Elliot Health System has announced more than 100 layoffs it said are the result of cuts in the state budget. The healthcare provider runs Elliot Hospital and other services in southern New Hampshire. On Monday, it announced it was joining nine other hospitals in suing the state for $250 million in cuts to the state's largest hospitals. On Tuesday, Elliot announced it was shutting down a 24-hour medical help line, cutting expenses and laying off 182 employees. "This is a terribly sad day in healthcare," said Doug Dean, president/CEO of Elliot Health Care. "No one wants to see hard-working people, who have done nothing but perform their jobs for this community, suffer from a reduction in force brought on by the failure of the state to manage their own expenses." In announcing the lawsuit, the hospitals said the state assessed a Medicaid Enhancement Tax of 5.5% of a hospital's net revenues, but it also reimbursed the hospitals with a payment equal to the tax. The hospitals said the new state budget continues the tax but eliminates the payment that had been used to pay the tax.
Residents of rural areas in Minnesota and across the nation are more likely to have chronic diseases and face hurdles to getting quality care, according to a UnitedHealth Group report that calls for new approaches to rural care. A study the Minnetonka-based insurer is releasing Wednesday documents an increasingly urgent need to recruit caregivers to less populated outposts and to explore ways that technology can be used to enhance care. "The reality is rural healthcare is under pressure," said Simon Stevens, a UnitedHealth vice president and chair of the company's Center for Health Reform and Modernization, which released the study. "Given the number of people coming into healthcare coverage in the next several years, that pressure is going to increase." UnitedHealth, the nation's largest insurer by revenue, said it plans to use the report as a way to get public officials to focus on rural issues, improve quality and reduce costs. This is the sixth report from the center, which draws on data from the company's nationwide network of insurance plans.
For the second time in six years, Slidell Memorial Hospital's CEO has been arrested for drunken driving. Robert L. "Bob" Hawley Jr., 64, was jailed on July 13 with one count each of driving while intoxicated, improper lane use, and speeding on the northbound Causeway Bridge, authorities confirmed Monday. Records show he posted a signature bond of $2,500 for his release the next day. Contacted this week, Hawley issued a statement urging the public to not hold his personal troubles against the community, not-for-profit hospital he oversees. "I ask that the good work done by the employees and physicians at Slidell Memorial Hospital not be diminished by my arrest," the CEO said. "This is a personal matter and did not occur during work hours. I have discussed this matter with many people, including my family. I have entered counseling, and I am taking the proper steps to address my personal issues to ensure this does not happen again."
In the controlled chaos of an hospital emergency department, ensuring that patients are pain-free and can make informed choices about their care often takes a back seat to assessing and stabilizing them and moving them through the system as fast as possible. But now some experts say that providing palliative care can and should be a priority in emergency departments, and they're putting together a program to help hospitals better address those issues. "A decade ago, we thought of the emergency department as a way station," says Tammie Quest, an associate professor of emergency medicine at Emory University School of Medicine. "Now we're recognizing what can be done to identify patient needs there, and help to initiate what can be done in the hospital or once the patient leaves the hospital." Under the sponsorship of the Center to Advance Palliative Care, an advocacy organization, Quest is heading up the development of a program that will provide hospitals with online tools and guidelines, identify best practices and link doctors and others with experts to help integrate palliative care into their emergency departments.
Hospital industry bellwether HCA Holdings Inc. reported second-quarter earnings that were far weaker than analysts had expected, dragging down the entire sector on Monday. The decline reflected patients having fewer costly surgical procedures at hospitals run by the Nashville-based hospital chain. Wall Street analysts were split on whether the drop is a one-time blip or the start of a trend for the broader sector. "It's not right to call it a trend," said analyst Tom Gallucci of Lazard Capital Markets in New York. "It's hard to know, which I think is part of the uncertainty of the situation." Earnings reports expected later this week from rival hospital chains could provide more insight into whether the shift is broader. Most analysts, however, agreed that one quarter wouldn't make a trend. Still, investors reacted to HCA's results by sending shares of publicly traded hospital operators down 6.7% overall. HCA fell 19%, or $6.64 a share, to close at $27.97, a decline analysts called overdone and a "buying" opportunity.
The cost of prescription medicines used by millions of people is about to plummet. The next 14 months will bring generic versions of seven of the world's 20 best-selling drugs, including the top two: cholesterol fighter Lipitor and blood thinner Plavix. The magnitude of this wave of expiring drugs patents is unprecedented. By 2016, blockbusters with about $255 billion in global annual sales are set to go off patent, notes EvaluatePharma Ltd., a London research firm. Generic competition will decimate sales of the brand-name drugs and slash the cost to patients and companies that provide health benefits. Top drugs getting generic competition by September 2012 are taken by millions every day: Lipitor alone is taken by about 4.3 million Americans, and Plavix by 1.4 million. Generic versions of big-selling drugs for blood pressure, asthma, diabetes, depression, high triglycerides, HIV, and bipolar disorder are also coming by then.