Louisiana State University's chief medical officer will temporarily oversee the state's public hospital system. Dr. Michael Kaiser will serve as interim CEO of the LSU system's Health Care Services Division. He replaces Dr. Roxane Townsend, who also was removed from her leadership roles over public hospitals in New Orleans and Baton Rouge. Townsend's demotion is the second time in two weeks that a major healthcare official within the system has been ousted. The nature of Townsend's exit from her roles in the hospital system was unclear Wednesday. While Townsend said she had been asked to relinquish her role as interim CEO of the LSU Health Care Services Division, Opelka said she chose to step aside on her own.
Former Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius offered praise Tuesday night for Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney's decision to sign into state law a bill delivering quality, secure healthcare to all residents of Massachusetts. Sebelius, in her job as secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, is a central player in implementation of the Affordable Care Act adopted in Obama's first term. She declared transformation of medical insurance in the United States a good thing "now matter who you are, what state of life you're in." Her speech was as much a briefing on the law's details as it was an appeal for support from those at the convention.
Record-keeping for a patient complication used by Medicare to determine how much hospitals get reimbursed is not comprehensive or accurate, undermining the policy's value, a new study suggests. In an effort to get more for their money, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS)—as well as some individual insurance companies—don't reimburse hospitals for certain conditions listed on billing records that are costly and believed to be preventable. One such example is urinary tract infections (UTIs) acquired in the hospital as a result of using a urinary catheter.
Lawyers for Tampa Bay's long-standing trauma programs at Bayfront Medical Center, St. Joseph's Hospital and Tampa General Hospital have argued that the state's approval of new trauma centers at HCA hospitals threatens the quality and financial viability of their services. But so far, Bayfront alone has taken a major hit from trauma programs at Regional Medical Center Bayonet Point in Hudson and Blake Medical Center in Bradenton, which opened late last year. From January to July, Bayfront treated 240 trauma patients from outside Pinellas County—a 68 percent decrease from the same period in 2011, according to hospital figures.
Two prominent California hospitals will be allowed to perform cardiac catheterization in outpatient buildings thanks to legislation approved on Friday. Such procedures have been allowed only in main hospital buildings, but supporters say they can now be done safely in new outpatient buildings planned for Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles and Scripps Memorial Hospital in La Jolla. The California Nurses Assn. fiercely opposed the bill, saying there would be fewer safeguards if something goes wrong during a procedure. It also pointed out that outpatient buildings don’t need to meet the same standards for earthquake safety.
Duke LifePoint Healthcare announced today it will pump $350 million into Marquette General in Michigan. Duke LifePoint closed on the purchase of the hospital today. The partnership will use the money for capital improvement projects and physician recruitment slated to take place over the next decade. Proposed projects include a new outpatient surgery center, a comprehensive cancer center, private patient rooms and new technology, according to the group.