Less than a month into his new job, the chief executive of Blue Island, IL-based MetroSouth Medical Center has reiterated his predecessor's commitment to no more layoffs at the hospital.
"There will be no more reductions," said Enrique Beckmann, MD, who was chief medical officer at the hospital for just over a year before being appointed to the top job on Sept. 17. "It has not been discussed and it has not been contemplated." The hospital cut 120 staff members, or about 10% of employees, Sept. 9 as a result of reductions in patients and an increase in the number of patients unable to pay their bills.
The family of an 86-year-old woman who died after she fell from an operating table following hip surgery has settled a wrongful death lawsuit with Boston Medical Center. The settlement halted a trial that was set for Oct. 14 and saved the teaching hospital a trip to court. The family's lawyer, Andrew C. Meyer Jr., said the hospital agreed to pay $900,000. Meyer said the case exposed gaps in operating room procedures and hopefully will prevent future tragedies.
A nationwide study raises serious concerns about robot-assisted prostate cancer surgery, a procedure that hospitals have widely advertised as having fewer complications than standard operations. Harvard Medical School researchers found that cancer patients who underwent minimally invasive prostate removal—now usually done with remote-controlled robots—were more than twice as likely to experience incontinence or impotence a year and a half after their operations than patients who had traditional surgery using an open incision.
With the Senate Finance Committee passing a healthcare bill, action shifts to the full Senate, where Majority Leader Harry Reid and the White House must craft a bill that can win 60 votes to avoid a filibuster. Reid's challenge is to hold together Democrats and independents of varying ideological hues while possibly attracting a few Republicans. Here, the Wall Street Journal lists six key figures to watch in coming weeks as the healthcare debate enters its next phase.
Editors of some of the world's top medical journals will soon begin to demand more stringent, uniform reporting of conflicts of interest by researchers. The requirements will go beyond existing disclosure rules at many medical journals to include items such as financial relationships involving spouses, partners, or minor children, the Wall Street Journal reports. Also required will be disclosure of nonfinancial conflicts. At least a dozen publications have agreed to use a new, standardized disclosure form, which will be phased in over the next several months.
The New York Civil Liberties Union demanded that the state health commissioner withdraw a new regulation requiring hundreds of thousands of healthcare workers to get both seasonal and swine flu vaccinations. In testimony before several State Assembly committees in Lower Manhattan, Donna Lieberman, executive director of the civil liberties union, said that the requirement violated the constitutional right of healthcare workers to control their bodies and their medical treatment.
Under the bill approved by the Senate Finance Committee, the medical-device industry would pay a total of $40 billion over 10 years. In response, players big and small in the industry warned that the tax would harm their ability to innovate. Mark B. Leahey, president and chief executive of the Medical Device Manufacturers Association, said many companies could go under if the proposed tax is enacted.
In a 14-9 vote, the Senate Finance Committee approved its 10-year, $829 billion healthcare reform measure Tuesday afternoon. As expected, the panel voted along party lines with only Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) crossing over to join the Democrats for this vote.
The bill was the end of a long road toward reform—starting nearly two years ago, according to Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT). It ended up with the panel considering 135 amendments, 79 roll-call votes, and adopting 41 amendments earlier this month.
But for the most part, the bill failed to gain the bipartisan support that Baucus had been seeking. "We made a good faith effort," said Baucus near the end of the nearly five-hour session on Tuesday afternoon.
While Snowe voted with the Democrats this time, she was careful to point out during the session that "my vote today is my vote today"--and that it doesn't predict what her "vote will be tomorrow." She said that there "are many miles to go in this legislative journey."
The session provided insights on what can be anticipated in the upcoming weeks as the bill is melded with the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions bill before bringing it to the Senate floor--possibly by the end of this month.
Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) said that the public option "is necessary" and that he will introduce legislation on the floor if it is not included in the combined Senate bill. "Maybe things would be different if the word 'public' wasn't there," he said.
Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) said he will continue to push for the employer mandate that was not included in the Finance bill. He also wanted to revisit the issue of taxing high-value or Cadillac plans.
For the most part, many of the Republicans on the panel expressed strong support for moving ahead with healthcare reform—but with a different focus. Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) said the legislation "did take a step in the right direction," but that other areas needed to be considered, such as medical liability reform and unfunded mandates for the states.
The report issued Monday by America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) did come up several times—mostly by Democrats who expressed anger on the conclusions it raised that health insurance premiums could nearly double under the Finance Committee bill. "The insurance industry ought to be ashamed" for releasing the report, Kerry said.
The Senate Finance Committee voted 14-9 in favor of the esimated $829 billion health reform bill Tuesday afternoon. Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) joined 13 Democrats in supporting the legislation. Check back to HealthLeaders Media for more coverage on this breaking news.
Nearly 90% of more than 1,000 emergency physicians say they have concerns about their emergency department's ability to care for an influx of H1N1 flu patients, according to a new Internet poll by the American College of Emergency Physicians. Only 16% of emergency physicians in the poll believe the federal government is doing everything it can to provide them the resources needed to respond to a severe flu outbreak.
"Emergency physicians will do everything they can to guide and help people through this flu pandemic," says Angela Gardner, MD, president of the ACEP, which represents 28,000 emergency physicians. "But a national surge capacity plan must be developed, and resources must be provided to help our nation's hospital emergency departments be ready to respond to public health crises, such as this pandemic or a terrorist attack or other catastrophes."
ACEP conducted the poll from Sept. 15-23. E-mails were sent to 20,464 emergency physicians across the United States, and 1,043 responded.
Only $135 million—roughly 4%—of the $3.38 billion in federal funding for emergency preparedness was spent on medical preparedness, according to a 2006 study by the Institute of Medicine. The CDC said H1N1 has been confirmed in all 50 states with at least 21 states reporting widespread outbreaks. Unlike the traditional flu, which typically affects older individuals worse than others, the H1N1 virus is targeting younger individuals more severely than other age groups. The federal government began distributing the H1N1 vaccine this month.
