The possible closing of the Greenville (SC) Shriners Hospital for Children has mobilized the community, with calls for fundraisers, letter-writing campaigns, and a Facebook page dedicated to keeping the facility open. Ralph Semb, chief executive officer of the hospital, said he's impressed so many people want to help, but added cuts must be made one way or another because the organization can't continue drawing down its endowment to make up for a budget shortfall.
Now that the New York state budget is passed, Long Island hospitals, two-thirds of which will lose a total of more than $40 million, are scrambling to figure out how to close their budget gaps. Joe Baker, the deputy secretary to Gov. David A. Paterson for health and human services, said the state is willing to work with hospitals to ease the transition to more primary care and, in some cases, try to find additional funding.
Trinity Medical Center and the city of Irondale, AL, will use mediation in an effort to resolve a multimillion-dollar dispute over the hospital's decision to switch its relocation site. The hospital and government officials will meet May 27 in an attempt to settle out of court an argument over the city's investment to prepare a site for Trinity to build a $316 million, 424-bed hospital. Despite site preparations and state approval for the Irondale move, Trinity changed its mind and decided to relocate to the unfinished former HealthSouth Corp. Digital Hospital.
A public health insurance option for middle class families could help cover the uninsured but it may well put private insurers out of business, a consulting firm concluded in a study. The report by the Lewin Group said it all depends on details that lawmakers are far from deciding. But the report could provide ammunition for critics who say a public plan would move in the direction of government-run medicine, according to the Associated Press.
Florida Gov. Charlie Crist appoints commissioners to hospital districts in Broward to oversee tens of millions of taxpayer dollars that go toward taking care of the poor, but one commissioner hasn't shown up at a single regular board meeting in almost two years. Shane Strum last participated in a South Broward Hospital District board meeting in June 2007, and that was by telephone, according to meeting minutes. And he missed at least two meetings before that date, too, which is the oldest listed on the district's website, according to the Miami Herald.
The government has set a goal for every American to have an electronic health record by 2014, and Kathleen Sebelius, the White House nominee for Health and Human Services secretary, calls the move to computerization "one of the linchpins" of overhauling the nation's healthcare system. But naysayers suggest health information technology is full of false promise. Digital records can lead to better care and fewer medical mistakes, they say, but the costly transformation could waste money if the doctors and hospitals buy systems that can't be connected to share information.