A public database of doctor discipline and malpractice records, blocked earlier this month by the Obama administration, was made publicly available Friday by three journalism associations. The Association of Health Care Journalists, the Society of Professional Journalists, and Investigative Reporters and Editors have made the full database available on IRE's web site. "While the government has decided that this 'public use file' should no longer be public, our organizations believe that it continues to be a critical resource," said Charles Ornstein, president of the Columbia, MO, based AHCJ. "I encourage reporters, even those who have never used it before, to look for stories within it now." The file released by the journalism groups is a version downloaded last month by IRE. The organization, also based in Columbia, said it has filed a freedom-of-information request for the most recent version of the data.
Federal healthcare reforms may not kick in officially until 2014, but that doesn't mean local hospitals aren't already feeling the effects of the complex and wide-reaching legislation. Earlier this month, St. Francis Medical Center in Trenton laid off 37 employees, blaming the downsizing partly on lower patient reimbursement rates and other anticipated changes of the healthcare reform law. Heads of some of the other area hospitals say the sweeping changes proposed in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act signed into law by President Obama in March 2010 have yet to affect their bottom line. But that doesn't mean hospital administrators aren't gearing up for program and revenue shifts, even as the debate over the federal health care overhaul continues. In the fight over the nation's healthcare system, most of the attention has been on the so-called individual mandate portion of the plan, the piece that will require virtually all Americans to purchase some form of health insurance.
Hospitals across Georgia are pumping hundreds of millions of dollars into new patient towers, major renovation projects and state-of-the-art technologies—even as rising numbers of uninsured patients and falling reimbursements continue to pose financial pressures. n the wake of the Great Recession, hospitals put off major capital investments as people postponed elective surgeries, more uninsured patients besieged emergency departments and an uncertain future loomed with the roll out of the new health care law. The focus instead shifted to slashing costs. Hospitals cut hundreds of jobs, trimmed overtime hours and renegotiated contracts with suppliers. But pressure to meet growing demand as populations swell and America's 78 million baby boomers get older is spurring hospitals to push forward, experts say. It's the biggest balancing act hospitals have—dealing with current financial strains while positioning themselves for the future, said Kevin Bloye of the Georgia Hospital Association.
Mid Dakota Clinic of Bismarck has opted out of a major initiative by Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Dakota that involves sharing patient records with an outside consultant and cites patient privacy concerns as the reason. The program, MediQHome, is a "medical home" partnership between the health insurer and teams of medical providers aimed at better managing patients, especially those with chronic diseases, such as diabetes or asthma, to improve outcomes and reduce costs. The initiative, which involves more than seven of every 10 primary care clinicians representing 75% of the North Dakota Blues' members, requires providers to share patient information with an outside health quality consultant, MDdatacor, a firm located in suburban Atlanta. Jeff Neuberger, the chief executive officer of Mid Dakota Clinic, said that all patients should be contacted in advance to get their permission before their medical information is sent to a third party for review. The clinic's legal counsel, he said, concluded that failure to get individual patients' express approval would violate a federal law protecting patient privacy, the Health Information Portability and Accountability Act.
Propelled by an increase in prescription narcotic overdoses, drug deaths now outnumber traffic fatalities in the United States, a Times analysis of government data has found. Drugs exceeded motor vehicle accidents as a cause of death in 2009, killing at least 37,485 people nationwide, according to preliminary data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. While most major causes of preventable death are declining, drugs are an exception. The death toll has doubled in the last decade, now claiming a life every 14 minutes. By contrast, traffic accidents have been dropping for decades because of huge investments in auto safety.
The term "healthcare" evokes different images in people's minds. To patients who find a miraculous cure, healthcare may be almost sacred. For physicians, nurses and other healthcare professionals it is a compassionate human activity. To hard-nosed economists, healthcare represents just another exchange of favors embedded in a wider market economy that consists of exchanging favors. Some members of society surrender real resources ? their time, amplified by their skill or the healthcare products they produce ? to the process of patient care, which is meant to improve the patients' quality of life. In return, society issues these providers of real healthcare resources generalized claims (money) on all the things included in gross domestic product. Thus, the healthcare sector of any country always has the dual goals of enhancing the quality of life of patients as well as enhancing the quality of life of the providers of healthcare, and, charity care aside, patients are at once objects of compassion and biological structures yielding cash.