Florida Gov. Rick Scott, one of the most vocal critics of the federal health care overhaul, is dropping his staunch opposition to the law. Scott said in an interview Tuesday with The Associated Press that he now wants to negotiate with the federal government. He said it's time for Republicans to offer solutions to help families after they lost their bid to defeat President Barack Obama. Scott had previously stated that he would not go along with any parts of the health care overhaul that the state controls.
The Clinton Health Matters Initiative will try to close the gaps in health based on income, race and education, and also take aim at preventable disease. Clinton has enlisted Verizon, General Electric Co. and Tenet Healthcare Corp. as corporate partners. Tenet will, among other efforts, work through the Center for the Urban Child at St. Christopher's Hospital for Children in Philadelphia "to address the nutritional needs and other challenges facing urban families." The effort to reduce health disparities will start in California's Coachella Valley— where health disparities between wealthy communities like Palm Springs and neighboring rural towns are among the highest in the country—and Little Rock, Arkansas, in Clinton's home state.
Hoboken University Medical Center has been through a trying two weeks since Hurricane Sandy, but it is on its way back to normal. When the hospital evacuated before Sandy hit, about 60 patients were released to their homes and about 77 were transferred to other hospitals. Paul A. Walker, the hospital's CEO, said he's run hospitals through five other hurricanes, but Sandy was "my first flood of this magnitude." Last night, the delivery of a new CT scanner allowed the hospital to open its emergency room fully.
Hundreds of healthcare workers in Georgia are losing their licenses to practice because of a problem created by a new immigration law in the state. The law requires everyone—no matter where they were born—to prove their citizenship or legal residency to renew their professional licenses. With too few state workers to process the extra paperwork, licenses for doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other health professionals are expiring. Enactment of the law coincided with budget cuts that reduced the office staff by 40 percent. Kelly Farr, Georgia's deputy secretary of state, says 600 nurses alone have fallen through the cracks.
Addressing long-held concerns about whether organ donors have adequate protections, the country's transplant regulators acted late Monday to require that hospitals thoroughly inform living kidney donors of the risks they face, fully evaluate their medical and psychological suitability, and then track their health for two years after donation. Enactment of the policies by the United Network for Organ Sharing, which manages the transplant system under a federal contract, followed six years of halting development and debate. The organ network, whose initial purpose was to oversee donation from people who had just died, has struggled at times to keep pace with rapid developments in donations from the living.
The University of Kansas Hospital reported Tuesday that it had revenue of $1.06 billion for the year that ended June 30. That's up 22.2 percent from the previous year. One factor in the revenue growth was the first full year of revenue from the hospital's merger with Kansas City Cancer Center. Another highlight was that the hospital's employee count hit 5,892, compared with 2,200 in 1998.