Featuring hospital and health care headlines from the media and Web from December 19-December 24.

Iowa Headlines

Informational Cure
Greater Regional Medical Center is taking audio-video technology and using it to help prepare and educate its patients on surgery and therapy. The hospital is currently working on a video about Greater Regional Cancer Center and its radiation therapies. The educational video will be played in waiting rooms and on the new GRMC Web site that will debut in February.  (December 23, Creston News Advertiser)

Mercy’s new psychiatric unit does not include more beds
The lack of beds reflects another deficiency in the mental-health system: a statewide shortage of psychiatrists. Mercy maintained its capacity after discussions with its psychiatrist providers about manageable patient ratios. (December 21, Dubuque Telegraph Herald)

Loebsack honors ‘Iowans Who serve’
During this season of giving, an elected official said he wanted to visit those who give all year long. Congressman Dave Loebsack, the Democrat representing Iowa’s 2nd District, continued his “Highlighting Iowans Who Serve” tour by visiting the McCreery Cancer Center at Ottumwa Regional Health Center, the Ottumwa Good Samaritan Center and the Hospice House of Davis and Wapello Counties. Hospice employees are ready to move into their new building on Pennsylvania Avenue in Ottumwa. (December 19, Ottumwa Courier)

Kidney donor found on Facebook
Matthew Burge of Cedar Rapids was willing to try anything to help his ailing father. Even Facebook. Burge, 22, put a message on the social networking Web site asking if anyone would be willing to donate a kidney to his dad, John Burge, who suffers from polycystic kidney disease.  (December 19, Mason City Globe-Gazette)

We can’t afford not to change health care
Critics of health care reform argue that changing the system is just too costly, but for largely rural states like Iowa, it’s the status quo we can least afford.  (December 19, Ottumwa Courier)

U.S.  Headlines

Senate health care bill: The hospital view
Rich Umbdenstock, president and CEO of the American Hospital Association, talks to National Public Radio about the Senate health care bill. He says his organization supports many aspects of the bill, but is concerned about its readmissions policy. That would penalize hospitals for readmissions that are unavoidable, rather than focusing on readmissions that are preventable. (December 22, National Public Radio)

Doctors seek out cure for inefficiency
All the consolidation that took place in the healthcare industry in 2009 could have a surprising benefit for patients: greater strides toward efficiencies in customer service. That’s because larger doctor practices that swallowed up smaller ones have deeper pockets to upgrade their information systems and other infrastructures, which the Obama administration is touting as part of health care reform and which studies have shown consumers are demanding.  (December 24, Chicago Tribune)

Weighing the medical costs of end-of-life care
The Ronald Reagan U.C.L.A. Medical Center, one of the nation’s most highly regarded academic hospitals, has earned a reputation as a place where doctors will go to virtually any length and expense to try to save a patient’s life. Yet that ethos has made the medical center a prime target for critics in the Obama administration and elsewhere who talk about how much money the nation wastes on needless tests and futile procedures.  (December 23, New York Times)

Businesses brace for health bill’s cost
Companies are alarmed at potentially costly provisions in the Senate healthcare bill, many of which they hope will be scrapped during a final round of negotiations early next year. A scramble to massage the hefty measure, instead of pushing to kill it, reflects the view of many in the business community that a sweeping remake of the health care system now appears inevitable. (December 23, Wall Street Journal)

Florida shares RAC battle stories
Wondering what it will be like to bear the full force of the Recovery Audit Contractor program? Florida hospital execs can tell you; they’ve already been with the program for three years as part of the RAC demonstration project. (December 21, FierceHealthFinance)

Big hospitals flush with cash despite industry’s dire warnings
Critics say large hospital operators that are amassing cash are doing so at the expense of patients, charging higher prices when that money could be used to lower costs or subsidize hospitals in a hole. The hospitals maintain they need to have ample cash to invest in the latest medical technology, attract top medical care providers and maintain a reserve to cushion themselves from rocky economic conditions. (December 22, Chicago Tribune)