In a move that had been anticipated since this spring, the operators of Buffalo Sheehan Health Network—the mothballed Sheehan Memorial Hospital on the city's East Side—have officially filed for Chapter 11 protection under the U.S. Bankruptcy Code. The 100-page petition, filed with U.S. Western District Bankruptcy Court Chief Judge Carl Bucki, showed that Sheehan had assets of $6.3 million and liabilities of $5.45 million. The bulk of the assets includes the eight acres on Michigan Avenue where the 270,000-square-foot hospital sits. The property is listed as having a $3 million book value.
Out-of-control healthcare spending is the only stimulus the Republicans can't stop. What else is there? Go out late at night in some of the darkest American cities. Whether it's Cleveland, Baltimore or St. Louis, it seems the only thing left to light up the gloom is a big hospital, shining like a 12-gated city, inlaid with MRIs like precious jewels. And for that we can give thanks to Medicare and Medicaid. Imagine Cleveland without the Cleveland Clinic, or Baltimore without Johns Hopkins. Even in Chicago, with a more diversified base, the city would seem flat without the expansion at Northwestern Memorial Hospital and Rush University Medical Center—with all that hammering and sawing as they get ready for Obamacare.
The board of Martin Luther King Jr. Community Hospital has appointed a chief executive to run the private, nonprofit medical center, which is scheduled to open in 2014 and replace the troubled King-Drew hospital. The board appointed Elaine Batchlor, a licensed physician and longtime health administrator, to head the hospital in Willowbrook, south of Watts. Batchlor is the chief medical officer for L.A. Care, the nation's largest public health plan, where she focused on the underserved community. While at L.A. Care, she advocated for stronger use of technology in medicine and expanded access to medical care. The new facility is being built by Los Angeles County but will be run independently.
Ultimately the goal of all healthcare—IT included—is to put itself out of business. That may sound a bit strange but medicine's primary objective is to cure disease, or prevent it from occurring in the first place. And as the profession gets better at these two tasks, the public should become increasingly self-sufficient and have less and less need for its services. How far down this path will we be in 12 months? Probably not too far. But we are making progress on five fronts:
Pasadena-based Dynacq Healthcare Inc. has placed CFO Philip Chan on administrative leave, pending an investigation. Chan was placed on leave on Aug. 8, according to a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing reviewed by Houston Business Journal. Chan was put on leave as the company conducts an investigation concerning business practices,"potentially encompassing members of the board, management and third persons, and related accounting matters," the filing stated. Dynacq has one surgical campus located in Pasadena. The health care holding company, which specializes in surgical services, shuttered its Dallas-area hospital in September 2011 after some physicians departed.
Why should rates of burnout be higher among physicians? For one thing, physicians tend to work longer hours than other workers, on average about 10 more hours per week. Moreover, striking an appropriate work-life balance appears to be a bigger challenge for physicians, in part because they often tend to keep work and personal life more separated than other workers. The authors of the study speculate that such a high rate of burnout could only result from system-wide issues in medicine, as opposed to the personal susceptibilities of a few physicians.