Green Bay Catholic Bishop took time Sunday to a read a letter during Mass, calling on Catholics in Northeast Wisconsin to take action against new healthcare regulations. The regulations Bishop David Ricken is opposing come from the Dept. of Health and Human Services, which announced this week most church-affiliated groups will be required to offer their workers coverage, that includes contraception plans. Under the new law churches and other employers with a religious base have a year to comply with the changes so they have time to adapt, but the bishop said they can never adapt. "It's a direct disconnect against our principles, our philosophy, our background, our teaching," said Ricken.
The healthcare reform law was like the bastard stepchild in President Obama's State of the Union address last week—or maybe it could be better compared to the crazy aunt locked in the attic. Despite some expectation the president would indicate softness on healthcare reform and the Affordable Care Act during the speech, the issue barely came up and zipped by. If you popped into the kitchen for a cup of tea or a Coke and a Twinkie, you missed it. Forbes magazine, for one, expressed astonishment that the healthcare law was not a central theme in Obama's address.
The Jersey City Medical Center is offering $104 million to buy nearby Christ Hospital, a facility that is working to be taken over by a for-profit healthcare company. The JCMC, which is partnering with Community Healthcare Associates in the bid, would keep Christ Hospital as a non-profit acute care facility for at least 30 years and maintain the existing unions, according to a statement released this morning.
At the new $1.1 billion Johns Hopkins Hospital there will be Xboxes and a basketball court for kids, sleeper-sofas for families, single rooms for all patients, an improved dining menu and extensive soundproofing. Health care is a dominant industry in Maryland, responsible for about 11 percent of all jobs in the state, and it is growing, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. Hopkins joins Mercy Medical Center, the University of Maryland Medical Center and other area hospitals in replacing buildings and adding the most modern equipment and amenities to lure patients, keep doctors and expand business.
A Consumer reports investigation focused on the 92 pediatric intensive-care units in 31 states plus Washington, D.C., that publicly reported enough data to make statistically valid assessments of their rate of bloodstream infections. PICUs had infection rates that were 20 percent higher than national rates for adult ICUs. PICUs averaged 1.8 bloodstream infections for every 1,000 days children were on central lines, compared with an estimated national average of 1.5 bloodstream infections per 1,000 central line days in adult ICUs in 2009.
GE Healthcare is discontinuing a Web-based ambulatory electronic health record (EHR) product it purchased less than two years ago. This week the company informed customers of the GE Centricity Advance EHR that it will no longer support the product after June 30. GE Healthcare instead will offer upgrades to its flagship GE Centricity Practice Solution, a combined EHR and practice management system, for approximately the same price as Centricity Advance.