Wal-Mart Stores Inc. will open its first in-store medical clinics under its own brand name after leasing space in dozens of stores to outside companies that operate the convenience-care clinics. Wal-Mart will open "The Clinic at Wal-Mart" as a joint venture with local hospital systems in Atlanta, Dallas and Little Rock, Ark., beginning in April 2008.
A plan to provide access to healthcare for an estimated 20,000 uninsured residents in Howard County, MD, requires state legislation because of its unusual structure. If the legislation is approved by the Maryland General Assembly, the program will not begin until Oct. 1, 2008, to give state officials time to write regulations governing the "Healthy Howard" program.
Florida International University College of Medicine announced today that it has received preliminary accreditation from the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME), which allows the school to accept the first class of future doctors in the fall of 2009. The FIU College of Medicine is a response to the growing physician shortage crisis. While the College itself will ultimately graduate 120 doctors a year, it will be further leveraged to create new residency programs in South Florida. It is estimated that as many as 80 percent of doctors who do their residencies in Florida, practice in Florida.
For those afflicted with dementia, whether through Alzheimer's disease or other underlying cause, the presence of a "best friend" can make a huge difference in continued quality of life. Avamere Health Services in Oregon has adopted the 'Best Friends' program to encourage Avamere staff members to be patient advocates and caregivers. Staff receive six hours training based upon the methodology of Alzheimer's care developed in the 1990s by David Troxel and Virginia Bell. Caregivers learn to familiarize themselves with the life stories of these patient-partners, to respect and indulge their preferences and encourage remaining capabilities, no matter how limited. The approach leads to fewer conflicts, and residents, in turn, feel safe and valued.
Kentucky's Medicaid program is likely to be short more than $360 million in total funding over the next two years, the state's health and family services secretary said. Under Gov. Steve Beshear's proposed budget, Kentucky's Medicaid program is expected to be shy by as much as $183 million in each of the next two fiscal years. That's despite proposed state funding increases to the program. Economic forecasters have predicted that shrinking state revenues have led Kentucky to the brink of a $900 million shortfall over the next two fiscal years.
The Lindner Center of HOPE will open in August 2008 funded by a $39 million gift from the Lindner family, which will help complete the new building in Mason. That up-front money also will help recruit doctors and research staff. The center is being designed from scratch, giving organizers plenty of latitude to create what they hope will be a national model for mental healthcare.
Nearly two-thirds of those surveyed said they or their family would face a financial hardship if they experienced a serious illness, according to a nation poll by CreditCards.com. The figure jumped to 73 percent for families earning less than $30,000. And if hit with medical bills greater than $1,000, nearly half of those polled said they would tap savings or checking accounts to pay their debts.
The New Mexico state government has passed healthcare reform legislation to create a Health Care Authority that would come up with a plan by January 2009 for "accessible and affordable" healthcare for all New Mexicans. The Health Care Authority would take over the New Mexico Health Policy Commission--and its budget--in July. The commission's executive director would be the interim head of the authority until the authority's board appointed an executive director.
Five years ago, the 224-bed Uniontown (PA) Hospital was looking to upgrade its information technology systems. Because of a lack of technical resources, the complexity of maintaining and managing a health information system internally would have been challenging for Uniontown, which is located 50 miles southeast of Pittsburgh.
"Being a rural hospital, I was really concerned about having to depend on just a few people who had the knowledge and the ability to provide assurance of our systems working on a 24/7 basis," says Uniontown Senior Vice President Steven Handy. "We didn't have the depth of knowledge that you really should have if you are going to properly assure service and support, and we truly wanted to come up with solutions that could help us change the process for the better."
As a result, Uniontown chose Cerner's Remote Hosting Option for its IT management needs. Uniontown has close to 30 Cerner applications that help support the overall patient visit from beginning to end, including tools related to registration, billing, medical records, clinical charting, lab, radiology, the pharmacy and the emergency department.
Remote hosting made sense for Uniontown Hospital due to its location, complexity of systems, and the challenges associated with supporting the various technical components, says Tricia Herman, IT director at Uniontown.
"The processes would prove difficult if it was not done remotely, and the expenses would be difficult to obtain," Herman says. "Being remote-hosted allows our analysts to focus more time on what is really important to us--our customers."
Uniontown Hospital provides a full range of medical care to the residents of Fayette County and surrounding areas. The facility features more than 200 medical staff representing more than 30 medical specialties.
Using Cerner's Remote Hosting Option, Uniontown staff still has access to the applications, and are responsible for supporting them in the form of day to day troubleshooting, enhancing the applications, or installing additional applications, Herman says.
"With close to 30 Cerner applications, I have 10 analysts supporting them," Herman says. "Cerner's remote hosting division 'CernerWorks' provides, and is responsible for, hardware, operating systems, physical systems security, backups, and disaster recovery. The analysts at Uniontown Hospital are still involved and take responsibility for some of these same aspects, but the majority of their time is dedicated to the applications."
Handy says he enjoys the peace of mind that comes with the system.
"The benefits of remote hosting are 24/7/365 system maintenance and support--including continuous proactive monitoring and guaranteed system uptime," Handy says. "My interest in being remote-hosted was really around me being able to sleep at night."
While Uniontown representatives declined to give an exact cost of using the system, Herman says there is a strong return on investment. Herman and Handy say the system is "affordable" for a community hospital, and a major benefit was a significantly reduced up-front capital cost.
"The reduction of capital costs are a real benefit to a community hospital," Handy says.
Uniontown's success with Cerner's remote hosting has influenced its decision to use remote hosting for a variety of other applications as well. In the past year, Uniontown installed Cerner's Document Imaging and BeyondNow--both of which are hosted remotely. They are currently in the process of installing Picture Archiving and Communications System, also remotely hosted.
Uniontown's experience also influenced its decision to go remote on its Lawson Applications for services such as general financials, human resources, and material management.
"If you can outsource the technology by being remote-hosted, then it allows staff to further enhance the applications," Herman said.
PR News presents the results of a survey conducted of PR professionals gauging their media relations practices from measurement to outsider partners they use.
