Four Pennsylvania lawmakers who represent neighborhoods near Northeastern Hospital still hope they can keep it open. They are threatening to withhold funding to Temple University Health System, which announced this week that it will close the Philadelphia hospital July 1. Temple said it would continue using the building to provide outpatient services, including prenatal care. State Rep. John Taylor, whose district includes the hospital, called the health system's decision to close the hospital "arrogant, ill-advised, and premature."
Illinois-based Advocate Health Care plans to buy a stake in RML Specialty Hospital, a long-term care facility in Hinsdale owned and operated jointly by Rush University Medical Center and Loyola University Medical Center. The three medical centers also confirmed that they have started talks to expand Rush and Loyola's long-term care partnership to Advocate's Bethany Hospital in Chicago's West Side. Advocate, the Chicago area's largest provider of medical care with nine hospitals, converted Bethany to a long-term care facility from a community hospital in 2006. Executives say a partnership with Rush and Loyola will allow Bethany to be a part of the two academic medical centers' teaching and research missions.
New Orleans City Councilwoman Stacy Head, whose district includes the city's footprint for proposed state and federal hospitals, is calling on the City Planning Commission to hold public hearings on the combined $2 billion development. The state and federal government generally are not subject to municipal planning requirements. But opponents of the hospital projects have called for more direct involvement by the city. In a letter to Planning Commission Chairman Edward Robinson, Head said she thinks the Louisiana State University System and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs control site selection for their respective hospitals.
Tenet Healthcare Corp. gave Chief Executive Trevor Fetter compensation valued at $9.7 million in 2008, according to an Associated Press calculation, as the hospital operator reaped a profit but saw its stock plunge 77%. Fetter, 49, received a salary of $1.1 million and a performance-related bonus of $2.3 million, but most of his compensation came from stock and option awards valued at $6.1 million, according to a proxy statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
A nonprofit group that monitors industry links to medical research called for the suspension of the top two editors of the Journal of the American Medical Association, and an investigation into allegations that they threatened a researcher who criticized a study published in the journal. The Alliance for Human Research Protection, which is often critical of industry-academic ties, made the requests in a letter it sent to the AMA and the journal.
As part of the push to reach consumers, the average hospital marketing budget grew 18% between 2004 and 2007, according to a survey published by the Society for Healthcare Strategy and Market Development. Being "out there" is key to hospitals across the country as they hone efforts to attract growingly assertive consumers who are deciding what procedures to undergo and where they will have them. Since an increasing percentage of consumers are turning to the Internet for healthcare information, many hospitals are boosting their presence with everything from their own sophisticated websites to online video sharing.
More than 250 people attended a public hearing to voice their views on a proposal to add an MD degree to the University of North Texas Health Science Center's popular osteopathic medicine program. Alumni and current students at UNT's Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine told the UNT board of regents that adding an MD degree would undermine the success of the osteopathic college, which focuses on producing primary care and family physicians, particularly for rural areas. A lineup of business and civic leaders and hospital executives told the board that the addition of a medical doctor degree would expand opportunities for MD and DO students, open doors for additional local residency programs, and produce additional doctors for North Texas.
St. Charles Parish voters will be asked April 4 to allow the Louisiana hospital to borrow $11.5 million to build a new emergency room and make other capital improvements. Hospital CEO Federico Martinez Jr. said passing the proposal would allow the hospital to extend the repayment period of a $6.3 million loan to build its recent three-story expansion from seven years to 20. The balance would be used to build a new emergency room and lab, as well as other capital improvements.
President Barack Obama says the ideal path to universal healthcare is to build on the current system that relies in part on employer plans rather than scrap what has existed for generations. Asked at his online town hall why the U.S. couldn't opt for a European system, Obama said the United States has a legacy of employer-based plans that have filled the needs of a majority of Americans, and that the country has a set of institutions that aren't easily transformed.
The Florida Agency for Health Care Administration has initiated its first draw of more than $363 million in Medicaid match funds it received from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.
This funding represents the increase in Medicaid matching funds earned for the quarter ending Dec. 31. Under the stimulus package, the federal share of Medicaid program expenditures increases from 55.4% to 67.64%.
