Modern Healthcare articles from April 2005

Modern Healthcare archives from April 2005

One call not to put on hold; When it comes to IT, CEOs may want to hear what experts have to say.(Lauer's Letter)
April 4, 2005... Byline: Charles S. Lauer, Vice President-Publishing/Editorial Director I was talking the other day with the chief executive officer of a large healthcare information technology company. The man seems to know his stuff, and he says he has a...

Fla. hospital gets dragged into spotlight of Terri Schiavo case.(Outliers: Asides & Insides)
April 4, 2005... Morton Plant Hospital, a 742-bed facility in Clearwater, Fla., briefly found itself at the center of the legal war over Terri Schiavo. During the week of March 20, "there were multiple times that we were advised by multiple sources'' that...

Risky business; Okla. hospitals may launch liability insurance company.(Regional News)(Column)
April 4, 2005... Byline: Joseph Mantone Tired of wondering whether insurers might leave their market, hospitals in Oklahoma are looking into launching their own medical liability insurance company. The hospitals are working with healthcare consultancy...

A tour of U.K. healthcare.(Special Report)
April 4, 2005... Byline: Paul Barr Like a warm beer or a deep-fried Mars bar, a group of American hospital trustees learned that the United Kingdom's nationalized healthcare system may not be as bad as it sounds. Hospital board participants in a U.K....

Broke and banished; Pending bill would make exclusion by CMS easier.(The Week In Healthcare)(Column)
April 4, 2005... Byline: Paul Barr The CMS will have an easier time ejecting bankrupt hospitals and nursing homes from Medicare and Medicaid if proposed rules in a bankruptcy bill currently pending in Congress become law as expected in coming weeks. ...

Pushing procedures; Study condemns ads by academic medical center.(The Week In Healthcare)(Column)
April 4, 2005... Byline: Michael Romano Hospitals have relied on publicity campaigns for decades, rolling out a mix of ads in newspapers, on radio and on television to help drum up business and differentiate themselves from their competitors. Lately,...

Bluer sky for docs; New Montana laws protect against malpractice suits.(Physician Affairs)
April 4, 2005... Byline: Modern Physician Doctors and hospitals in Montana will have more protection from medical malpractice lawsuits beginning July 1 under four bills signed into law last week by Gov. Brian Schweitzer. The measures are among nine...

Can't buy quality; Report reveals disconnect between cost, standard of care.(Physician Affairs)(Column)
April 4, 2005... Byline: Modern Physician Pennsylvania's volume of coronary artery bypass grafts has declined while the mortality rate for inpatients having a CABG has remained steady. But, there remains an enormous variance in charges for the procedures...

On the job; Nurses reveal most, least enjoyable aspects of work.(The Week In Healthcare)(Column)
April 4, 2005... Byline: Melanie Evans Hospitals scrambling to hire nurses, take note: Pay, workload and decisionmaking authority are among the least satisfying elements of life on the job for registered nurses. That's according to a Web-based survey...

For-profits for sale; Investor-owned hospital chains choosing to sell, not buy.(The Week In Healthcare)(Column)
April 4, 2005... Byline: Vince Galloro Investor-owned hospital companies are generally thought to be acquirers of hospitals, but at least five for-profit chains have been divesting assets recently. Nashville-based HCA last week became the fifth company...

Northeast.(Regional News)
April 4, 2005... PITTSBURGH-Highmark Blue Cross and Blue Shield more than tripled its operating income in 2004, posting a gain of $339.4 million on revenue of $8.9 billion, a 3.8% margin, compared with $105.8 million on revenue of $8.6 billion, a 1.2% margin,...

Midwest.(Regional News)
April 4, 2005... HINSDALE, Ill.-An ongoing state effort to reduce air pollution stemming from Illinois hospital incinerator emissions has won one more convert. Hinsdale Hospital said last week it would close a medical waste incinerator it has operated since...

Facing the music; Multihospital systems adopting Sarbanes-Oxley changes.(The Week In Healthcare)
April 4, 2005... Byline: Susanna Moon As not-for-profit hospitals behave increasingly like for-profit companies by engaging in more aggressive financial strategies, will their governance practices follow? Not-for-profit healthcare systems have been...

In the spotlight.(News Makers)
April 4, 2005... * Tenet Healthcare Corp. has had a number of recent personnel changes as it continues to restructure. Longtime executive W. Randolph Smith retired last week. Smith, 56, most recently was in charge of Tenet's divestiture program and the...

A study in what not to do; Schiavo case reveals dangers of letting strangers make end-of-life decisions.(Opinions)
April 4, 2005... Byline: Susan Tolle Terri Schiavo's story in many ways polarized the nation. There is a silver lining to this tragic tale, however. After watching this saga play out, many of us are using it as a wakeup call for ourselves and our...

On the bandwagon; CareFirst joins pay-for-performance trend.(The Week In Healthcare)
April 4, 2005... Byline: Laura B. Benko Responding to criticism that it's been shirking its not-for-profit mission, CareFirst Blue Cross and Blue Shield became the latest insurer to join a growing pay-for-performance movement that rewards physicians for...

Newsmakers welcome.(Opinions)
April 4, 2005... Modern Healthcare publishes a regular column on people in healthcare leadership. Anyone wishing to contribute to the News Makers column can send information via e-mail to mhpeople@crain.com. (To learn more about our format, see pp. 30 and 31.)...

South.(Regional News)(west virginia hospital association)
April 4, 2005... GRANTSVILLE, W.Va.-Eighteen critical-access hospitals in West Virginia said last week that they had formed a network to help them negotiate jointly to purchase supplies and services, work on quality initiatives and share tips on running small,...

Hospitals compare quality; CMS' release of quality data may change behaviors.(Late News)
April 4, 2005... Byline: Mark Taylor The CMS' release of comparative hospital quality data will not only empower consumers but is also likely to improve quality by changing hospital behavior, healthcare experts said. The CMS formally released its first...

Briefly: Legal.(The Week In Healthcare)(Brief Article)
April 4, 2005... * The U.S. attorney's office in Newark, N.J., last week subpoenaed five hip- and knee-implant manufacturers-DePuy Orthopaedics, a Johnson & Johnson company; Stryker Corp.; Biomet; Zimmer; and Smith & Nephew-for documents related to any...

Va. hospital exits Carilion.(Regional News)(Smyth County Community Hospital)
April 4, 2005... Byline: Tony Fong Smyth County Community Hospital in Marion, Va., is cutting its ties with Carilion Health System, saying the alliance originally formed to protect the hospital from restrictive managed-care practices has never benefited...

On the move...(News Makers)
April 4, 2005... HOSPITALS, SYSTEMS After three months as CEO of Clark Memorial Hospital, Jeffersonville, Ind., Cameron Gilbert has announced he will resign effective April 18. Gilbert, 38, who submitted his resignation to the board of trustees, cited...

Docs, seniors get more bad news; Medicare premiums to rise even more than expected.(The Week In Healthcare)
April 4, 2005... Byline: Ralph Loos Medicare will charge patients more and pay doctors less in 2006, a monetary blow that has both parties feeling like they're getting the short end of the stethoscope. And each side is aware that things could get even...

Poor performance; Insurance group's ratings system angers providers.(The Week In Healthcare)
April 4, 2005... Byline: Laura B. Benko UnitedHealth Group has raised the hackles of providers and consumers with a new performance-rating program that critics say snubs as many as three-quarters of the doctors available to patients in some areas. The...

A long, sad week; Healthcare organizations fail to voice opinions in Schiavo debate.(Opinions)
April 4, 2005... Byline: Neil McLaughlin, Managing Editor Notes on the news: * I won't belabor the tragic case of Terri Schiavo, which has saturated the news for more than two weeks, but there are a couple of points to be made concerning the healthcare...

Back in action; Feds force hospitals to end market agreements.(The Week In Healthcare)
April 4, 2005... Byline: Mark Taylor Last month's antitrust settlement requiring two West Virginia hospitals to end their market-allocation agreement marks the first action against a public hospital by the U.S. Justice Department's Antitrust Division in...

Reversal of fortune; After years of scaling back beds because of low occupancy rates, behavioral health facilities are beginning to make a comeback.
April 4, 2005... Byline: Joseph Mantone Twenty years ago it would have been nearly impossible to do what Mark Frey did last week. Frey, president and chief executive officer of Alexian Bros. Behavioral Health Hospital in Hoffman Estates, Ill.,...

Record settlement; PharMerica resolves allegations.(The Week In Healthcare)
April 4, 2005... Byline: Mark Taylor In its largest civil monetary penalty kickback settlement to date, HHS' inspector general last week announced that PharMerica, a long-term-care and institutional pharmacy, will pay nearly $6 million to settle a...

In memoriam.(News Makers)(Brief Article)(Obituary)
April 4, 2005... Fay Boozman, an ophthalmologist and former U.S. Senate candidate who had been a popular secretary of the Arkansas Department of Health since 1999, died March 19 at age 58. Boozman had been working alone in a barn at his home when a large metal...

Pope guided Catholic care.(Late News)(Brief Article)
April 4, 2005... Byline: Melanie Evans A year ago, Pope John Paul II shook up U.S. Roman Catholic hospitals when he insisted food and water for patients in a vegetative state were "morally obligatory.'' Hospitals struggled to reconcile the pope's...

Physicians in Congress.(Physician Affairs)(Brief Article)
April 4, 2005... The number of physicians in the U.S. Senate has declined over the past two centuries, while the number of physicians in the House of Representatives has increased.

Armed with innovation; Israel has become a prolific developer of new medical technologies and the nation's dominant defense industry is often the incubator.(Special Report)
April 4, 2005... Byline: Cinda Becker Israeli entrepreneurs, engineers and doctors have not sat by idly as the beleaguered nation struggles amid the political turmoil in the Middle East. Renowned for the can-do spirit that turned a dusty, forgotten desert...

Overconfidence may hinder use of electronic systems.(Physician Affairs)(Brief Article)
April 4, 2005... Byline: Modern Physician Overconfidence will be a key barrier for physicians in making full use of electronic decision-support systems, according to a study in the April issue of the Journal of General Internal Medicine. Participating...

North Shore-Long Island names surgical chairman.(Physician Affairs)(Brief Article)
April 4, 2005... Byline: Modern Physician North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System last week announced the appointment of Thanjavur Ravikumar, M.D., as chairman of surgery at its two flagship hospitals, North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset and...

Boston Scientific guilty of patent infringement.(Physician Affairs)(Brief Article)
April 4, 2005... Byline: Modern Physician A Delaware jury last month found that a stent once sold by Boston Scientific Corp. infringed on Johnson & Johnson's Palmaz patent, according to Boston Scientific. Monetary damages will be determined at a later...

Recovery lessons; Some things that surgeons don't tell you about what happens after discharge.(Lauer's Letter)
April 11, 2005... Byline: Charles S. Lauer, Vice President-Publishing/Editorial Director My friends are now jokingly calling me the Bionic Man, and I have to admit to being amused, at least now that the pain has subsided enough to laugh. After two hip...

Study examines docs' chicken scratches; finds them legible.(Outliers: Asides & Insides)
April 11, 2005... The press release with the bold, tabloid-style headline was dated March 28, but it might as well have been an April Fool's Day gag: "National survey for Doctors' Day reveals: Most M.D.s do write clearly and are not motivated by greed.'' ...

On the move...(News Makers)(appointments at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Arthritis Foundation, Kaiser Foundation Health Plan Inc.)
April 11, 2005... HOSPITALS, SYSTEMS Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, named Larry Goldberg executive director and CEO of flagship Vanderbilt University Hospital. Goldberg, 43, has been vice president of hospital operations at 624-bed...

In memoriam.(News Makers)(Brief Article)(Obituary)
April 11, 2005... Stephen Winjum, who founded ambulatory surgery center company NovaMed in March 1995 and served as its chairman, president and CEO, died March 30 from complications of a heart attack days before. He was 41. Robert Kelly, a board member,...

In the spotlight.(News Makers)(Brief Article)
April 11, 2005... Judith Pelham, the retired and founding president and CEO of Trinity Health, Novi, Mich., has been nominated for a three-year term on the board of Hospira, the hospital products manufacturer that was spun off from Abbott Laboratories in April...

Spanning the globe; UPMC proposes partnerships in Ireland, Las Vegas.(The Week In Healthcare)(University of Pittsburgh Medical Center)
April 11, 2005... Byline: Cinda Becker Nearly built out in Western Pennsylvania-where it has stamped its name on 16 hospitals, a web of cancer centers, 400 outpatient sites, and more than a dozen long-term-care facilities-the University of Pittsburgh...

One down, one to go.(The Week In Healthcare)(Brief Article)
April 11, 2005... Byline: Mark Taylor The Federal Trade Commission's antitrust case against a suburban Chicago health system wound down last week as the agency announced the final settlement of a physician price-fixing case and the hospital system finished...

Accepting the inevitable.(The Week In Healthcare)
April 11, 2005... Byline: Joseph Mantone When hospitals' mortality results were first publicly reported nationally, providers thought it be would be the death of them. In the 1980s, CMS predecessor HCFA started making hospital mortality rates available...

Ind. system has JCAHO trouble.(The Week In Healthcare)(Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations)
April 11, 2005... Byline: Mark Taylor A northwest Indiana health system, already struggling to maintain certification with state and federal authorities, is also facing the potential loss of its accreditation from the Joint Commission on Accreditation of...

Medicare hot spot; Miami-Dade docs act as insurance providers.(The Week In Healthcare)
April 11, 2005... Byline: Michael Romano While many doctors are refusing to accept new Medicare patients because of low reimbursements and regulatory hassles, physicians in Miami are eagerly embracing the business-and taking on some added risk by acting as...

Preparing for disaster; Conn., N.J. ERs participate in bioterror drill.(The Week In Healthcare)
April 11, 2005... Byline: Joseph Mantone Emergency room workers at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick, N.J. used laptops last week to examine the records of "patients'' ill from the effects of a simulated terrorist attack. They...

Calif. ordered to close 1, open 1.(The Week In Healthcare)
April 11, 2005... Byline: Laura B. Benko California's healthcare landscape continued to shift last week with one hospital gearing up to reopen and another ordered to close. A U.S. Bankruptcy Court judge approved a plan April 7 that would allow Santa...

Other Voices.(Opinions)(Brief Article)
April 11, 2005... "No matter how tight the state budget is, (New York) lawmakers always find a way to do a favor for Dennis Rivera, the incredibly influential leader of the healthcare workers union. This year, at Rivera's request, the Legislature quietly slipped...

Career shifts? Plan to cut reimbursements gets docs to thinking.(The Week In Healthcare)
April 11, 2005... Byline: Ralph Loos Behind Georgia Tuttle are 25 years of practicing medicine. In front of her are career questions she never figured on asking. "At 51, I feel that I'm in my prime,'' said Tuttle, a private practitioner in New...

A reimbursement conundrum; Cutting docs' Medicare pay would punish everyone for the excesses of some.(Opinions)
April 11, 2005... Byline: Todd Sloane, Assistant Managing Editor Op/Ed Medicare physician payment is one of healthcare's thorniest issues. One could argue with equal vigor that doctors deserve a significant pay cut because so many of them seem to be gaming...

Late News; Moody's upgrades more NFPs.
April 11, 2005... Moody's upgraded more not-for-profit healthcare providers in the first quarter of 2005 than it downgraded, the first time that's happened since Moody's began electronically publishing healthcare rating activity in March 1999, the company said....

Transporting trouble; Ambulance contracts give Fla. system a rough ride.(Outsourcing Trends)
April 11, 2005... Byline: Mark Taylor Even as hospitals speed down the outsourcing highway, they need to mind the occasional traffic signal along the way, health lawyers and consultants advised, because government enforcement cops are focusing their radar...

Another nursing shortage; More nurses are adding financial management expertise and rising to executive positions--just don't look for too many of them in the CFO's office.(Special Report)
April 11, 2005... Byline: Melanie Evans From the start, Jerry Wollman's career in healthcare strayed from the norm. In 1986, Wollman graduated as one of six men in a class of 220 from the University of Maryland's School of Nursing. But perhaps the most...

And the winners are ... CEO IT Achievement Award recipients announced.(The Week In Healthcare)(Brief Article)
April 11, 2005... Byline: David Burda Modern Healthcare and the Healthcare Information Management Systems Society are pleased to announce the recipients of the 2005 CEO IT Achievement Award. They are Joel Allison, president and chief executive officer of...

Briefly: Construction.(Lillibridge Health Trust acquires Mediplex Medical Building Corp.)(St. Louis Children's Hospital, Kendall Regional Medical Center kicked off expanision)(Brief Article)
April 11, 2005... Lillibridge acquires Mediplex * Real-estate investment trust Lillibridge, Chicago, said last week that it acquired Mediplex Medical Building Corp., Plano, Texas, which plans and develops outpatient facilities. Terms were not disclosed....

Blessings from above; Large Catholic healthcare systems have seen their revenue, profits rebound. How will that affect spending on charity care?
April 11, 2005... Byline: Paul Barr The new pope expected to be elected in coming weeks will be responsible for a U.S. Roman Catholic health system that is financially robust but bracing for an expected downturn in federal healthcare reimbursements. ...

Minnesota thaw; Fairview tells state it will ease collection practices.(The Week In Healthcare)(Fairview Health Systems)
April 11, 2005... Byline: Mark Taylor A Minneapolis health system has agreed to significantly restrict some of its aggressive collection practices and expand its price discounts as part of an agreement with Minnesota Attorney General Mike Hatch. The...

New pope, old directives.(News)(Vatican's healthcare directives for U.S. catholic hospitals)
April 11, 2005... Byline: Melanie Evans Under Pope John Paul II, the Vatican and U.S. bishops grappled with how best to morally navigate changing medical technology and a competitive American marketplace that sometimes challenged Roman Catholic doctrine....

Calif. ruling limits liens.(The Week In Healthcare)
April 11, 2005... Byline: Laura B. Benko In another financial setback for California's healthcare industry, the state's hospitals were stripped of one of their most effective yet controversial means of recovering the full cost of treating injured patients....

Getting tougher; Punishments by state medical boards up nearly 20.(Late News)
April 18, 2005... Byline: Michael Romano State medical boards displayed their toughest oversight ever on America's physicians in 2004, meting out a record 5,502 "prejudicial actions,'' or revocations, suspensions and reprimands. That number is up...

Senior-living market grows.(The Week In Healthcare)
April 18, 2005... Byline: Joseph Mantone Acquisition activity is increasing in the senior-living industry, especially among facilities with more private payers, as exemplified by a major deal and broader industry financials announced last week. Ventas,...

Building consolidation; Costs not expected to rise for providers.(The Week In Healthcare)
April 18, 2005... Byline: Michael Romano Developers, contractors and real estate investment trusts are joining forces, consolidating and expanding their operations to bolster business and cash in on a hospital building boom that shows no signs of subsiding....

It's women's turn; Top 25 female health execs point the way to change in male-dominated industry.(Opinions)
April 18, 2005... Byline: David Burda, Editor Shortly after we announced that we were planning to publish a list of the Top 25 Women in Healthcare, I received an e-mail from Gerald Arcuri, a male reader in Thousand Oaks, Calif. Arcuri wrote: "Will Modern...

Intergovernmental gimmicks; Hospitals caught in the middle of finger-pointing.(The Week In Healthcare)
April 18, 2005... Byline: Tony Fong The debate over whether to include Medicaid cuts in the federal budget heated up last week, as the Bush administration said 15 states have been using accounting gimmicks to increase their Medicaid funding and a group of...

Software spinoff; Physician-executives form new company.(The Week In Healthcare)
April 18, 2005... Byline: Michael Romano Two physician-executives who once headed the contracting arm of Boston-based CareGroup Healthcare System have formed a private company that will sell software systems designed to reduce costs through drug-utilization...

Other Voices.(Opinions)
April 18, 2005... "Doctors in 47 states who don't want to perform abortions on moral grounds (can refuse to do so). That seems to me a matter of common decency.... (But now ) in 10 states, healthcare professionals can conscientiously refuse to provide...

Miami system suffers big loss.(The Week In Healthcare)
April 18, 2005... Byline: Melanie Evans Cleaning up accounting at Miami's beleaguered public health system added to its financial woes, producing what may turn out to be a $120 million loss in 2004 once a year-end audit wraps up. More than half of...

Women even the odds; Healthcare isn't an "old boys' network" anymore, as women catch up to men in leadership positions.
April 18, 2005... Byline: Alison Szot Last month, researchers com-pleted the first analysis of the sequence of the female X chromosome, which comprises more than 1,000 genes and 160 million base pairs of DNA. This breakthrough may provide a biological basis...

A reader's take; Reinhardt: Military families should not have to live in poverty.(Lauer's Letter)(Column)
April 18, 2005... In my March 7 column I wrote about the inequity of paying our soldiers and other people who take care of us so little while asking so much in return ("Defining heroism,'' p. 29). I received a most heartfelt and interesting reply from Uwe...

System upgrade; Not-for-profits have a good first quarter.(The Week In Healthcare)
April 18, 2005... Byline: Paul Barr Not-for-profit hospitals and health systems are looking financially healthier in 2005 after a first quarter in which 30 bond issuers were upgraded and 23 were downgraded by the three major ratings agencies. Those...

Scrushy wins a round; 'Perjury trap' ruling could affect other cases.(The Week In Healthcare)(Richard Scrushy)
April 18, 2005... Byline: Joseph Mantone Federal prosecutors might have a harder time sharing information with other government agencies in future investigations if a ruling last week in the criminal fraud case stands against HealthSouth Corp. founder...

Try, try again; Mease, Morton Plant to pursue another merger.(The Week In Healthcare)(Morton Plant Hospital Association)
April 18, 2005... Byline: Melanie Evans Free from a decade-long, "unworkable'' antitrust deal, officials from two Florida health systems say they will again try to merge. Mease Health Care System and Morton Plant Hospital Association first tried to...

Providers silent, others not as Missouri slashes Medicaid.(Outliers: Asides & Insides)
April 18, 2005... While hundreds were outside the state Capitol in Jefferson City protesting their right to health insurance, some Missouri lawmakers were inside making animal noises, an opponent of the measure says. The howling and growling came in response...

Rx for e-prescribing; Groups offer comments on proposed standards.(Information Edge)
April 18, 2005... Byline: Joseph Conn The public-comment period has ended for the first batch of proposed final federal standards for electronic prescribing, and now the government will ready the guidelines with an eye toward developing a list of...

One of their own; Doc-execs' toughest challenges come from the inside.(The Week In Healthcare)
April 18, 2005... Byline: Michael Romano One argument doctors often make when they purchase or manage an ailing community hospital is that they can work more effectively than lay administrators with fellow physicians. But some physician-entrepreneurs are...

Coming soon; HIPAA compliance deadline looms for security.(The Week In Healthcare)(Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act)(Column)
April 18, 2005... Byline: Joseph Conn The countdown is on to the April 20 compliance deadline for the final rules on security under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. Officially, they are the Security Standards for the Protection...

CMS officer to face charges.(The Week In Healthcare)(Column)
April 18, 2005... Byline: Ralph Loos with the Associated Press Sean Tunis, chief clinical officer of the CMS, has been charged by the Maryland Board of Physicians with using his government data access to falsely show that he had completed his continuing...

Taking charge at Cardinal.(appointment)(Column)
April 18, 2005... Byline: Mark Taylor One of the targets of state and federal investigations into prescription drug and medical product distribution and wholesaling practices hired a new chief financial officer. Cardinal Health named Jeffrey Henderson,...

HSAs may hurt more than help.(The Week In Healthcare)(health savings accounts)(Brief Article)(Column)
April 25, 2005... Byline: Laura B. Benko and Ralph Loos Health savings accounts as proposed in President Bush's healthcare plan would likely expand coverage to less than 1 million of the nation's 45 million uninsured and could destabilize the group market...

Davidson: No plans to retire.(The Week In Healthcare)(Column)
April 25, 2005... Byline: Melanie Evans Richard Davidson, the American Hospital Association's long-serving president, isn't talking about retirement from the Chicago-based trade group, said Richard Wade, an AHA spokesman. "There are no active discussions...

Late News; UHS to sell Medi-Partenaires.(Universal Health Services)(Hospital Corporation of America )
April 25, 2005... Universal Health Services, King of Prussia, Pa., said it is selling its 81.5% interest in Medi-Partenaires, a French operator of 14 hospitals, to Barclays Private Equity France and Cobalt Capital. UHS, which bought its stake in 2001 for $75...

The best intentions on access; Efforts to help the uninsured are overwhelmed by costs and cutbacks.(Opinions)(Column)
April 25, 2005... Byline: Todd Sloane, Assistant Managing Editor Op/Ed A coalition of prominent religious leaders-including Catholics, Baptists, Jews and Muslims-is asking the faithful to use the upcoming Cover the Uninsured Week to learn more about the...

Lonely at the top; ACHE survey reveals CEO turnover up in 2004.(American College of Healthcare Executives)
April 25, 2005... Byline: Melanie Evans Over the past 30 years, Kenneth Washburn has sat on two hospital boards, one that's endured frequent turnover at the top and the other led by the same man for 39 years. "To find the right person is tough,'' said...

Whiz kid goes to Washington; Jindal is ready to help set the healthcare agenda in Congress after making a big mark in Louisiana.(Bobby Jindal)
April 25, 2005... Byline: Tony Fong By the time he was 20, Bobby Jindal had graduated from Brown University. At 24 he was heading up Louisiana's department of health. Three years later, he was appointed president of the University of Louisiana System, and...