Healthcare Strategic Management articles from August 2002

Healthcare Strategic Management archives from August 2002

Employee success management: a cure for the staffing crisis? (Market Memo).
August 1, 2002... Despite the fact that the warning signs have been present for a long time, health care organizations (HCOs) seem to have been caught off guard by the arrival of staffing crises, particularly among RNs, in recent years. Shortages of staff have...

Plan to spend more on billing and collections.(Brief Article)
August 1, 2002... Hospitals and physicians are facing major accounts receivable problems and more paperwork as millions of small companies and their employees leave HMOs for preferred provider organizations in the face of soaring premiums. In an effort to...

St. Francis Hospital-Mooresville, Ind., to undergo $21 million expansion to meet growth demands. (Strategic Notes).(Brief Article)
August 1, 2002... St. Francis Hospital & Health Centers of Indianapolis, Ind., is embarking on a $20.8 million expansion of its Mooresville campus to provide additional health care services and facilities to meet growing patient demand. The expansion...

Psychiatric Solutions completes $16 million acquisition of Riveredge Hospital of Illinois. (Strategic Notes).(Psychiatric Solutions Inc.; Forest Park, Ill hospital)(Brief Article)
August 1, 2002... Psychiatric Solutions Inc. (PSI) of Nashville, Tenn., has consummated its $16.1 million acquisition of Riveredge Hospital in Forest Park, Ill., the company announced in July. Riveredge Hospital is a licensed 210-bed inpatient psychiatric...

Baptist Health System of San Antonio merging with Nashville-based Vanguard Health. (Strategic Notes).
August 1, 2002... Baptist Health System. of San Antonio, Texas, has agreed to merge its operations with that of Vanguard Health Systems Inc. of Nashville, Tenn. "This signals a new chapter in the Baptist Health System's 100-year tradition of caring for San...

Ardent Health acquiring Lovelace Health Systems of Albuquerque, N.M., for $325 million. (Strategic Notes).(Ardent Health Services)(Brief Article)
August 1, 2002... Ardent Health Services of Nashville, Tenn., is acquiring Lovelace Health Systems of Albuquerque, N.M., for $325 million. Ardent is acquiring Lovelace from CIGNA Corp. of Philadelphia. The purchase includes a 225-bed hospital, a network of...

United Surgical enters partnership in New Jersey, acquires stake in Cleveland-area surgery center. (Strategic Notes).(United Surgical Partners International Inc.; Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital)(Brief Article)
August 1, 2002... United Surgical Partners International Inc. of Dallas has entered into a 50-50 joint venture agreement with Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital (RWJUH) to operate East Brunswick, N.J.-based Robert Wood Johnson Surgery Center. Financial...

Community Health acquires 90-bed medical center in West Virginia from Charleston Area Medical. (Strategic Notes).(Community Health Systems Inc.; Plateau Medical Center; Charleston Area Medical Center Health System)(Brief Article)
August 1, 2002... Community Health Systems Inc. of Brentwood, Tenn., has acquired the 90-bed Plateau Medical Center in Oak Hill, W. Va., from Charleston Area Medical Center Health System, a not-for-profit organization. The effective date of the transaction was...

Abbott Northwestern breaks ground on new outpatient center in Minneapolis. (Strategic Notes).(Abbott Northwestern Hospital)(Brief Article)
August 1, 2002... Abbott Northwestern Hospital has broken ground on a new outpatient center in southwestern Minneapolis. The new facility, scheduled to open in summer 2003, will be located in the city of Edina. The first phase of the project, consisting of...

Kindred Healthcare to open long-term acute care hospital in Beaver, Pa. (Strategic Notes).(Kindred Healthcare Inc.)(Brief Article)
August 1, 2002... Kindred Healthcare Inc. plans to open a 37-bed, long-term acute care hospital within The Medical Center in Beaver, Pa. The Medical Center is operated by Heritage Valley Health System. The hospital is scheduled to open in fourth quarter 2002...

Intrepid acquires Allina's home health business. (Strategic Notes).(Brief Article)
August 1, 2002... Intrepid USA Healthcare Services of Edina, Minn., has purchased Allina's Home Health Services and Health & Caring Services businesses based in Roseville, Minn. Allina's Home Health provides at-home nursing care and rehabilitation services...

IBX Group acquiring CyberCare physical therapy, rehabilitation and pharmacy businesses. (Strategic Notes).(Brief Article)
August 1, 2002... IBX Group Inc., of Deerfield Beach, Fla., has signed a letter of intent to acquire the physical therapy and rehabilitation (PTR) and institutional pharmacy (PCS) businesses of CyberCare Inc., of Boynton Beach, Fla. Under the terms of the...

Study: cancer death rates declined in 1999, but are expected to increase in the years ahead. (Strategic Notes).(Brief Article)
August 1, 2002... New data for 1999 show that death rates for all cancers combined continued to decline in the United States. However, the number of cancer cases can be expected to increase because of the growth and aging of the population in coming decades,...

Bariatric surgery continues to grow in the U.S. (Strategic Notes).(Brief Article)
August 1, 2002... The use of bariatric surgery, also known as weight-loss surgery, is growing very rapidly in the U.S. The prediction is that some 64,200 procedures will be performed this year on morbidly obese people to help them lose their weight and control...

Survey finds limited support for current health care system, but also little desire for major change. (Strategic Notes).(Brief Article)
August 1, 2002... Only one in five Americans thinks the current health care system works well, but most Americans also favor sticking with current methods of providing health insurance through guaranteed benefits from employers and public programs, according to...

California foundation offers report on using technology to ease nursing crisis. (Strategic Notes).(Brief Article)
August 1, 2002... In an effort to address the increasingly serious national nursing shortage, the California HealthCare Foundation (CHCF) and First Consulting Group (FCG) have published a report on the potential benefits new information technologies can have on...

Bioterrorism response software for physicians, health providers launched on the Web. (Database Notes).(Brief Article)
August 1, 2002... In response to the increasing need for physicians and health care administrators to have quick, easy access to bioterrorism resources and diagnostic tools, AdvancePCS, the Medical Group Management Association and the Medical Learning Co. (MLC)...

Report: most docs still reluctant to use e-mail, technology to increase efficiencies. (Database Notes).(Brief Article)
August 1, 2002... The heated debate around health care costs is not enough on its own to spark physicians' interest in using even common information technologies, such as e-mail, to increase their efficiency. Some 23 percent of all physicians report they...

Wireless technology making inroads in hospitals. (Database Notes).(Brief Article)
August 1, 2002... Wireless technology has finally made its way into the hospital environment, but data security issues have forced health care facilities to rethink the prudence of investing in mobile telecommunications systems, according to consulting firm...

NCI study finds many men receiving unnecessary surgery, treatment for prostate cancer. (Worth Reading).(Brief Article)
August 1, 2002... Many men over 60 are receiving unnecessary surgery and other treatments for prostate cancer even though the disease is unlikely to progress far enough to cause health problems, according to an analysis in the Journal of the National Cancer...

Health industry GPO group drafts code of conduct in response to Senate committee demands. (Worth Reading).(Brief Article)
August 1, 2002... The Health Industry Group Purchasing Association (HIGPA) of Washington, D.C., has sent the Senate the first draft of a code of conduct for group purchasing organizations following a series of hastily called meetings of GPO officials and HIGPA...

Hospital construction boom looms, changes to affect facilities' design. (Facilities Planning).(Brief Article)
August 1, 2002... This decade promises to be one of booming construction for U.S. hospitals and their counterparts in Canada and Europe following several down years in the late 1990s, according to a new report, "HealthCastTactics: Blueprint for the Future," from...

Health care worker turnover to remain high. (Facilities Planning).(Brief Article)
August 1, 2002... PricewaterhouseCoopers survey also points to a number of other developments of interest for health care payers and providers. Among them, the auditing firm finds that demands on health care workers will keep worker turnover high. ...

Hospitals to succeed by targeting high-margin, high-volume services. (Facilities Planning).(Brief Article)
August 1, 2002... It should come as little surprise to industry observers that PricewaterhouseCoopers finds market-leading hospitals are selectively focusing on high-margin, high-volume and high-quality services. The auditing firm finds that most hospitals are...

Analyst report: Blues plans to be even bigger players in years ahead. (Managed Care).(Brief Article)
August 1, 2002... The Blue Cross Blue Shield (BCBS) Association is an awakening giant that promises to have a major impact on the managed care sector in the next few years, according to a recent report from New York investment firm Goldman Sachs. Goldman...