The Iowa Legislature has agreed to give medium and large hospitals a 1% increase in Medicaid money, which hospitals have promised to use to increase nurses' salaries. According to a 2006 federal survey, Iowa ranks 52nd in nurses' pay among the 54 states and territories.
An expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program that legislators approved last year has won federal approval, making low-cost coverage available to more kids in moderate-income Indiana households. The expansion will bring more than 5,000 children into Indiana's SCHIP program this year and as many as 10,000 eventually.
In Indiana, SCHIP is combined with Medicaid to create the Hoosier Healthwise insurance plan for children.
The Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services has launched the Medical Electronic Data Interchange, which keeps data such as medication and immunization histories, lab orders and hospitalizations for Medicaid patients. In addition to keeping track of Medicaid patient data, officials say the database also helps reduce redundant care, especially when someone is seeing more than one doctors.
After announcing plans to take over financially struggling St. Francis Hospital & Health Center in Blue Island, IL, hospital operator Transition Healthcare Co. is hoping to succeed where other for-profits have failed. The Chicago market has a history of being unfriendly to the for-profit business model. Pressures on the for-profit hospitals have translated to multiple ownership changes and high management turnover, as well as difficulty in building up enough market clout to compete with the non-profit hospital systems.
Twice as many doctors and nurse practitioners than expected took or remained in jobs in Eastern Massachusetts community health centers during the first year of a program that helps pay off their student loans, said proponents of the plan. The program was launched in 2007 with a $5 million grant from Bank of America, and has placed 35 physicians and 12 nurse practitioners at 23 health centers. Most were new hires, but six were current staff members who agreed to stay either two or three more years. The program pays up to $25,000 a year for three years in loan repayments. Recipients agree to work in primary care at a community health center for at least two years.
After the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission rebuffed St. Vincent's Hospital Manhattan $1.6 billion development proposal, hospital representatives said it would file an application seeking hardship status. When it grants hardship status, the commission accepts nonprofit landlords' arguments that maintenance of buildings they own interferes with their ability to carry out their charitable purpose. St. Vincent's officials want to demolish old buildings to build a 329-foot-tall medical tower in the Greenwich Village Historic District.
A community-wide study in Rochester, NY, found that telemedicine is a cost-effective way to replace more than a quarter of all visits to the pediatric emergency department. Ailments that virtually always prove manageable by telemedicine made up almost 28 percent of all pediatric ER visits in Rochester during one year, according to researchers. They analyzed data for all pediatric visits to the largest emergency department in the city and, based on their experience, they determined at least 12,000 visits were ones they routinely treat with success via telemedicine.
The Federal Trade Commission will attempt to block the planned merger between Inova Health System, Northern Virginia's largest hospital chain, and Manassas, VA-based Prince William Hospital. Inova has been trying to add to its network of five hospitals in the region for almost two years, and the merger was expected to be completed later this month. The FTC argues that the merger between the competing healthcare providers would violate federal antitrust laws and lead to increased costs and reduced coverage for Northern Virginians.
The Healthcare Association of New York State has received a $105,000 state grant for a program aimed at reducing hospital-acquired infections. The money will be used for The Healthcare Educational and Research Fund, which provides educational programs and monitors the systematic implementation of evidence-based control measures to reduce ventilator-associated pneumonia infections in critical care patients. HANYS was one of seven organizations to share in more than $1.2 million in funding from the state Health Department.
Some physicians at Kaiser Permanente Colorado are making sales calls to emphasize the value of health insurance and wellness to members and their workers and potential members. The program was launched in summer 2007, and allows doctors to join sales associates to tout Kaiser's services and provide guidance and medical expertise on the well-being of their members' workforce. Representatives from the HMO said the doctors' presence at sales calls, visits and tours of Kaiser medical facilities puts customers at ease.
