American Health Information Management Association CEO Linda Kloss will step down on March 31, 2010 after 15 years of leadership. The AHIMA Board of Directors has initiated a national search for her successor. Kloss, who has been AHIMA's CEO since 1995, said she intends to continue her career-long commitment to improving health information and will explore ways she might contribute in these critical times during the coming months. AHIMA President Vera Rulon says the board of directors is committed to focusing on meeting AHIMA's strategic goals while planning for a smooth transition of executive leadership.
With skepticism about the president's healthcare reform effort mounting on Capitol Hill, the White House has launched a new phase of its strategy designed to dramatically increase public pressure on Congress. Senior White House aides promise "an aggressive public and private schedule" for Obama as he presses his case for reform, including a prime-time news conference this week, a trip to Cleveland, and heavy use of Internet video to broadcast his message beyond the reach of the traditional media.
The nation's governors have voiced deep concern about the shape of the healthcare plan emerging from Congress, fearing that Washington was about to hand them expensive new Medicaid obligations without money to pay for them. Although many governors said significant change in how the nation handles healthcare was needed, they said their deep-seated fiscal troubles made it a terrible time to shift costs to the states.
President Obama's budget director appeared to soften on the administration's insistence that a healthcare reform bill be delivered by August. The administration's effort to overhaul the nation's healthcare system hit a bump after the director of the Congressional Budget Office said a preliminary analysis found that the bills working their way through the House of Representatives would not reduce health costs over the next decade.
Despite budgets ravaged by the recession, at least 13 states have invested millions of dollars this year to cover 250,000 more children with subsidized government health insurance. The expansions have come in the five months since Congress and President Obama used the reauthorization of the Children's Health Insurance Program to increase its funding and encourage states to increase enrollment.
Inova Health System has filed an application with Virginia health officials for a certificate of public need to build a hospital in Loudoun County. The move is the latest step in a years-long battle over where Loudon County's next hospital will be. It highlights the ongoing tension between Inova and the Hospital Corporation of America, which has sought unsuccessfully to build a hospital there.