Healthcare Strategic Management articles from April 2004

Healthcare Strategic Management archives from April 2004

Market memo: more surgeons do minimally invasive heart surgery.
April 1, 2004... Minimally invasive heart surgery, popularized in the last several years, is on its way to becoming a cash cow for hospitals facing sinking cardiovascular surgery volume. Valve repair surgery using surgical robots is especially attractive to...

How hospitals respond to cardiac care turmoil.
April 1, 2004... Cardiac care and heart surgery seem to be in turmoil. That, at least, is the view of the field from the point of view of consumers, who are seeing widely divergent opinions and reports on open heart surgery, minimally invasive surgery, drug...

Policy questions linger at Federation meeting as hospitals revisit AHA, HHS letter exchange.(Strategic Notes)(american hospital association)(department of health and human services)
April 1, 2004... A letter from the American Hospital Assn. (AHA), Chicago, questioning Medicare regulations, struck a nerve with the Dept. of Health and Human Services. Three months after AHA president Richard Davidson asked for help in "navigating federal...

HHS guidance for billing uninsured.(Strategic Notes)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... Q: Can a hospital waive collection of charges to an indigent, uninsured individual? A: Yes. Nothing in the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services' (CMS') regulations, Provider Reimbursement Manual, or Program Instructions prohibit a...

Hospitals in hospitals, clever coding schemes among HHS investigative targets in coming year.(Strategic Notes)(department of health and human services)
April 1, 2004... Those long-term acute-care hospitals springing up on acute-care sites have caught the watchful eye of the government. The Inspector General's office of the Dept. of Health and Human Services plans to review the way they handle different rifles...

Software helps Adventist follow case outcomes, shows the most effective clinical pathways.(Strategic Notes)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... Adventist Health System, Winter Park, Fla., renewed its contract with MEDai, Orlando, Fla., for quality improvement software. The deal covers the company's Pinpoint Quality application for tracking outcomes. Loran Hauck, MD, vice president...

Lutheran expects to increase collections for ambulance transport by 25% using Accordis.(Strategic Notes)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... Lutheran Medical Center, Brooklyn, N.Y., 520 beds, will outsource ambulance billing to Accordis, New York. The deal took effect in March and runs for three years. Lutheran expects to streamline and increase collections from patients and...

Drug-eluting stent market to take off, financial company predicts in new report on industry.(Statistical Notes)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... Now that two types of drug-eluting coronary stent has been approved for U.S. marketing by the FDA, The DES market is expected to grow by 25% annually, reaching $6.3 billion by 2008, according to an analysis by vFinance Investments, New York....

Heart health eludes many Mexican-Americans despite tendency to respond well to treatment.(Statistical Notes)
April 1, 2004... Mexican-Americans rarely receive treatment for cardiovascular conditions compared to their Anglo neighbors, but when they are treated for high cholesterol, the results are excellent. That news emerged in a study released March 19 at the...

Internet becomes surrogate physician for many Americans without jobs or insurance coverage.(Statistical Notes)
April 1, 2004... "If you were out of work and/or lacked health care coverage, how would you regard the role of the Internet in dealing with health matters?" A majority of Americans--62%--would go online to find information and treatment options, according...

Better health care worth the investment, says Federation of American Hospitals analysis.(Statistical Notes)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... Health care costs are rising, but they are still a bargain, according to a report by the Federation of American Hospitals, Washington. "Our analysis suggests that, in the past 20 years, each additional dollar spent on health cart services has...

Medicare reimbursement to be available July 1 for electromagnetic wound treatment system.(Statistical Notes)(Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... Beginning July 1, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) will cover an electromagnetic wound treatment system made by Diapulse Corp. of America, Great Neck, N.Y. The company had asked CMS to reconsider a previous denial of...

Unauthorized diet has Kaiser officials steamed; patients warned it is too extreme, not healthy.(Statistical Notes)(Public Notice)
April 1, 2004... Kaiser Permanente, Oakland, Calif., said it has nothing to do with a diet plan circulating on the internet, called the "Kaiser 3-Day Diet." that claims to help its followers lose 10 pounds in a week. In an announcement posted on its own web...

A few simple rules could help hospitals reduce cases of sepsis and cut mortality by 86%.(Database Notes)
April 1, 2004... Following 11 simple rules can help hospitals drastically reduce the incidence of sepsis and prevent up to 86% of deaths from hospital-borne infection, a new study shows. Meanwhile, more comprehensive treatments could be self-defeating. ...

Maze plus mitral valve surgery proves more effective than mitral valve alone: ECRI study.(Database Notes)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... Maze surgery, when combined with mitral valve surgery, is more effective for restoring normal heart rhythm than mitral valve surgery alone in patients with medically refractory atrial fibrillation (AF) and mitral valve disease. That is the...

Hospitals report varying results after testing voice recognition software for transcription.(Database Notes)
April 1, 2004... The experiences of two different hospitals demonstrate that voice recognition software can be successful in some health care environments and unsuccessful in others. One thing most administrators agree on, however, is that voice...

PPI for hospitals registers 1.7% increase from December to January, is up 5.7% for the year.(Database Notes)(Producer Price Index )(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... The Producer Price Index for medical-surgical hospitals in January was 140.2, an increase of 1.7% from the December index of 137.8. The January index was 5.7% higher than the previous year. The average monthly index during 2003 was 135.2....

Hospitals hail arrival of second generation of drug-eluting stents; major GPO contracting.(Worth Reading)
April 1, 2004... The choice of drug-eluting stents doubled--and the market finally became competitive--on March 4 with the FDA's approval of the Taxus Express2 paclitaxel-eluting coronary stent from Boston Scientific, Natick, Mass. Taxus joins the Cypher...

Competing Chicago hospitals agree to work together to spread health Information in area.(Worth Reading)(Southland Health Alliance)
April 1, 2004... In the southern part of Chicago, known as Southland, marketing and business planning professionals from 11 health care entities that normally compete, have formed a group they call the Southland Health Alliance, according to the May-June issue...