Baylor Health Care System plans to ask for some of the Texas federal economic stimulus money for two of its multimillion-dollar projects. Baylor is seeking money for a cancer center to be built near downtown Dallas and a diabetes center in South Dallas. Baylor would not say how much it intends to request.
Seeking to expand its medical care and ward off competitors, MetroWest Medical Center of Framingham, MA, announced it is joining with Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center to provide advanced services for patients outside the city. The plan is to have some Beth Israel Deaconess physicians work part time at MetroWest facilities, which include Framingham Union Hospital, Leonard Morse Hospital in Natick, and several healthcare services.
Doctor reviews are becoming more common as consumer ratings services like Zagat's and Angie's List expand beyond restaurants and plumbers to medical care, and some doctors are fighting back. They're asking patients to agree to what amounts to a gag order that bars them from posting negative comments online.
Though their campuses are just a few blocks apart in Seattle, Virginia Mason Medical Center provides half as much charity care as Swedish Medical Center. This was among the assertions highlighted in a report by four community organizations, which argued that such disparities shortchange minorities and poor people, and partly explain why their health lags behind that of whites. Activists called on all hospitals to examine their role in perpetuating health inequalities.
For 14 straight years, a bill has been introduced in the Florida Legislature that would let nurse practitioners write prescriptions for potentially addictive drugs. Forty-seven states allow it and two state reports think Florida should follow. But even advocates bet the latest bill will die in committee. Proponents say that this class of specially trained nurses already diagnose and treat patients just as primary care doctors do and can prescribe most drugs. They say the hurdle of having to get a physician to write certain prescriptions wastes time and money.
Last year, the people crafting new conflict-of-interest rules for the University of Minnesota Medical School touted them as some of the toughest in the nation. The 13-page draft banned gifts to faculty, researchers, and students from drug and medical device companies. It barred the companies from funding continuing education, and established strict guidelines for reporting industry relationships, including disclosure to patients and the public.
But six months later, a slimmed-down, two-page version bearing a few notable changes is winding its way through the university's bureaucracy toward approval by the Board of Regents.
The California Department of Public Health said that 10 hospitals around the state have been given penalties for putting patients at risk as a result of not being in compliance with licensing requirements. The penalty is relatively small, $25,000, and the hospitals have 10 days during which they can appeal the finding. The state will also accept a payment schedule for the penalties.
Oklamhoma lawmakers showed overwhelming support for House Speaker Chris Benge's plan to provide state residents with quality healthcare through affordable private health insurance policies and reduce the number of uninsured. House members voted 99-0 for the measure that would primarily strengthen and promote the state's Insure Oklahoma program, a public-private partnership first proposed by Gov. Brad Henry in 2004.
Sen. Max Baucus, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, has promised to introduce comprehensive healthcare legislation in June, certainly before the chamber's August recess. Baucus said that he planned to introduce a bipartisan bill with Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R., Iowa) that would adopt a mix of public and private solutions and that he hoped 70 senators would approve it.
Health insurers that offer a private alternative to traditional Medicare have been among the sectors most affected as Wall Street reacts to the Obama administration's plans to make sharp cuts in their payments and open the program to competitive bidding. Other sectors, such as hospitals, also expect cuts as the new administration trims certain costs to expand healthcare coverage for the uninsured, analysts said. The expected cuts in budgets for programs such as Medicare and Medicaid could lead more doctors and hospitals to stop treating patients whose care is paid for by the government.
