A month after a man waited 19 hours for treatment and then died in Dallas-based Parkland Memorial Hospital's emergency department, The Joint Commission showed up there for an unannounced spot-check. Though Parkland officials refuse to discuss that visit, the accreditation group has released a list of 11 standards that it says the hospital failed to meet. One area that was found deficient—"patients have the right to pain management"—suggests that Parkland was not adequately addressing patient discomfort inside the emergency department. The group also found that the hospital was not adequately defining the timeframe for conducting initial patient assessments.
Southwest Atlanta Hospital, citing the credit crunch, has announced that it would close, the third time it has shut down in the past four years. Southwest Atlanta Hospital had already shuttered its emergency room and had been operating only an urgent-care center since the fall. The hospital's current owner, Georgia Medical Provider Financial Corp., said in a statement that it was unable to obtain funding to revive the facility. Southwest was seeking to become a hospital specializing in surgical services.
A showdown between Tufts Medical Center and Massachusetts' largest healthcare insurer ended when the hospital and Blue Cross reached an agreement that allowed both sides to claim success. Tufts and its affiliated doctors said they will join Blue Cross's "alternative quality contract," which the insurer has been pushing as a way to slow the spiraling cost of healthcare while improving treatment. Under the deal, Tufts and its doctors will get a raise with the potential to earn even more money if they reduce the costs of treatment and reach quality goals.
To alleviate the vast numbers of young adults between the ages of 19 and 29 with no health insurance, New York Gov. David A. Paterson is preparing a plan that will allow many more young adults to be claimed as dependents on their parents' health insurance plans. The plan was praised by some healthcare experts as a major step forward, but early evidence from the roughly two dozen other states that have adopted similar programs suggests that their effectiveness in shrinking the ranks of the uninsured has been modest at best.
Columbia St. Mary's is slowing construction on its hospital in Milwaukee to conserve cash during the economic crisis. The new hospital, which had been set to open next January, is now scheduled to open in the fall of 2010. The $417 million hospital will consolidate Columbia St. Mary's two hospitals on Milwaukee's east side.
The sick economy is now infecting the nation's largest health insurance company, as Indianapolis-based WellPoint says cutting 1,500 jobs is the best way to streamline its staff of 42,000. It means eliminating 900 open positions and laying off 600 workers. While WellPoint won't provide specifics publicly, cuts are expected in the 14 states where WellPoint manages Blue Cross plans.
Created in 2000 at the University of Michigan by a Chicago couple whose newborn was undergoing surgery for a congenital heart defect, the CarePages Web site has transformed healthcare by giving families a free and fast way to communicate with relatives, friends, a patient's medical team, long-lost acquaintances, and strangers. Today, more than 750 U.S. hospitals and 4 million people have used CarePages. It was sold in 2007 to Revolution Health, then sold again last October to Waterfront Media, a large, online health company with 24 sites.
South Carolina-based Palmetto Health is appealing a judge's decision that would jeopardize its plans for a hospital in Irmo, SC. Palmetto Health planned to transfer its certificate of need license for 76 beds to its Parkridge campus from its Palmetto Health Baptist location, a move that had been approved by the state Department of Health and Environmental Control. But earlier this month, Administrative Law Judge Marvin Kittrell overturned DHEC's decision to allow the transfer. The deal had been challenged by Lexington Medical Center and Newberry Memorial Hospital. Now Palmetto Health and DHEC have each sent a letter to Kittrell, asking him to reconsider his decision.
Peggy Troy's first job out of college was working as a pediatric nurse at what was then Milwaukee Children's Hospital. Now, more than 30 years later, Troy has again gone to work for the hospital—this time as the chief executive.
Health insurer WellPoint is selecting Chinese partners for a joint venture in the country. WellPoint provides medical management consulting services in China through WPMI Enterprise Consulting and Services Co, which was set up in 2008. Chinese health insurance companies are struggling with high operating costs and a lack of a mature set of rules governing the industry, with some starting to sell investment-linked insurance policies to survive.
