Premier Healthcare, an alliance of non-profit hospitals and purchasing network, announced that Pay for Performance initiatives are not only improving quality at hospitals, but also driving costs and mortality rates down. The report says that 70,000 lives could be saved nationwide if all hospitals were to achieve the three-year cost and quality improvements found at the 250 hospitals that participated in the analysis.
At a time of dire need of healthcare in New Orleans, the interim LSU Public Hospital has opened a community health clinic. With an emphasis on prevention, the clinic will provide services such as comprehensive routine examinations, sports physicals, hearing and vision screenings, immunizations, and evidence-based chronic disease management. Its staff will include a doctor, a family nurse practitioner and a licensed practical nurse.
After an initial denial, North Carolina officials have now approved Carolinas HealthCare System's request to build a new Lincoln County hospital. The $85 million facility will replace the current Carolinas Medical Center--Lincoln. Construction will likely begin in spring 2008, and the hospital could be open by late 2010. Regulators had initially denied the request for the new facility, saying Carolinas had overestimated population growth in Lincoln County and didn't demonstrate adequate need for the hospital's services.
Maryland Citizens Health Initiative has received a three-year, $250,000-a-year grant from the Robert Woods Johnson Foundation. Formed in 1999, the initiative developed its first universal coverage plan in 2002 and persuaded about 2,000 community groups to be supporters. For the next several months, the organization will work to enroll people newly eligible for Medicaid. Although about 250,000 of the state's 750,000 uninsured will be eligible for Medicaid coverage, the state expects only about half of them to sign up, said Initiative representatives.
As part of a new national program, Medicare has named five hospitals in South Florida as targets for quality improvement. The hospitals are being measured for surgical care improvements. Four of the hospitals were targets for improvement for only one measure: Not doing enough to end the use of preventative antibiotics within 24 hours after surgery.
Voters in Alameda County, CA, have turned down a parcel tax to help build a new $750 million Children's Hospital in Oakland, a move that has stunned the hospital's chief executive and left him searching for financial alternatives. The nonprofit hospital had counted on raising $300 million to help fund a 250-bed, seismically safe facility near the current facility. The rest of the funding would have come from state bonds and private donations. Some of the money raised would have paid to upgrade the existing hospital and turn it into an outpatient facility.
A Fulton County, GA, commission has postponed its vote on whether to provide consent allowing Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta to be taken over by a nonprofit group. Several commissioners said Grady officials only recently alerted them that their approval is needed, and that they are moving quickly. Georgia Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle said he wants the issue resolved by the end of February.
Starting in April 2008, Blue Cross of Tennessee plans to give members with private insurance secured online access to data showing how much individual doctors charge for various procedures. Doctors will also be rated based on whether patients got the right treatments or tests required for certain conditions. Ratings such as these have become popular, but skeptics say the ratings could be used to steer patients to cheaper doctors who aren't necessarily the most qualified, and some doctors question the accuracy or completeness of the information culled from insurance claims.
Demand for affordable healthcare has produced 21,101 applications for the Healthy Indiana Plan for low-income adults, but key lawmakers said the state must find ways to cover people not currently eligible. Secretary Mitch Roob of the Family and Social Services Administration said that his agency has had to more than double the staff of the Healthy Indiana Plan because of the volume of applications. But some are criticizing the plan's restrictions that bar enrollment,to anyone eligible for an employer-covered health plan and to anyone whose household earns more than twice the federal poverty level.
The incoming top executive at Health Care Service Corp. is committed to the Chicago-based health plan's longtime growth strategy of staying away from public markets. But some observers say an acquisition of or merger with another Blues plan might be necessary for Health Care Service tp provide more bargaining muscle when they negotiate payment rates with doctors and hospitals.
