Featuring hospital and health care headlines from the media and Web.

Iowa News

Surgeon plans return trip to help Haiti
West Des Moines surgeon Dr. Alan Koslow’s harrowing experience in Haiti has pushed him to find a way to continue helping those affected by January’s earthquake. “Some people think after you go down there for a few days you’re done, but you shouldn’t be,” Koslow said. “Even with all the help they have right now it will take six months to a year to get them back to where they were, which still puts them as one of the poorest nations in the world.” (Des Moines Register)

Patient satisfaction scores cause for celebration
Mahaska Health Partnership held an organization-wide celebration on Friday, Feb. 5, to congratulate physicians and staff for achieving excellent patient satisfaction scores in a national survey. Leading the way was the MHP Specialty Group, which was ranked in the top 3 percent in overall customer satisfaction for a six-month period from July through December of 2009. (Oskaloosa Herald)

U.S. News

‘Perverse incentive’ in current health care system, says expert
Even as the health care debate turns to blood sport in Washington, some analysts say the debate is ignoring one of the leading causes of rising costs: the way health care providers are paid. “They are rewarded for more services, not better services. They are rewarded for more care, not better care,” said Dr. Elliott Fisher, a lead researcher for the Dartmouth University Atlas of Health. (CNN)

A simple health care fix fizzles out
Even before Congress took up the now-stalled health-care overhaul, it appropriated $1.1 billion to fund these studies. Both the Senate and the House included it in their versions of the bill. President Barack Obama backed it. Yet, an examination of one of the best-known examples of a comparative-effectiveness analysis shows how complicated such a seemingly straightforward idea can get. (Wall Street Journal)

Mass. governor wants health cost veto
Governor Deval Patrick is seeking sweeping authority to review and reject rates charged by hospitals, physician groups, medical imaging centers, and insurers, in a broad new effort to make health care more affordable, particularly for smaller companies and their workers.  A 40-page bill filed by the governor yesterday proposes to give the insurance commissioner the power to essentially cap health care price increases. (Boston Globe)

Texas health care providers could see Medicaid fees reduced
Doctors, dentists and hospitals would see their Medicaid fees trimmed by at least 1 percent under possible budget reductions. When treating adults, the caregivers would take a 2 percent hit, as would nursing homes, group homes for the mentally disabled and NorthSTAR, which provides mental-health services to about 400,000 low-income residents of Dallas and six nearby counties. (Dallas Morning News)

Doctors’ use of EHRs growing
More than 48 percent of the people surveyed by GfK Roper for IT vendor Practice Fusion said their doctor or specialist stored medical records electronically in the examination room, as opposed to writing information on paper charts. Of those patients, more than 45 percent said their doctor made the switch in the last two years, and more than 14 percent said the switch occurred in the last six months. (Information Week)

Super Storm II
The interim CEO at Greater Baltimore Medical Center blogs about how the massive snow storms that have hit the Washington, D.C. area have impacted his hospital. (GBMC Hospital Rounds)