Preparing for growth beyond its proposed new hospital in Chicago, Children's Memorial Hospital said it paid $18 million for a 99-year lease on a building from the Archdiocese of Chicago. The six-story building is less than one block from the future site of the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago. That $1 billion facility will replace Children's Memorial's Lincon Park hospital, and is scheduled open in 2012.
An Illinois woman whose child suffered brain damage at birth in a Sandwich hospital has settled a malpractice suit against the doctor, hospital and staff for $15.35 million, one of the largest settlements of its kind in the state. The woman delivered her son at Valley West Community Hospital in October 2001. The boy suffered cerebral palsy and mental retardation as a result of medical negligence during delivery, the woman's lawyers said.
Several prominent spine surgeons have moved their practice from New England Baptist Hospital in Boston to Newton-Wellesley Hospital.
The Boston Spine Group LLC said it is expanding treatment of complex orthopedic cases through Newton-Wellesley's Spine Center and Center for Joint Reconstruction Surgery. The president of Boston Spine Group said patients have said in surveys they want a more convenient location than Boston, and the group's doctors believe community hospitals that offer an array of services have a more secure future than New England Baptist and other specialty hospitals.
Rhode Island lawmakers who want to be part of the state healthcare plan do not pay for coverage, but they may start kicking in a portion of their own costs. A proposal approved by the House would require lawmakers to pay 10% of their healthcare premiums. The symbolic change was voted as the Legislature struggles to close a budget deficit of at least $434 million. To do so, the Legislature voted to cut healthcare coverage for 2,800 immigrant children and to raise healthcare costs for state retirees. They are considering plans that would eliminate subsidized healthcare for 7,400 poor adults.
Patients are often frustrated not knowing how much medical care will cost before they're treated. Wall Street Journal columnist Benjamin Brewer, MD, says he understands, because he can't get that information when he needs it, either.
The federal government is spending nearly $1.9 million on newspaper ads around the country that disclose hospital satisfaction rates. The full-page ads will show how patients rated more than 2,500 hospitals nationwide and feature two questions: The percentage of patients who always got help when they needed it, and the percentage of patients who got antibiotics one hour before surgery. The latter question reflects the interest in infections acquired at hospitals.
Three words for those worried about the recent prediction medical travel will siphon billions of dollars from the U.S. healthcare system: Get over it.
I’m not one fond of hyperbole, but those who say the U.S. system is in crisis aren’t too far off the mark. With soaring costs and an utter lack of price transparency, it’s no wonder why the U.S. has 47 million people who cannot afford or choose not to purchase health insurance.
Can you really blame global hospitals and industry analysts for considering American healthcare consumers as the next best opportunity for medical travel’s growth?
Now, as I pointed out in a recent column, there are significant barriers between Americans who need access to affordable healthcare and non-U.S. providers. But, employers are getting serious about exploring ways to bring the cost of care down, and their demands can remove the greatest obstacle for would-be medical travelers by creating employer-sponsored and insured medical travel.
Not everyone is convinced that this will happen, but Dan Snyder, ParkwayHealth’s group executive vice president and group chief operating officer, says it’s a matter of time.
“I think as insurance companies in the U.S. think about how to work with employers to manage the cost of care and premiums and out of pocket costs,” Snyder said to me at a recent Global Healthcare Summit. “If that happens, and I think it will, we just want to be in a position to ensure that the continuity of care of the patient is something that we are all proud of. And that’s going to take teamwork between U.S.-based providers and overseas providers like Parkway.”
Whether or not this level of access occurs in the next few years won’t impact Parkway’s immediate growth projections; for instance the system is building a 600-bed hospital in northern India and adding another hospital in Singapore. “We’re building new hospitals in every division that we operate,” says Snyder. “Each of those four divisions has specific growth objectives just to keep up with population growth and maintain market share.”
For systems, like ParkwayHealth, that are truly international, opportunities and threats advance on multiple fronts and across many borders. The development of Middle East healthcare systems could be perceived as a threat that retains a very large patient population to that part of the world. At the same time, surging economies across Asia can be considered an opportunity by creating a new middle class that seeks better healthcare options. And, of course, there is the potential opportunity in the U.S. that perhaps gets more attention than it is due.
But still open for debate is whether the U.S. healthcare industry—unquestionably the finest in the world—will collaborate with global hospitals to provide a continuity of care, the way Snyder describes, or find new ways to compete to keep patients from traveling for medical care.
ParkwayHealth is betting on the former, because as Snyder points out, the latter would take significant political will and fundamental change to America’s health system.
“Globalization is happening,” he says. “All you have to do is get on a plane and go to Asia to figure out that the balance of power, the balance of economics is changing. And the United States cannot just do nothing anymore because doing nothing means the U.S. will be uncompetitive in the global marketplace.”
The time is now for American healthcare executives and providers to get over the fact that patients have new options, and insurers and employers are exploring partnerships with international providers as one solution to contain costs. And instead the focus must be on whether this movement creates opportunities to collaborate or competitors that must be overmatched.
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A total of 1,988 medical claims were made by Insure and Go customers when in the United States in 2007, resulting in 16% more costs than the next most expensive country for medical claims, which was Thailand. There, 614 claims were made. The United States was also the most common country for medical claims in 2006, when 2,182 claims were made. In that year, there were 1,723 claims made in Spain and 1,657 in France, despite the far greater numbers of tourists who go on holiday to Europe than the United States.
BridgeHealth International's new Web site and its accompanying blog entitled The Bridge allows business leaders and consumers to have access to objective, timely information on medical travel. The new tools offering easy-to-find, relevant information on the numerous aspects of medical travel, and allows visitors to learn some of the best ways to access high quality healthcare worldwide and maximize their medical travel experience, according to a BridgeHealth International, Inc. release.
The University of Memphis is hosting a delegation of 19 healthcare officials from rural regions of China. The officials are spending three weeks in West Tennessee learning about American healthcare, particularly in rural areas. The visitors are part of a group of 50 from China who are in clusters across the state, seeking strategies to improve rural medicine. Tennessee officials also hope to learn how to handle some of the issues on the homefront from the Chinese.
