For more than 50 years, David Watson, MD, has given his blood, sweat, and tears to the tiny community of Yoakum, TX. For his decades of service to a grateful community, Watson has been named Country Doctor of the Year by Staff Works.
The Purple Songs Can Fly program at Texas Children's Hospital in Houston gives patients a chance to record their own songs in a fully equipped recording studio at the hospital. More than 116 songs have been recorded since Purple Songs began in March 2006 as part of the cancer center's Arts in Medicine program. Some of the recordings have been featured on audio tracks aboard Continental Airlines flights, and flown into space aboard the space shuttle.
Evercare's health management program is just one of a growing list of outsourcing efforts embraced by Gov. Rick Perry and the Texas Legislature as a way to save money while still delivering state-funded care. But rather than providing a surrogate safety net, private contractors have failed needy Texans and taxpayers, according to this account.
Frustrated that years of financing studies and demonstration projects have not translated into widespread improvement in medicine, California philanthropic foundations and think tanks are crusading for healthcare reform in the state Capitol and in Congress. Several of the biggest foundations have established offices in Sacramento and staffed them with experienced former advisors to lawmakers, with the aim of educating legislators to embrace their ideas. The approach is a change in the foundation world, which in the past has maintained an academic distance from the political arena.
A proposal by Atlanta-based Grady Memorial Hospital to increase medical costs to some uninsured patients has alarmed advocates who say people will avoid care, become sicker, and perhaps even die. Grady officials have stressed that the proposal is still in the discussion phase, but acknowledged it could cut off some people from free care. Some of those people receiving free care have been abusing the system, and others have the finances to pay at least part of their bill, said Grady CEO Michael Young.
The disease management-inspired Medicare Health Support project did not save money or improve patient behavior and self-management, according to CMS' second report on the program, which was released just before the new year. In its report to Congress, CMS' evaluator reviewed the first 18 months of the project, which ended last year because CMS was disappointed with the DM programs' results.
Millions of Californians with limited English proficiency now have the right to an interpreter from their commercial health and dental plans. The right was made possible by a first-in-the-nation law aimed at dismantling the language barriers that get in the way of good medicine. The new regulation is being widely hailed as a milestone in reducing mistakes because of miscommunication.
In Houston, the ER overcrowding problem has been the subject of several studies calling for revisions to the emergency system. In 2006, the Harris County Hospital District changed policy to redirect patients who show up at the ERs of some hospitals without emergency symptoms to community health clinics or urgent care services. Memorial Hermann has now implemented a "quick look" strategy, where patients are seen by a nurse or other health professional within five minutes of arrival, then get the sick or injured person to a doctor within 30 minutes.
A court hearing on a proposed Madison, AL, hospital has been delayed until Jan. 9. Crestwood Medical Center is asking Montgomery County Circuit Judge Truman Hobbs Jr. to overturn a vote by the state Certificate of Need Review Board last March granting Huntsville Hospital the right to build a 60-bed hospital in Madison. Its lawsuit claims review board members unfairly ignored an administrative law judge who ruled in November 2007 that Crestwood had made "by far" the best case for expanding into Madison.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has ordered Citrus Health Care Inc. to suspend enrollment of and marketing to Medicare beneficiaries. The suspensions were effective Jan. 1, according to a letter from CMS to Citrus, a health management organization headquartered in Tampa, FL. The sanctions were based on Citrus' failures in two audits conducted in September, the letter said.
