ProHealth Care has announced that it plans to spend $75 million to $90 million to build a hospital in Mukwonago, WI, continuing the hospital building boom in the Milwaukee area. Construction is expected to begin in 2009 and take 18 to 24 months. ProHealth representatives said the planned hospital will expand the services available in Mukwonago and the surrounding area while defending the health system's dominant position in Waukesha County. The new hospital also would be a less costly alternative to expanding Waukesha Memorial Hospital, they added.
Daniel D. Ricciardi, MD, a board member of New York City's Health and Hospitals Corporation, has resigned after the agency began an inquiry into his role in securing a 10-year, $100 million contract for a Caribbean medical school where he has long had a paid position. Ricciardi was criticized by officials of New York-based medical schools for his role in securing the contract for the city's 11 public hospitals to provide clinical training to students from St. George's University School of Medicine in Grenada.
Community Health Network, an Indianapolis-based hospital system, wants to bring the same sort of computerized convenience of an ATM to healthcare through its new myCommunity program. The service offers a variety of free tech tools to patients who sign up to receive a credit-card-sized "myCommunity" card. It will also feature express check-in kiosks to be installed at one hospital first, then throughout the system eventually. Patients will swipe their myCommunity cards and use touch screens to complete the inpatient and outpatient check-in process. MyCommunity also allows patients to keep track of their conditions and medications.
In spring 2007, hospital company Pacific Health Corp. agreed to purchase the nonprofit, 223-bed Anaheim (CA) Memorial Medical Center for $57.1 million. But the sale of a nonprofit hospital to a for-profit company must be approved by the state attorney general, and the purchase has run into opposition. At a public hearing, opponents of Pacific Health's purchase of Memorial contended that Pacific Health should not be expanding at a time when its current hospitals have been hit with so much criticism from regulators over the last year. Pacific Health's problems grew this week, as it was named in a civil lawsuit filed by Los Angeles City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo. He contended that the company was part of a scheme "to defraud the Medi-Cal and Medicare programs."
A Harris County (TX) Hospital District administrator probably violated the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act when she downloaded medical and financial records for 1,200 patients with HIV, AIDS, and other medical conditions onto a flash drive that later was lost or stolen. The hospital district has released little information about the situation, but issued a brief statement saying patients affected by the breach would receive a letter in the mail and would be allowed to enroll in a credit protection program at the district's expense. The district has strengthened its policies and procedures regarding the use of transportable media devices, according to the statement.
Raleigh, NC-based Rex Healthcare has received permission from state regulators to build a new, three-story outpatient care center across from its main campus. The center will have almost 130,000 square feet of space for outpatient services, and a separate building will have 85,000 square feet for medical offices. Rex officials told state regulators that the building was needed to reduce congestion on the main campus. Among the services Rex will move are: eight existing operating rooms and four existing procedure rooms, most of its diagnostic imaging facilities and one MRI scanner, and rehab services, including physical, occupational and speech therapy.
Florida is facing an explosion in its number of elderly Hispanic residents, raising concerns about the strain on a healthcare system that is not prepared to handle their unique needs. In 1995, U.S. census officials said Florida would face a 102% increase in Hispanics age 65 and older by 2010. By 2007, the Hispanic elderly population had already increased by 124% to 530,000 people, or 12.5% of the senior population. Nurses and doctors who speak Spanish are sorely needed, but the language barrier isn't the only concern. Sometimes there are cultural differences that can affect a patient's care, experts say.
In this blog entry from the New York Times, Georgia based physician Robert Lamberts, MD, offers a few simple rules he follows to help him get along better with his patients. Blogger Tara Parker-Pope says hundreds of readers have commented about how frustrated they are with doctors and the medical system, and these rules may help.
Two things that we know: One, that sick people turning up in emergency rooms is the least cost-effective way to treat them, and two, that most of the costs in healthcare are tied up in treating the chronically ill. But knowing what the problem is and solving it are two different things, as new reports this week demonstrate.
A report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that Americans made 119 million emergency room visits in 2006, and increase of 32% in a decade. Perhaps even more disturbing was the study's conclusion that patients with Medicaid use emergency services at a rate of 82 per 100 persons, compared to 21 per 100 for those with private insurance. Of all hospital impatient admissions, nearly half come through the ED, up from 36% a decade ago.
The report certainly suggests that despite many well-meaning initiatives to encourage people to make better use of physician offices, clinics, and other primary providers, patients still are choosing—since the numbers arriving by ambulance remained relatively stable—to take the most intensive route possible.
Maybe "choosing" is not the correct word. A convergence of more uninsured, shrinking availability of primary care physicians, and the declining willingness of those physicians to take government reimbursement at reduced rates is forcing people to the wrong healthcare door. So what to try next? Raise copays into the thousands? Boost primary care strength at a financial loss? The solutions don't get any more appealing. Another study, this one from the Annals of Internal Medicine, found that as many as one in three uninsured—an estimated 16 million—have a chronic condition for which they either receive no treatment or show up in emergency rooms for their care. True numbers of how many uninsured have a condition like high blood pressure or diabetes are difficult to estimate since many have not touched the healthcare system.
These two studies are not so much new information as they are an invoice—a little reminder that the bill is due and that the interest rate will hurt. Managing inflow to the ED may well require some more aggressive policies no one really wants, and the costs for truly treating all those chronically ill uninsured are really going to hit hard with any discussion of universal coverage.
Jim Molpus is Editor-in-Chief of HealthLeaders Media. He can be reached at jmolpus@healthleadersmedia.com.
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South Florida Roman Catholic hospitals Holy Cross and Mercy will combine operations under a joint chief executive, the hospitals have announced. John C. Johnson, the top boss at Fort Lauderdale-based Holy Cross Hospital, has been selected to head a new Catholic Health East organization in Southeast Florida that will include Holy Cross and Mercy Hospital in Miami. In his new role, Johnson will be responsible for overall strategic planning and operating performance for the two hospitals.
