Wisconsin-based Aurora Health Care and the Grafton Village Board have completed a deal that gives Aurora more parking room for its new hospital and medical building in Grafton. As part of the deal, Aurora agreed to pay the village almost $2.4 million this year toward constructing the public works facility.
Bloomington (IN) Hospital has been given the green light to pursue its plans to integrate with Clarian Health Partners. Indianapolis-based Clarian includes the Riley Hospital for Children, Methodist Hospital and Indiana University Hospital. Under the plan, Clarian would take control of Bloomington in early 2010. The move is the latest example of smaller hospitals across Central Indiana teaming with the large Indianapolis-based systems as competition for patients, health workers and reimbursement heats up.
The interim chief executive for Cleveland-based MetroHealth Medical Center envisions running a hospital under two systems: one that attracts more patients who can afford healthcare and another that offers a streamlined, cost-effective method of delivering care to the poor. Mark Moran's proposal includes new screenings and other measures to guide non-emergency cases away from its emergency room; an expansion of certain services and more community health centers; "upgrades" that would allow MetroHealth to collect more of the money it bills; and possible partnerships with other hospitals.
Supporters of a $9.4 million outpatient surgery center near Gulf Shores, AL, are seeking a second opportunity to make their case after being rejected by state healthcare regulators in April. The Certificate of Need Review Board will hear from lawyers for a group of Baldwin County doctors and a subsidiary of Pensacola's Sacred Heart Health System. The groups want the panel to reconsider its denial of plans for Pleasure Island Ambulatory Surgery Center. The 7,900-square-foot facility would be built in northern Gulf Shores. Opposing the plans are Infirmary Health System and South Baldwin Regional Medical Center in Foley, AL.
The latest results of the Premier Hospital Quality Incentive Demonstration show dramatic across-the-board improvement in the performance of participating hospitals, according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Launched in October 2003 by CMS and the Premier Inc. Healthcare Alliance, HQID involves about 250 hospitals in 36 states. The demonstration was designed to test new payment systems under Medicare that would improve the safety, quality and efficiency of care delivered in the nation's hospitals, according to a CMS release.
Hospitals around the country are using music as a way to ease patients' pain, lower blood pressure, reduce anxiety and depression and improve coping abilities to get patients well, faster. A 2007 survey by the Society for the Arts in Healthcare, along with the Joint Commission and Americans for the Arts, found that of the 1,923 healthcare facilities surveyed, 35% offered some type of music to patients. Besides promoting relaxation and reducing stress, music therapy has been shown to affect sleep patterns, improve stroke patients' memories and decrease the amount of sedation medication needed for some patients.
The latest New Jersey budget proposal is a little kinder to hospitals than its predecessor, but the state's healthcare providers say some facilities probably won't survive even the smaller funding cuts. At issue is funding for charity care: Gov. Corzine's original budget would have cut the program $143 million, to $573 million, and focused money on hospitals that treat the highest proportion of poor people. Some hospitals with a better-insured clientele would have lost charity-care funding entirely.
Under the new proposal, the cut was reduced to $111 million and all of the hospitals got at least some money. The state also plans to create a $44 million hospital-stabilization fund, according to the New Jersey Hospital Association.
Some healthcare professionals think healthcare workers wearing scrubs outside the hospital presents a health risk to both the general public and patients. Some of the professionals note that while hospitals say they have strict rules not to leave the hospital with scrubs, they often do not enforce them.
A former healthcare executive was sentenced to five years in prison for helping his Philippines-based company swindle $100 million from the U.S. military health insurance program. Thomas Lutz, 41, took responsibility for the six-year scheme in which Health Visions Corp. bilked $99.9 million from the military's Tricare program through inflated and fraudulent claims. The scheme deprived Tricare, which insures 9.2 million current and retired service members and dependents, of money it could have used to provide care for others, said U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb.
Despite the slow economy and credit crunch pushing many developers to the sidelines, healthcare real-estate investment trusts are expanding their development pipelines. Some of the biggest health-care REITs by stock-market value are expected to build $675.9 million of properties by year's end, up from $236.5 million in 2007, according to stock-research firm Stifel Nicolaus. Aging baby boomers who want cheaper outpatient care are fueling demand for medical-office buildings, said Stifel Nicolaus representatives.
