Members of the University of California Board of Regents meeting at UCLA said that they were cautiously optimistic that they would vote to partner with Los Angeles County to reopen Martin Luther King Jr. Hospital. Under the proposal, the county and the University of California would create a nonprofit entity to run the hospital, with the university providing physician services and medical oversight. The agreement specifies that the hospital would have 120 beds, an emergency room, three operating rooms, and no trauma center.
Due to a loss of Minnesota healthcare funds, Hennepin County Medical Center plans to stop seeing uninsured, nonemergency patients from other counties, cut 150 to 200 jobs, and close two clinics on its downtown campus. HCMS faces a 2010 budget that is "not sustainable," officials said. The changes, which would take place in 2010, were approved by the hospital's board and go to the county board next month for final approval. HCMC officials have warned for months that the hospital, which sees 140,000 patients a year in its emergency department alone, cannot continue to absorb losses in state funding and still continue to care for the uninsured patients, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports.
Outpatient-surgery centers are booming in Pennsylvania, according to a new report by the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council. Even during the height of the recession, the number of outpatient centers continued to grow, to 261. Between June 2008 and May 2009, 17 centers opened and three closed. Their number has quadrupled in 10 years. Profit also continued growing, as the average total margin rose from 24.31% in fiscal 2007 to 26.06% in fiscal 2008.
A hard drive with seven years of personal and medical information on about 1.5 million Health Net customers was lost six months ago and was first reported Nov. 18, officials said. The insurance company informed the Connecticut attorney general's office and the Department of Insurance of the security breach that puts personal medical records at risk. A portable, external hard drive with Social Security numbers and medical records "disappeared" and is still missing from the insurer's Northeast headquarters, a Health Net spokeswoman said. The hard drive contains Social Security numbers, medical records, and health information dating for 1.5 million customers—past and present—in Arizona, Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York, the spokeswoman said.
Faculty members at the University of Connecticut Health Center have voted to form a union. Members of the health center's teaching, research and clinical faculty will now form a chapter of the American Association of University Professors, which represents faculty on UConn's Storrs and regional campuses. In addition to negotiating on issues like compensation and working conditions, the union could also work with the health center administration toward common goals, possibly including an attempt to seek funds for a new hospital from the legislature.
The new $43 million downtown Atlanta building for Hughes Spalding children's hospital offers new equipment and more space for the many inner-city children who use the facility for emergencies, specialty clinics and primary care, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports. The new facility has an enhanced and expanded emergency room, child-friendly inpatient beds, specialty clinics to treat sickle cell and asthma, and a primary care center for children.
For the first time, a program to educate the public about treatment options for dialysis patients will be paid for by the federal Medicare health insurance program for the elderly and disabled come Jan. 1. In the U.S., reimbursement for dialysis is complicated by the fact that fees are paid separately for drugs and doctors office visits, and that leads to more fragmented and less effective service, Medicare officials said. By receiving bundled payments, Medicare officials hope centers and medical care providers will arrange their services in a way that they can operate more efficiently and improve the quality and cost-effectiveness of care, the Chicago Tribune reports.
Germany's century-old universal healthcare system is a model cited by reform advocates in the U.S. Congress, but it is buckling under the weight of a growing deficit that has forced the government to explore an overhaul. Under the German system, everyone is obliged to pay into the system and all who need care can get it. Costs are shared between employers and workers, whose premiums are staggered according to income. Recently, however, the costs of the system have exploded: Rising medical costs and unemployment will leave the system $11.1 billion short in 2010. Germany's sinking birth rate and rapidly aging population mean the gap will only get worse, the Wall Street Journal reports.
The list of things to avoid during flu season now includes a doctor's necktie, the Wall Street Journal reports. A debate has emerged in the medical community over whether they harbor dangerous germs, and several hospitals have proposed banning them outright. Some veteran doctors say the antinecktie campaign has more to do with younger physicians' desire to dress casually than it does with modern medicine. At least one tie maker is pushing neckwear with an antimicrobial coating, the Journal reports.
The business of providing mammograms has been in steady decline in recent years as many clinics have opted out of the screening business because of low insurance reimbursements. For many of the hospitals and free-standing radiology clinics that perform mammograms, the service has become a loss leader, a way to attract patients who might then receive other services. Health insurers, including the federal Medicare program, have said they were unlikely to change coverage of mammograms in the immediate wake of new guidelines issued by the United States Preventive Services Task Force, the New York Times reports. The new guidelines recommend that women in their 40s no longer have annual mammograms and that women ages 50 to 74 have them only every other year instead of annually.
