Rush North Shore Medical Center in Skokie, IL, is in talks about a possible merger with Evanston Northwestern Healthcare. Both parties declined to provide further details, but Rush North Shore representatives said the medical center is still in discussions with other potential suitors and does not have an exclusive agreement or a letter of intent to merge with Evanston Northwestern.
As large Boston medical centers move into competition with smaller, community hospitals, Massachusetts health authorities are proposing to make the incursions more difficult. Paul Dreyer, director of healthcare safety and quality at the state Department of Public Health, told the Boston Globe that the Boston hospitals' expansion into the suburbs "potentially duplicates services," and also "potentially puts the community hospital in a situation where it cannot win competitively."
The House Energy and Commerce Committee's health panel has unanimously passed a bill to block Medicaid rules that states said would shift billions of dollars of costs to them. The bill would put a moratorium on seven rules that, among other things, would end federal payments for physician training and transportation of Medicaid-eligible children to school.
The American Hospital Association ranks 41st among the biggest organizational political donors, according to Center for Responsive Politics. The AHA is now trying to use that influence on lawmakers, and its most immediate priority is an effort to block the implementation of certain Medicaid regulations. The new policies would tighten funding in several areas, and will take effect in May if there is no legislative action.
In the United States, 32 percent of mammography clinics now have at least one digital machine, up from only 10 percent in 2006. Eventually, film will be phased out, but progress is causing some centers to repeat mammogram tests for some patients. During this transition period, doctors are learning to interpret digital mammograms and compare them to patients’ previous X-ray films. The digital and film versions can sometimes be hard to reconcile, and radiologists may be more likely to play it safe by requesting additional X-rays and/or biopsies.
Anthem Blue Cross, the largest insurer in California, has announced that it will stop footing the bill for some of the most egregious medical errors, such as surgery performed on the wrong organ or patient. The announcement is following the lead of Medicare, which will stop reimbursing hospitals for eight avoidable mistakes beginning Oct. 1, 2008. Medicare expects to save about $20 million a year from the new policy.
New York doctors who are beginning tests of an experimental vaccine for open-heart surgery patients say they hope the shot will keep MRSA at bay. The aim of the vaccine is to prevent bloodstream and surgical wound infections, and Merck & Co. is testing it in 84 countries. The clinical trial is expected to run three to six months.
The Food & Drug Administration is taking too long to announce and implement a program to track medical devices, according to the Advanced Patient Safety Coalition. The Coalition, consisting of of hospitals, patient advocacy groups, and clinicians, called unique medical device identification “a crucial factor” in improving patient safety and reducing the frequency of medical errors. An identification system that assigns a medical device unique number will mean quicker and more reliable recalls and better tracking of outcomes in patients who have implanted devices, representatives of the group added.
In a national survey of patient satisfaction conducted by Medicare, 73% of patients nationally said their nurses always communicated well. Just four hospitals in Northeast Ohio topped that figure, however. Some say the nurses could be so concentrated on providing care that the communication could be suffering, and that doctors may not be doing their part in communicating to the nurses.
In this entry from her blog in The New York Times, Tara Parker-Pope reports on a British study that shows many patients aren’t comfortable asking their physicians questions that allow them to take an active role in their own health and safety. The findings suggest patients are worried about insulting their doctors by asking safety-oriented questions, according to the study's authors.
