Tim Trottier, the former CEO of Natchez Community Hospital in Mississippi, has been named the new CEO at Easton Hospital, effective Sept. 8. He will replace Aaron Hazzard who was assigned to the post while hospital trustees searched for a replacement for the hospital's former leader Angela Marchi. Marchi left Easton Hospital after a little more than a year in the position to serve as interim CEO of Carlisle Regional Medical Center.
Hospitals & Clinics has named Duncan P. Gallagher as its new executive vice president and CFO. Most recently, Gallagher was the executive vice president and COO/CFO of Iowa Health System based in Des Moines. Gallagher spent 10 years in that role overseeing all of the finance functions as well as administrative functions including legal services, human resources, information technology, strategy, supply chain management, and payer contracting.
MedStar Health has named Joy Drass, MD, executive vice president of Operations for the Washington Region and Carl Schindelar as its executive vice president of Operations for the Baltimore Region.
Gustavo Valdespino has been named Valley Presbyterian's new president and CEO—succeeding Albert L. Greene, who passed away in April. Valdespino will step into the new role on Sept. 1. Gregory L. Kay was named as interim CEO at Valley following Greene's death. Greene died of pancreatic cancer—an illness he was diagnosed with in June 2008. He was 59. Greene became president at Valley Presbyterian in March 2006. The hospital's board worked to find a permanent replacement for Greene.
The former president of St. John's Regional Medical Center, Debbie Linnes, has been named president and CEO of the Southeast Missouri Hospital at Cape Girardeau. Linnes will succeed James W. Wente, who will retire after being affiliated with the hospital for 35 years. Linnes joined St. John's in 2003 as senior vice president and COO. She was named president and CEO in February 2006. She announced her resignation in June 2008, saying she wanted to pursue career opportunities elsewhere.
Florida Hospital and Burnham Institute have announced the appointment of Steven R. Smith, MD, as the new executive director of the Florida Hospital - Burnham Clinical Research Institute that focuses on the study of diabetes, obesity, and the metabolic origins of cardiovascular disease.
Here's a little bulletin board fodder for the employee break room.
HHS last week finally issued its new interim final rule detailing the notification requirements that healthcare providers, health plans, and other entities covered by HIPAA must have in place to notify patients when their personal files have been breached.
There shouldn't be any surprises here. We've known this was coming for months, and most people I've spoken with think this rule is simply common sense applications that spell out what most healthcare providers are already doing.
The rule, which was developed by HHS' Office for Civil Rights, requires HIPAA-covered healthcare entities to notify the individuals affected by the breach, the HHS secretary, and local news media in cases affecting 500 or more people, which is not uncommon in HIT breaches. The new rule also requires business associates of the HIPAA-covered entities to notify them of any breaches at their business.
The regulations were developed after a months-long public comment period and with consultation with the Federal Trade Commission. The FTC has crafted related breach notification regulations for vendors and other entities not covered by HIPAA. The rule takes effect 30 days after the interim final rule is published in the Federal Register.
Dom Nicastro, my colleague at HCPro, has done a nice job explaining the provisions of the new rule and how they will impact your healthcare operation.
OCR Acting Director Robinsue Frohboese says the new rule creates a new standard of accountability for the healthcare industry and its ancillary businesses. "These protections will be a cornerstone of maintaining consumer trust as we move forward with meaningful use of electronic health records and electronic exchange of health information," Frohboese says.
This is all good. A public that is apparently willing to believe health reform is about "death panels pulling the plug on grandma" is also nervous about a government push for HIT and electronic health records. Though HIT has the capacity to drastically reduce personal medical information breaches, it gets a lot of media attention when breaches occur. The late actress Farah Fawcett and California First Lady Maria Shriver were among the high-profile people who had their medical files illegally accessed recently.
The public doesn't like the idea that their deeply personal information, including their medical history, could be Shanghaied by hackers--from Shanghai or Burbank. They need to feel confident that HIT is secure, especially now that the federal government is preparing to drop about $20 billion to accelerate HIT implementation. To make this work, the healthcare industry has to be committed to patient security too.
Bring up HIPAA and the final rule with your staff. It's a simple concept that can be summed up in two words: don't snoop. Your employees should already know this. The federal government has made it clear that they are taking patient confidentiality quite seriously. Now's a good time to make sure your staff got the message too.
National coordinator for health IT Dr. David Blumenthal recently said states and local jurisdictions will be responsible for building the infrastructure on which health information exchange will operate. That means states also bear the burden of solving policy conflicts that will arise when health exchange transactions cross state lines, he added.
3M Co. has introduced an electronic stethoscope that uses Bluetooth wireless technology. partnered with Zargis Medical Corp., on the 3M Littmann Electronic Stethoscope. The device, developed by 3M Health Care, uses Bluetooth technology to wirelessly transfer body sounds, such as those from the heart and lungs, to software for further analysis.
National Coordinator for Health IT David Blumenthal predicted that the final definition for "meaningful use" of electronic health records will not be ready until mid- or late spring 2010. The definition will be used to determine whether healthcare providers qualify for Medicare and Medicaid incentive payments established under the federal economic stimulus package.
