An aging population, spiraling medical costs, and increasingly poor service are spurring more computer firms to bet on healthcare and what many of them see as a lucrative, but untapped, market.
Expectations for an overhaul of the U.S. health system following the election of Barack Obama as president and a desire of governments worldwide to drive costs of national health systems reinforce the belief that healthcare is an opportunity that tech companies should not underestimate.
The Swinfen Charitable Trust is a telemedicine charity that uses e-mail to link sick people in poor, remote, or dangerous parts of the world with hundreds of medical specialists in some of the world's finest hospitals. Doctors in about 140 hospitals and clinics in 39 nations use the organization to seek help for patients requiring specialized care beyond their capabilities. Through the trust, they can be put in e-mail contact with one or more of the 400 specialists who work without pay as part of the trust's network.
Orlando-based Florida Hospital is getting ready to open a new $255 million building that holds space for 440 patient rooms and an emergency department that could span a football field. The tower's purpose is to replace the hospital's existing, overcrowded ER and expand its cardiac services. Construction began in 2006, and hospital officials expect to start using patient rooms this month. The emergency department is to open in December with 50 treatment rooms for adults and eight for children.
Nurses at Centerpoint Medical Center in Independence, MO, have submitted a petition to decertify from Nurses United Local 5126, an affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers' healthcare division. In 2007, Nurses at Centerpoint Medical Center voted to select Nursing United Local 5126 as their exclusive agent. Poor communications with management, on-call and vacation issues, nurse-patient ratios, and pay were among reasons cited. But during the ensuing year, Nurses United was not able to negotiate a new contract with Centerpoint.
Steven Hunter is out after less than 18 months as chief executive of Provena Health, one of the Chicago area's largest hospital operators. Provena representatives said it has replaced Hunter with long-time board member and former Abbott Laboratories executive Guy Wiebking. Provena would not comment on reasons for the change. Provena has been engaged in a high-profile battle with the Illinois Department of Revenue over whether its Urbana hospital, Provena Covenant Medical Center, should be paying property taxes. Provena Health operates six hospitals and 16 long-term care and senior residential facilties in Illinois.
Kaiser Permanente got a perfect four stars for medical care on an annual HMO score card that California officials hope consumers will use to shop for health coverage. The report card rates the state's eight largest HMOs primarily on preventive measures, including what portion of an HMO's enrollees received recommended tests on schedule. Kaiser garnered four stars because the HMO excelled at meeting national standards on 34 clinical indicators.
In this opinion piece published in the Washington Post, Shannon Brownlee and Ezekiel Emanuel try to dispel "a few myths about how healthcare works and how much reform Americans are willing to stomach." Brownlee is a visiting scholar at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center and the author of Overtreated. Emanuel, an oncologist and author of Healthcare, Guaranteed, is chairman of the center’s Department of Bioethics.
Planners have approved plans for a medical office building to be part of Wesley Chapel, FL's first hospital. The 90,000-square-foot building will be part of a three-building medical complex that will include a hospital. Hospital officials expect to start construction on the site next year, if all goes as planned. The proposed hospital is a joint venture between Adventist Health System and University Community Hospital. The two companies won state permission to build the hospital despite a challenge from Pinellas-based Baycare.
The Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene has developed a Web-based project to ask thousands of residents whether they've been laid low by flu symptoms. The Maryland Resident Influenza Tracking Survey is designed to augment reports from the doctors, hospitals, and medical laboratories traditionally used to gather data on the geography and intensity of the flu season. The health department sends a weekly e-mail to people who sign up, asking them such questions as whether they've had a fever or a sore throat. With a more complete picture of a spreading flu epidemic, health officials say, they might be more effective with efforts to vaccinate people and teach them how to avoid catching and spreading the flu.
Nebraska lawmakers met in an emergency session this week to change their safe-haven law by restricting the age under which a child can be dropped off at a hospital without the parents being prosecuted. The current version of the law did not have an age limit, but was intended to allow parents to hand over an infant anonymously to a hospital without being prosecuted. The problem? Since the law was enacted in September, 35 children have been dropped off at hospitals but only six have been less than 10 years of age.
