HCA/HealthONE's $1.45 billion purchase of hospital interests from the Colorado Health Foundation is not a "conversion" of a nonprofit and therefore doesn't require the strictest state scrutiny, the Colorado attorney general said Thursday. But the sale of the foundation's half-ownership in Rose, Swedish, Sky Ridge and other hospitals is still a critical public health interest and requires hearings and a statutory review, Attorney General John Suthers added. A lower level of state common law allows Suthers to review the deal and seek comment, aimed at ensuring the foundation continues to operate as a charity with a community benefit. Public hearings will be held Sept. 26 and 27. Critics of the sale to for-profit HCA/HealthONE, which currently co-owns the hospital group with the foundation, said they are disappointed but will continue their objections. They have said they fear the Nashville, Tenn.- based for-profit cannot be trusted to continue charity care, Medicaid and Medicare coverage, and other community programs at the same level without the foundation as a watchdog. The Denver Post reported earlier this week that the final contract between the two does guarantee 10 years of Medicare and Medicaid service, and meeting current charity-care levels.
When Texas went to court last year to block President Obama's healthcare overhaul, Gov. Rick Perry pledged to do everything in his power to "protect our families, taxpayers and medical providers." Texas, he said, could manage its own healthcare. But in the 11 years the Republican presidential hopeful has been in office, working Texans increasingly have been priced out of private healthcare while the state's safety net has withered, leaving millions of state residents without medical care. "Texas just hasn't proven it can run a health system," said Dr. C. Bruce Malone III, an orthopedic surgeon and president of the historically conservative Texas Medical Assn. More than a quarter of Texans lack health insurance, the highest rate in the nation, placing a crushing burden on hospitals and doctors who treat patients unable to pay. Those costs are passed to the insured. Insurance premiums have risen more quickly in Texas than they have nationally over the last seven years. And when compared with incomes, insurance in Texas is less affordable than in every state but Mississippi, according to the nonprofit Commonwealth Fund.
When Aileen Prabhakaran took a job in Iowa, the young doctor from India expected a land of icy winters, cultivated fields and quiet living. One thing the 31-year-old, whose entire schooling was in English, didn't expect: a communication barrier. Then last year, she enrolled in a cultural-competency course at the hospital where she is a resident in family medicine. "It enabled me to understand Iowa and Iowans better," she says. The 90-minute sessions are taught by two social scientists once a month and are required of all foreign medical residents at the hospital, Mercy Medical Center here in Mason City. About 30 physicians recently attended "Topics for Small Talk With Iowans." In another session, "An Intro to Working Effectively With White Europeans" in Iowa, the professors dissected "the Iowa character." About a quarter of all medical doctors in the U.S. are foreign-born, with the percentage often higher in rural areas. In Iowa, where 63% of the counties have a shortage of physicians, according to the federal government, foreign doctors provide the backbone for many communities.
If Meaningful Use of electronic health records is ever going to fulfill its promise of better care at lower cost, clinical decision support (CDS) systems had better play a central role delivering relevant medical evidence to the point of care, according to one veteran informatics physician and patient safety advocate. "The evidence of best treatment, if not the right treatment, is available probably 85% of the time," Dr. Jeffrey Rose, VP of clinical excellence and informatics at St. Louis-based Ascension Health, tells InformationWeek Healthcare. Unfortunately, information is not often readily accessible. This opinion runs counter to a widely cited statement by Kaiser Permanente's Dr. David Eddy that just 15% of medical treatment is supported by scientific evidence. "That's old and wrong," according to Rose, a former chief medical officer of EHR vendor Cerner. "When you do further studies, information is available, it's just not in the clinical environment."
Want to know where your doctors earned their degrees? Or how about which physicians are — or aren't — certified by specialty boards for a medical expertise? In Missouri that information has been, literally, a state secret. But a law that took effect last week puts it in the public domain. That information, and more, is available from the agency that regulates doctors, the state Board of Professional Registration for the Healing Arts. Because of the data release, Missouri patients are empowered to make more informed decisions about their health care, said Suzanne Henry, policy analyst at Consumers Union. "By requiring the state to put this stuff up, it gives the patient a much better idea than if you just know this doctor is licensed," Henry said. John M. Huff, director of the Missouri Department of Insurance, Financial Institutions and Professional Registration, called the law "a significant step toward better transparency for patients in Missouri."
Medicare could save billions of dollars if people who were pre-diabetic or at risk for cardiovascular disease took part in community-based weight-loss programs, a study finds. Researchers projected cost savings for the government healthcare program if millions of people in the U.S. age 60 to 64 participated in a program that helped them lose weight and gain more healthful lifestyle habits. They based their findings on an existing YMCA diabetes prevention program that is, as of this year, at 50 facilities in 24 states. In a study of a similar program, participants lost an average 7% of their body weight and maintained that over 2.8 years. The prevalence of diabetes went down 71% among people age 60 and older. Their projection was based on a scenario in which the program would roll out across the country and target adults age 60 to 64--those not eligible for Medicare yet--who are pre-diabetic, with a body mass index greater than 24 (considered overweight or obese), and who show risk factors for cardiovascular disease.