As much as 80 percent of the life-saving drugs that local paramedics use to treat patients is in short supply at any given time. The shortage—which has impacted emergency medical services and fire rescue departments of all sizes across the country—has no end in sight, some paramedics say. Between 2005 and 2010, the number of drugs in short supply tripled, according to the International Association of Fire Chiefs. Drugs to treat congestive heart failure, head injuries and seizures were among the drugs in short supply, said Patrick Thume, a captain at Palm Beach County Fire Rescue.
Highmark Inc. executives acknowledged on Monday that a long-term contract with UPMC is essential to providing more than $1 billion to establish a competing hospital system with struggling West Penn Allegheny Health System. Chief Financial Officer Nanette DeTurk said the pursuit of a contract with UPMC means it could take Highmark twice as long to return West Penn Allegheny to profitability if Highmark members can continue accessing UPMC facilities after the end of 2014, when current reimbursement contracts end.
Tenet Healthcare, the nation's third-largest hospital company, reported fourth-quarter profit that missed analysts' estimates on higher costs for uninsured patients amid a flu outbreak. Earnings excluding one-time items were 52 cents a share, the Dallas-based company said Tuesday in a statement. The result was 15 cents lower than the average of 19 analysts' estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Revenue climbed 7.3 percent to $2.33 billion.
A bill requiring health care workers to be randomly drug tested four times a year is not the answer to preventing the kind of drug diversion alleged at Exeter Hospital last summer, a House committee was told Tuesday. Nursing home operators, a physician, the state Hospital Association and the state American Civil Liberties Union all criticized the bill as expensive and government overreach, while the lone supporter of House Bill 597 was the president of a drug testing company.
A 2005 RAND report predicted that widespread use of electronic health records technology would save the US healthcare system at least $81 billion per year. At the time, the vendor-funded report helped drive substantial growth in the electronic health records industry and probably contributed to the federal government making billions of dollars of incentive payments available to physicians and hospitals to adopt and meaningfully use electronic health record (EHR) systems via the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act. Realizing that the cost savings and improvements in healthcare delivery are nowhere near what was optimistically predicted in 2005, RAND recently commissioned a new study to take a fresh new look at the state of health information technology.
An Indiana hospital that was given $70 million in federal funds to offset flood damage cannot get another $20 million, the 7th Circuit ruled. Columbus Regional Hospital was one of many entities affected by a series of floods that ravaged Midwest states in June 2008. The flood inundated the hospital's basement, destroying medical and lab equipment. After President Barack Obama authorized the Federal Emergency Management Agency to provide disaster relief, the hospital received approximately $70 million. Believing FEMA had mishandled the award distribution, Columbus Regional sued the agency to recover an additional $20 million in aid.