Healthcare Strategic Management articles from September 2002

Healthcare Strategic Management archives from September 2002

Market memo: full body scans: fad or new frontier for hospital radiology?
September 1, 2002... The patient, a middle aged man, appeared healthy enough when he showed up for his appointment at Ohio Heart, a Columbus-based radiology center. But results of a diagnostic screening using a computerized tomography (CT) scanner showed something...

Hospitals must put cost and benefits in context.(Statistical Data Included)
September 1, 2002... Employers, politicians and even some policy analysts are beside themselves because they don't know how to contain soaring health insurance premiums and the rising health care expenditures that are behind those rising premiums. In short,...

Anthem, Trigon Healthcare prepare to merge following shareholder approval. (Strategic Notes).
September 1, 2002... Anthem Inc. and Trigon Healthcare Inc. shareholders have voted in favor of the $3.5 billion merger of the two companies, one of the final requirements to complete the deal. "We are pleased that our shareholders recognize the benefits of...

HealthSouth completes divestment of five nursing homes acquired in 1997 purchase. (Strategic Notes).(Brief Article)
September 1, 2002... HealthSouth Corp. of Birmingham, Ala., has completed the disposition of five nursing homes in Massachusetts originally acquired in connection with its 1997 acquisition of Horizon/CMS Healthcare Corp., the company announced in July. Terms of the...

St. John's Riverside acquires Community Hospital of Dobbs Ferry, N.Y., for $4.6 million. (Strategic Notes).(Brief Article)
September 1, 2002... St. John's Riverside Hospital in Yonkers, N.Y., has acquired Community Hospital of Dobbs Ferry, N.Y., for $4.6 million in a federal auction, St. John's announced in July. St. John's was the only bidder for the ailing 50-bed Community...

Select Medical opens 48-bed, long-term care hospital in DeSoto, Texas. (Strategic Notes).(Brief Article)
September 1, 2002... Select Medical Corp. has opened a new long-term acute care hospital in DeSoto, Texas. Select Specialty Hospital-South Dallas is a 48-bed free-standing hospital designed to treat patients with serious and often complex medical conditions such as...

Community Health acquires 197-bed hospital in Clinton County, Pa., from nonprofit. (Strategic Notes).(Brief Article)
September 1, 2002... Community Health Systems Inc. of Brentwood, Tenn., has acquired the 197-bed Lock Haven Hospital, the sole community provider of acute care hospital services in rural Clinton County, Pa. Community Health said the hospital was acquired from a...

UPMC Cancer Center opens in Johnstown, Pa. (Strategic Notes).(Brief Article)
September 1, 2002... The UPMC Cancer Center, John P. Murtha Pavilion, has opened in Johnstown, Pa. Working in collaboration with the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute (UPCI), the new facility will offer cancer patients exceptional care and state-of-the-art...

Hospital M&A activity declines in second quarter, deals involving managed care jump dramatically. (Statistical Notes).(Brief Article)
September 1, 2002... Hospital merger and acquisition activity dropped in the second quarter compared to the first quarter and second quarter 2001, but several other sectors of the health care services sector saw healthy increases for the quarter, according to a...

Most visits to ER unnecessary, survey says. (Statistical Notes).(Brief Article)
September 1, 2002... The majority of visits to emergency departments in U.S. hospitals are for treatment of non-emergency cases that could be treated elsewhere, according to an analysis by Solucient, an Evanston, Ill.-based health care market intelligence company....

Survey finds liability insurance unobtainable for growing number of emergency room physicians. (Statistical Notes).(Brief Article)
September 1, 2002... The American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) finds in a new survey of its state chapters that emergency physicians in 20 out of the 30 states say physician liability insurance has either become unaffordable or unobtainable in their...

Survey pegs hospital executive compensation. (Statistical Notes).(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
September 1, 2002... Physician executives at health systems receive the highest average base compensation, followed closely by health system CEOs, according to a recent executive compensation study. The 2001 study by executive search firm Witt/Kieffer of Oak...

Seniors have increasing say on hospital choice. (Statistical Notes).(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
September 1, 2002... Senior citizens are voicing a louder choice in hospital selection and are fast becoming the group most likely to literally tell their doctor where to go, according to findings from Solucient's HealthViewPlus, a new research-driven marketing...

HHS awards $55.8 million in grants to expand health services in rural areas and inner cities. (Statistical Notes).(Brief Article)
September 1, 2002... The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services has announced 131 grants totaling $55.8 million to increase access to health care services for Americans in rural and inner-city areas as part of a long-term strategy to expand community health...

CMS study: per-person health care spending varies widely across the United States. (Worth Reading).(Brief Article)
September 1, 2002... Per-person spending for health care services by Americans and their public and private health plans varied by nearly $2,000 from state to state in 1998, according to a report by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) in the...

Study finds most disabling diseases don't necessarily get the lion's share of funding. (Worth Reading).(Brief Article)
September 1, 2002... Certain diseases, such as depression and lung disease, are getting smaller amounts of health care funding even though they can be more disabling for patients than other conditions, researchers report in the July/August edition of Health...

AMA survey finds Internet has major impact on the way physicians practice medicine. (Database Notes).(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
September 1, 2002... Almost half of physicians report that the World Wide Web has had a major impact on the way they practice medicine, according to a new study released recently by the American Medical Association (AMA). The rising influence of the Internet on...

DrKoop.com acquired by Vitacost for $186,000. (Database Notes).(Brief Article)
September 1, 2002... Vitacost.com, an online source of consumer health information and health products, has acquired bankrupt consumer-focused health Web site DrKoop.com for $186,000. The acquisition marks a major turn of events for DrKoop.com, which was...

Anthem institutes system allowing members to search for providers over the Internet. (Database Notes).(Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2002... Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield has selected and implemented BenefitNation's i-Providers system, allowing Anthem's 8 million members to search for health care providers over the Internet. Utilizing the i-Providers system, Anthem members...

Study: hospital turnover rate 20% for some fields. (Database Notes).(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
September 1, 2002... Pharmacists, technologists/radiologists, educators/ trainers, and therapists are leaving hospitals in droves, with a turnover rate exceeding 20%, according to a study conducted by DBM, a global human resource consulting firm. The DBM...

Doctors turning away new Medicare patients. (Database Notes).(21.7% of physicians report that they can no longer take new Medicare patients)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
September 1, 2002... A recent study by the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) indicates that the number of family physicians who are no longer taking new Medicare patients is 28% higher than one year ago. The annual survey of its members by the AAFP...

Hospital supply chain vital part of disaster management plan. (Disaster Planning).(Brief Article)
September 1, 2002... Planning, not stockpiling, is the key to disaster preparedness, whether in response to natural events or enemy attacks. That is the message hospital administrators can bring to their communities across the nation, and they should be active...

Report: HMO enrollment stabilizing, HMO Medicaid continues to grow. (HMO Outlook).(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
September 1, 2002... Total HMO enrollment continues to decline, although the rate of decline appears to be slowing, according to a recent report from InterStudy Publications. As of July 1, 2001, there were 78 million HMO enrollees, down from 78.9 million...

HMOs get good marks in survey. (HMO Outlook).(consumers give health maintenance organizations similar ratings as other health plans)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
September 1, 2002... Consumers in a national survey gave health maintenance organizations (HMOs) marks similar to those given for other types of health plans, such as PPOs and indemnity plans, with regard to overall satisfaction and value. While HMOs did rank lower...

NAPH: public hospitals struggling. (Hospital Outlook).(National Association of Public Hospitals and Health Systems research indicates increase in financial losses)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
September 1, 2002... The number of America's public hospitals and health systems that are operating in the red is rising dramatically, according to the Washington, D.C.-based National Association of Public Hospitals and Health Systems (NAPH). Results of the...

Hospital operating margins rise slightly in 2001. (Hospital Outlook).(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
September 1, 2002... Operating margins at U.S. hospitals increased to annual average of 4.27% in 2001, with hospitals in the south central region performing significantly below average, according to a recent report issued by Solucient, an Evanston, Ill.-based...

Rates level off for nursing homes. (Hospital Outlook).(occupancy rates for assisted living properties)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
September 1, 2002... Occupancy rates for assisted living properties show signs of leveling off, according to first quarter 2002 figures released by the National Investment Center for the Seniors Housing & Care Industries (NIC). More than 3,200 properties for...