is suing UPMC to try to force the institution to pay payroll and property taxes. UPMC is now a tax-exempt non-profit organization categorized as a charity.
BATON ROUGE – The Louisiana Civil Service Commission has cleared the way for the state to lay off nearly 4,000 employees at LSU hospitals in Lafayette, Lake Charles, Houma and New Orleans. With a 3-2 vote, the commission gave approval for 3,976 employees, 2,771 of whom are classified state Civil Service, to receive pink slips effective "at the end of business June 23." Commission approval was another step in Gov. Bobby Jindal's move to get the state out of the hospital business and privatize their operations. It was the final step for the four hospitals.
While some companies still lag behind, EHR vendors are moving rapidly to enable their mobile products with speech recognition, either directly or through third-party interface vendors. In the first category is Cerner, which just last month integrated Nuance Communications' speech recognition product with its ambulatory mobile EHR for iPads, according to Jon Dreyer, director of mobile solutions marketing for Nuance. In an interview with InformationWeek Healthcare, Dreyer added that in January, Epic embedded Nuance in its latest mobile EHRs for the iPhone and iPad.
Jan Powers, a clinical nurse manager in the pediatric oncology unit at the Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, remembers how hard it was for her team after the death of a child. They met with an art therapist, who brought clay. "There was a lot of pounding and kneading, and while we made our pots and whatever, people started to talk," she said of the session last summer. "When your hands are occupied and you're not in the spotlight, it's easier to say things like 'I feel really bad' or 'This child touched my heart and I'm grieving.' It gives staff a chance to create out of something that is hurtful and painful."