Two of the Senate's most influential leaders are working separately behind the scenes on legislation that would dramatically alter the way Americans get healthcare. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus and Sen. Edward M. Kennedy are hoping their early efforts will push President-elect Barack Obama to move rapidly on the issue and spare the incoming administration some of the missteps that killed Bill Clinton's health reform initiative in 1994.
After months of increasing conflict with doctors and nurses, Beverly (MA) Hospital chief executive Stephen R. Laverty has resigned, ending an eight-year tenure at the facility. In a statement, trustees of the hospital's parent company, Northeast Health System, said Laverty improved the hospital's clinical quality, made it financially stronger, and upgraded equipment. Laverty's tenure, however, was marked by friction between him and the hospital's doctors and nurses, creating a leadership crisis at Beverly Hospital. Henry J. Ramini, MD, an obstetrician who retired in January as trustees board chairman for the hospital's parent company, was named interim chief executive.
Cleveland Clinic is partnering with Microsoft HealthVault to enable certain patients to monitor chronic conditions at home. These patients will use high-tech devices, home computers, and the Internet to keep Clinic doctors posted on their conditions. The doctors could rely on the information to adjust medications or order aggressive medical care without seeing patients for office visits. Early medical interventions could lead to healthier patients and fewer hospital admissions, lowering costs, say Clinic representatives.
Officials at Providence Holy Cross Medical Center have urged the Los Angeles City Council to allow construction to resume on a $180-million expansion, saying the project is caught in a legal and political quagmire that is putting emergency care and jobs at risk. Critics of the project, which include the Service Employees International Union and a handful of neighborhood groups, contended that the hospital had failed to fully address traffic, parking, safety, and environmental concerns. In October, a judge the hospital to halt work on a four-story patient care wing until the council reexamines the expansion and decides whether more environmental review is needed.
Birmingham, AL-based St. Vincent's Health System has laid off 74 workers and closed another 55 open positions, affecting about 2% of the work force at the four-hospital system. The layoffs are the culmination of eight weeks of study during which consultants and teams of employees looked for ways to make the 4,700-employee organization more efficient. The Catholic health system is working to turn around two years of losses: an $8.5 million bottom line loss in the fiscal year that ended June 30 and a $35 million loss the year before.
The final master plan and environmental impact statement for Seattle Children's proposed expansion are now out. The proposed hospital expansion would more than double the number of beds and building sizes on the hospital's 22-acre campus and the 1.8 acres facing it. The environmental impact statement considers the effects on issues such as traffic, housing, noise, aesthetics, light and shadows, and air and water quality.
The city of New Orleans could spend nearly $80 million for land that will accommodate a new veterans hospital. Officials are eyeing a site just north of the downtown region where a number of houses currently sit. The city committed to the project last year, and plans to use Community Development Block Grants to help fund it.
A Stillwater, MN, hospital's expansion is on hold until the economy improves, as its leaders have decided to wait until January or February to ask the city council to approve the first two phases of their plans. Construction cost estimates for the four-phase project now are about 15 percent higher than expected, said Jeff Robertson, CEO of Lakeview Health System, the hospital's parent company. In addition, some indicators throughout the healthcare industry suggest a slight slowdown in the number of people who have elective surgeries, Robertson said.
Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich administration's decision to stop paying for most state-subsidized healthcare is up for discussion in Cook County Circuit Court. A hearing is set after the governor asked a judge to clarify an order to shut down an illegal expansion of the FamilyCare program. Court documents indicate state reimbursement to doctors stopped Oct. 15, the day a Cook County judge ordered the administration to stop an expansion of the program to people with higher incomes.
A group of large healthcare companies is trying to create a common set of security practices, but it remains to be seen whether they can persuade businesses in the fragmented industry to join their effort. Healthcare providers are required by law to safeguard the data they collect about patients, but the laws don't specify how the data should be secured. Proponents of the new standards say they would help ease the confusion that arises when organizations all do things differently.
