Heeding the call of President-elect Barack Obama, groups of consumers are gathering to discus what's wrong with healthcare in America and how to fix it. Early results suggest the public perception of the healthcare industry is that it's a broken system. In these focus groups, consumers say they want everything from comprehensive, employer-sponsored coverage to a new payment system to government-run universal healthcare.
Nearly two years ago, St. Vincent's Healthcare in Jacksonville, FL, gave Charlton Memorial Hospital a line of credit to help pay bills and remain open while changes were made. At that time, the hospital was on the verge of financial collapse. Now, Charlton is thriving and has added new services, including a clinic that is staffed by St. Vincent's specialists.
Ohio hospitals will now be required to make infection information public, despite an attempt by the state's Hospital Association to stop it. The group hoped to curtail the measure, trying to push through legislation. The Hospital Measures Advisory Council recommended in a 2006 law that hospitals disclose information about common infections, and whether facilities are vigilant about practices that reduce infection risk.
Few have signed on to Ohio's new health insurance program that targets middle-income families. Only four children have qualified for the program since enrollment began in April, and only two of those signed up. According to state officials, the low enrollment can be attributed to families simply not knowing the program exists, as well as its strict requirements.
Novant Health System has gotten approval to expand its Presbyterian Hospital-Huntersville, following a ruling by the Huntersville Board of Commissioners. The expansion will include a helipad and a six-level parking deck on its 31-acre campus. Commissioners agreed to let the hospital expand from 325,000 to 529,292 square feet.
The Lloyd Noland Foundation was awarded $7.7 million in a suit against Tenet Healthcare. The nonprofit foundation sued Tenet in 2001, claiming the hospital chain breached a contract the two agreed upon when Tenet bought Lloyd Noland Hospital in 1996. According to court records, the problem arose when Tenet sold the hospital but failed to make sure its contract with Lloyd Noland would still be honored.
As the Cleveland Clinic moves closer to using face transplantation surgery to help disfigured combat veterans, it is working closely with the U.S. military to avoid tissue rejection without drugs that dangerously suppress the immune system. The Defense Department is following the work of Clinic surgeon Dr. Maria Siemionow, who led a team that performed the first face transplant in the United States. The patient, a woman who has not been identified, is recovering at the Clinic. Surgeons replaced 80% of her face, including the nose, cheekbones, upper lip and lower eyelids. The face and underlying anatomy came from an organ donor. The Clinic has been collaborating with the Brooke Army Medical Center in Texas, which houses the Army burn center and treats some of the most badly injured veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan.
Nearly one-third of the 132,000 lawsuits that Maryland hospitals have filed against patients in the past five years over unpaid bills have been filed in the city District Court. Lawyers call up debtors to work out payment plans in rapid, on-the-spot settlements, or lawyers might haggle with debtors in the courthouse hallways. When cases go to judges, hospitals typically win after hearings that last a few minutes or less. These lawsuits have played out even though hospitals' costs of unpaid bills and provision of free care to the poor are supposed to be covered by the rates paid by all patients, under Maryland's unique rate-setting system. Some of the hospitals that have filed the most lawsuits have received millions of surplus dollars from the payment system.
U.S. scientists have created the first human model for studying a devastating nerve disease, which allows them to watch how the disease develops and could help researchers find a way to treat it. The finding marks the latest advance in research that reprograms ordinary cells to look and act like embryonic stem cells—the master cells of the body that can produce any type of tissue or blood cell.
A survey this year found that only 2% of all graduating medical students plan on going into primary care, because of the grinding hours and relatively low pay. Primary care, considered the backbone of American medicine, is crumbling nationwide from an increasing demand of aging boomers and a decreasing supply of physicians. Some healthcare reformers say the need for the medical home model of primary care is huge.
