Healthcare Strategic Management articles from February 2005

Healthcare Strategic Management archives from February 2005

Market memo: JCAHO performance pay guidelines hard to meet.(Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations)
February 1, 2005... As 2004 came to a close, the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations unveiled guidelines for pay-for-performance. However, anyone who has tried to administer a fair and fiscally responsible pay-for-performance program for...

Anti-trust suits should be against HMOs.
February 1, 2005... The Federal Trade Commission is trying to break up the Evanston (Ill.) Northwestern Healthcare Corp. integrated health care delivery system, because the IHDS no longer is bowing to the huge national managed care chains that once forced it and...

HCA evaluates strategy of operating outpatient facilities tied to hospitals.(Brief Article)
February 1, 2005... HCA, Nashville, Tenn., is reorganizing to give more weight to outpatient services. The hospital chain acquired five new surgery centers during 2004, and now owns a total of 91. Since creating its new Outpatient Services Group in January...

Tenet starts year with hospital sale, lawsuit settlement and relocation of headquarters.(Tenet Healthcare Corp. sells St. Charles General Hospital to Preferred Continuum Care)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2005... Tenet Healthcare Corp., Dallas, in December agreed to sell St. Charles General Hospital, New Orleans, 163 beds, to Preferred Continuum Care, Birmingham, Ala. This is the 11th of 27 hospitals Tenet promised to divest beginning in January 2004....

HealthSouth settles lawsuit over improper Medicare filings with $325 million payment.(Brief Article)
February 1, 2005... HealthSouth Corp., Birmingham, Ala., agreed to pay a fine of $325 million in response to charges it billed Medicare improperly. The integrated delivery network will pay $75 million up front, and the rest in quarterly installments. As...

W.Va. hospital renovation will result in fewer beds, but all will be in private rooms.(Monongalia General Hospital, West Virginia)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2005... Monongalia General Hospital, Morgantown, W.Va., 207 beds, received state approval to build a new 60-bed patient care section, part of a conversion to private rooms. When the new facility opens in three years, it will have a total of 189...

Adoption of health information technology standards would save billions: study.
February 1, 2005... Automating medical records and other health care documents will do more than improve access to care: It also will save hospitals money, research shows. Partners HealthCare System, Boston, published a study on CMS-sponsored Health Affairs'...

Blood supplies plummet in wake of storm; hospitals have less than five days' supply.(snowstorm)(New York, New Jersey)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2005... As hospitals in the Northeast were digging out of the snow following late January's blizzard, they faced critically low blood supplies. The huge snowstorm that blanketed the region Jan. 22-23 forced the cancellation of scheduled blood...

Goals of best outcomes, cost containment, are at odds in U.S. health system, doc says.(Brief Article)
February 1, 2005... The U.S. health care system doesn't function as well as it could because the interests of the participants are in conflict, according to a doctor who heads a national group purchasing organization. Charles E Saunders M.D., is CEO of...

Troubled California hospital considering change from county management to board.(Brief Article)
February 1, 2005... Martin Luther King/Drew Medical Center, Los Angeles, 249 beds, is considering changing management from a panel of county supervisors to an independent board, in hopes of correcting a chain of inefficiencies and questionable clinical practices....

The new uninsured: Kaiser finds companies that self-insure may be taking big risk.(Brief Article)
February 1, 2005... While hospitals struggle with the economic consequences of serving a growing number of uninsured patients, they also are beginning to see more patients who are nominally insured, but with few guarantees that claims will be paid. These...

VHA reports that infection control staff often diverted from responsibilities.(Veteran Health Administration)
February 1, 2005... Hospital staff responsible for infection control are too often diverted to other activities, and as a result too many patients contract infections, at a cost of up to $50,000 a case. That is the conclusion of a survey by VHA, Irving, Texas,...

Executives agree: covering the uninsured should be main priority for next five years.
February 1, 2005... Business, insurance and hospital executives as well as academic experts agree that the top national health care priority should be insurance coverage for all Americans. That was the finding of a new online survey by the Commonwealth Fund,...

Small comfort: U.S. health care spending rose 'only' 7.7% in 2003, CMS estimates.(Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2005... U.S. health care spending rose 7.7% to $1.68 trillion in 2003, but at least that growth rate was lower than in the past. A CMS study comparing annual health care costs showed that spending grew 9.3% in 2002 and 8% in 2001. Continued...

U.S. Blacks getting more than their share of new HIV infections, new report shows.(Brief Article)
February 1, 2005... More than half of new HIV infections in the U.S. strike African Americans, according to a new report by the Black AIDS Institute, Los Angeles. The report concludes that the disease has shifted from gays to Black and Hispanic Americans....

AHA annual survey finds 5,764 acute-care hospitals in U.S.; half belong to systems.(American Hospital Association)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2005... The American Hospital Assn., Chicago, found there were 5,764 acute-care hospitals with 965,256 beds in the U.S. in 2003, according to the AHA's annual survey. The tally counted only hospitals registered with the AHA, whether members or...

Hospitals, feds, design survey to identify culture that encourages patient safety.
February 1, 2005... The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), a division of Health and Human Services, released a survey designed to help hospitals and health systems evaluate employee attitudes about patient safety in their facilities. "The...

HHS task force tells agencies to work together to support medical innovations.(Department of Health and Human Services)
February 1, 2005... Could the government be doing more to help bring new medical technology to the bedsides of patients? Absolutely, concludes a new report that recommends, among other measures, coordinating electronic data from clinical trials, requiring...

Pennsylvania hospital hosts new center devoted to improving heart treatment.(Brief Article)
February 1, 2005... Allegheny University Hospital Center City (formerly Hahnemann University Hospital), Philadelphia, 618 beds, in February established The Center for Advanced Heart Failure Care on the hospital site. A co-sponsor is Drexel University College of...

U.S. hospitals losing some patients to India, where surgery is far less costly.(Brief Article)
February 1, 2005... U.S. hospitals may not be immune to job outsourcing. According to a report in the March edition of Bloomberg Markets, increasing numbers of Americans and Europeans are going to India to have surgery. Indian hospitals and physicians are...

Hospitals need to set policies on health care discounts and let communities know.( )(Brief Article)
February 1, 2005... The Healthcare Financial Management Assn. (HFMA) and American Hospital Assn. (AHA), both in Chicago, are telling hospitals to set up specific policies for providing free or discounted care to uninsured patients, and to communicate to the...

HealthSouth completes new management team with appointment of Clark, Foxworthy.(Brief Article)
February 1, 2005... HealthSouth, Birmingham, Ala., appointed Joe Clark, president of the ambulatory surgery division and Jim Foxworthy, chief administrative officer effective March 1. They were the last two senior managers to be hired under the integrated...

Hospitals using vendor loyalty for capital items to push for bigger discounts, best technology.( )
February 1, 2005... Hospitals and health systems nationwide are moving to outsource system-wide IT operations along with their imaging, archiving, electronic patient records and other systems to sole-source vendors under 10-year contracts that offer substantial...

Patients, physicians, refused to "cross the bridge" so Trinity Regional came to them.(Trinity Regional Health System)
February 1, 2005... Trinity Regional Health System, Rock Island, Ill., in February opened its Terrace Park campus in Bettendorf, Iowa. Beginning two months earlier, the hospital system conducted a campaign to establish its image in the adjacent state. ...

Better facility design leads to better health care outcomes.( )
February 1, 2005... Increasingly architectural firms are touting the ways by which better physical facility design can both improve the health experience from a marketing perspective and improve health outcomes for patients. Hundreds of new hospitals are being...