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

Iowa News

Dr. Matt Gritters: Hospital Hero
Dr. Matt Gritters, an emergency department physician at Pella Regional Health Center, has been selected as one of 10 “Hospital Heroes” for 2010. He will be recognized at the Iowa Hospital Association’s Annual Meeting on October 7. (Pella Town Crier)

Project finds Iowa ranks 6th in nation in well-being of children
Iowa ranked sixth overall in a composite index of 10 key indicators that measured health-care, educational and economic factors that contribute to the well-being of children. Overall, New Hampshire, Minnesota and Vermont ranked best in the sum of standings in the 10 measures evaluated in the Kids Count yearly report, while Mississippi, Louisiana and Arkansas held the lowest ratings. (Sioux City Journal)

U.S. News

Obama’s new health official faces hostility in the Senate
Two weeks after taking office, Dr. Donald Berwick is still struggling to tamp down a furor over past statements in which he discussed the rationing of health care and expressed affection for the British health care system. And he is finding his ability to do his job clouded by the circumstances of his appointment, with many Republicans in open revolt over President Obama’s decision to place him in the post without a Senate confirmation vote. (New York Times)

Hospital savings: Salaries for doctors, not fees
Called Bassett Healthcare, this modest hospital of 180 beds delivers high-quality care at low costs in the face of federal reimbursement policies that discourage many of its best practices.  Changing those policies is crucial to the success of health care reform, economists say — something Mr. Obama said that he would do. “Our proposals would change incentives so that doctors and nurses finally are free to give patients the best care, not just the most expensive care,” the president said Thursday in Ohio. (New York Times)

State budget gaps to total $84 billion for fiscal 2011: study
That bleak assessment contains one ray of good news: The total is slightly less than the estimate in March for an $89 billion gap. The biggest shortfall to make up may be the reduction in federal aid for medical programs. Congress hasn’t approved extending this aid after increasing support as part of last year’s stimulus package. (MarketWatch)

Poll shows majority of seniors are bewildered by new health care reform law
The survey found that only 17 percent of respondents could answer even half of the 12 questions about key provisions in the law selected by the NCOA. Only 14 percent of respondents, for instance, knew that the new reforms don’t include cuts to doctors treating Medicare patients; just 24 percent were aware that the changes will extend the solvency of the Medicare program; and only 14 percent were aware that the reforms are projected to cut deficit spending. (The Hill)

California whooping cough outbreak largest in decades
In the midst of what could be the largest whooping cough outbreak in more than 50 years — and the death of six infants under 3 months of age — California health officials are recommending booster shots for nearly everyone in the state, especially health care workers, parents and anyone who may come in contact with babies. (USA Today)

Hospitals offering staff on-site wellness programs
Several Phoenix-area hospitals are keeping employees healthy with on-site wellness programs that offer access to doctors and classes on living well. (Phoenix Business Journal)

The do-it-yourself house call
The idea is for heart patients to take readings like their weight, blood pressure and other key metrics using wireless and other technologies; the data are then transmitted to a case manager or medical care giver. That way health care givers can catch, and address, warning signs before the patient lands in the ER with shortness of breath or a heart attack. In the past, patients have found such technology difficult to use. But a number of managed-care companies are experimenting with electronic devices meant to make the process easier. (Wall Street Journal)

Woman who faked cancer gets prison term
A judge sentenced a Tennessee woman to 42 months in prison for faking breast cancer and told her it was “reprehensible” that she took donations of sick leave, money and cancer patient support services for five years. “It seems like to me some confinement is necessary,” Hamilton County Criminal Court Judge Don Poole said Monday after a four-hour hearing in which attorneys for 39-year-old Keele Maynor of Chattanooga asked for a probation sentence that would allow her to work and pay about $54,000 in restitution. (National Public Radio)

Leave a Comment

Constance Melby, MS, RN, CNOR
OR Clinical Educator, Surgical Services
Trinity Bettendorf

Why did you choose this as your career?  My parents have a home movie of me at about 4 years old using my nurse’s kit and stethoscope at a family gathering.  I believe I was destined for nursing.

What are the challenges and rewards you experience in your work?  In my current role, a challenge is to squeeze in time for education for our nurses and surgical technologists who are dedicated to caring for our patients.  I find my work with Trinity’s Clinical Advancement Program and Technologist Advancement Program rewarding.  It offers me one-on-one time with staff and allows me to help them recognize their tremendous contributions and the difference their knowledge and skills make for our patients.  

What are your plans for the future?  I am a member of a team involved in the early development of a research project dealing with prevention of pressure injuries in surgical patients.  We hope to gain more understanding of pre-disposing factors and prevention measures that can be shared in both poster and podium presentations and perhaps even publishing our results. 

How has the hospital supported your career?  Leadership has been so supportive in allowing me to participate in professional opportunities.  An example of this was being encouraged to participate in the group of peri-operative educators who gathered to share knowledge and develop a nationwide certification program for surgery educators — now known as the Competency and Credentialing Institute Educator Certification program.

About Constance Melby:
Education:  Diploma from Moline Public Hospital School of Nursing; BS in Health Arts, MS Health Services Administration (both from University of St. Francis)

Experience in Health Care:  Worked earlier in her career at both Moline Public and United Medical Center (predecessor hospitals within Trinity Regional Health System).  Constance has been with Trinity Bettendorf now for five years.

Leave a Comment

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

Iowa News

Perry hospital leader picked to run West Des Moines medical center
The chief executive officer of the Dallas County Hospital has been chosen to run Mercy Medical Center-West Lakes in West Des Moines. Laurie Conner has led the Dallas County Hospital in Perry for 10 years. The public hospital, which is affiliated with the Mercy system, has 25 beds. Mercy Medical Center-West Lakes, a $100 million facility that opened last September, has 82 beds and could be expanded to 146 beds. (Des Moines Register)

Condon, 93, dies; founded House of Mercy
Sister Mary Brigid Condon, who was a leading nurse educator and co-founder of Des Moines’ House of Mercy center for women and children, died Thursday at a hospital in Aurora, Ill. Condon, 93, had already built a distinguished career in health care and education when she helped found the House of Mercy in 1988. (Des Moines Register)

Culver: Flooding is “new normal”
Iowa Gov. Chet Culver said today flooding is such a constant threat, the state needs to adopt a more intense long-term flood-fighting strategy. And he argued the controversial IJOBS initiative must continue, saying it’s pumped $300 million into flood-related projects. (Quad-City Times)

U.S. News

For insurers, fight is now over details
The law requires health insurers to spend at least 80 cents out of every dollar they collect in premiums on the welfare of patients, a critical issue for the companies’ bottom lines. But state regulators are only now deciding what precisely that means, as they draft the rules to enact the law. (New York Times)

Does Minnesota need all those back MRIs?
Doctors, hospitals and patients in the state have a well-established reputation for being thrifty when it comes to using expensive, high-tech health care. But those frugal ways apparently don’t apply to initial treatments for low-back pain, according to a new federal report. (St. Paul Pioneer Press)

Rose Ann DeMoro wants hospitals to scream
As head of the 155,000-member National Nurses United, DeMoro’s attitude toward hospitals and insurers (“They think I’m radical, that basically it’s unreasonable that I think that the nurses should win every battle, but I do.”) doesn’t suggest a demeanor amenable to shifting from agitator to stateswoman. Which means DeMoro’s opponents should expect lots more pain in the years ahead. (Bloomberg/Businessweek)

Where are the innovators in health care delivery?
Almost everyone believes there is an enormous amount of waste and inefficiency in health care. But why is that? In a normal market, wherever there is waste, entrepreneurs are likely to be in hot pursuit — figuring out ways to profit from its elimination by cost-reducing, quality-enhancing innovations. Why isn’t this happening in health care? As it turns out, there is a lot of innovation here. But all too often, it’s the wrong kind. (Kaiser Health News)

Health law augurs transfer of funds from old to young
Since the creation of Social Security and Medicare, younger workers have funded programs for the elderly. It’s a compact in which workers paid for retirees with the understanding that they’d be looked after by the generation behind them. The health overhaul diverges by tapping a program for the elderly to help provide insurance to 32 million Americans of younger generations. (Wall Street Journal)

Some insurers stop writing new coverage for kids
Some major health insurance companies have stopped issuing certain types of policies for children, an unintended consequence of President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul law, state officials said Friday. Florida Insurance Commissioner Kevin McCarty said in his state UnitedHealthcare and Blue Cross Blue Shield have stopped issuing new policies that cover children individually. Oklahoma Insurance Commissioner Kim Holland said a couple of local insurers in her state have done likewise. (Associated Press)

Disabled see progress, but problems persist
Although problems persist, particularly in employment, the Americans with Disabilities Act has transformed the United States, improved the lives of the 50 million people with disabilities (half of them severely disabled) and served as a model for much of the rest of the world. (New York Times)

‘Villages’ let elderly grow old at home
The explosive growth of the USA’s older population is fueling a grass-roots “village” movement in neighborhoods across the country to help people age in their own homes. More than 50 villages in a neighbor-helping-neighbor system have sprouted in the past decade from California and Colorado to Nebraska and Massachusetts. (USA Today)

Leave a Comment

The idea seems as if it could be straight from an episode of Star Trek.  Nurses and physicians using tablet-sized computers at a patient’s bedside in lieu of typical paper charts.  Then again, how unreasonable can that seem when robots are already being used to assist with surgeries?

But as each new wave of technology comes around, the health care industry is quick to see how it can be utilized to improve patient treatment.  Innovations in modern medicine such as x-ray technology really made health care professionals aware the final frontier had not yet been realized.  Now a new question is coming to light: Could tablet computers be the next big chapter in health technology?

In Iowa, one hospital is already attempting to boldly go where no medical professional has gone before.  At Cherokee Regional Medical Center (CRMC,) the new Apple iPad is getting its debut on the medical floor.

The initiative has been led by Jessica Mattioda, nurse supervisor at CRMC, who felt that the new tablet computing device could have many applications within her hospital.

“After hearing of paramedics using iPhones in the field, and seeing doctors use applications on PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants or palm top computers) to look up medication information, I thought that Cherokee Regional Medical Center could definitely benefit from this cutting edge computer technology. After researching the possibilities, I was confident that the iPads would be a good fit for our needs,” Jessica said.

The Apple iPad is the first device in a whole new generation of what are being dubbed as tablet computers.  Roughly the size of a notepad, the user installs specialized programs (known as “apps” in pop culture).  These apps are controlled on the tablet by touching one’s fingers to the screen to type, tap and manipulate objects within the app.

When first rolled out, Apple and other tech sources on the internet touted high hopes for its potential use in the health care industry.  Hospitals such as CRMC are finding many uses for the iPad so far, including the use of a surprisingly large library of apps that can assist with administrative tasks, tracking vitals and research.  Hospitals will also want to keep their eye out for apps that are designed for handling and sending electronic health records.  However, it goes without saying that security is everything in health care tech.  CRMC extensively researches all apps it is considering and ultimately only uses apps that come from verified sources.

While the concept of the tablet device is not new, Apple has set the bar high by modeling the iPad off of the iPhone, which has already broken many barriers in how users utilize mobile computing technology.  Even in a few short months since the iPad’s release, the competition already have their hands full when trying to design and curtail their own products that may attempt to challenge the iPad. This is important to know because Apple is not the lone dog in the show.  Companies such as HP and Cisco have already announced their own tablet devices and tech industry reports already indicate that over 50 tablet device products will be unveiled in 2010 alone.

Hospitals interested in incorporating this new technology will be wise to keep up with what’s coming out because while Apple’s iPad is designed with everyone’s uses in mind, certain devices are rumored to be in development that will have industry-specific purposes.  It’s possible that the best tablet option for Iowa’s hospitals has yet to be revealed.

Leave a Comment

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

Iowa News

Manning hospital will connect with hospitals around the state
Manning Regional Health Center will be connecting with 82 hospitals in 84 locations around the state of Iowa through the Iowa Rural Healthcare Telecommunications Program.  The program under the direction of the Iowa Hospital Association uses the ICN Network to tie the hospitals together to benefit patients. (KCIM)

Iowa governor’s race: Early, costly attacks keep TVs crackling
Gov. Chet Culver and Republican challenger Terry Branstad have already spent more than $1.2 million on advertising in the early weeks of the general election campaign, most of it attacking each other. The pace and volume of advertising at this point are far ahead of those in any other Iowa campaign for governor and 10 times the levels of four years ago. (Des Moines Register)

U.S. News

States, hospitals still hope for Medicaid help
With states facing a recession double-whammy of less revenue and more demand for health care services, Congress included extra money to Medicaid programs in the February 2009 federal stimulus package. Before the stimulus, the federal government’s share of Medicaid costs was between 50 and 76 percent (depending on the per capita income of the state). The federal match increased to between 61 and 84 percent of all Medicaid spending. The higher matching rate was originally slated to expire at the end of 2010, but an early version of the jobs bill extended the funding another six months, at a cost of $24 billion. (Kaiser Health News)

Feds move to improve health insurance appeals
The Obama administration took the first step Thursday to guarantee that consumers can appeal to a neutral referee if their health insurance company denies a medical claim. However, because health insurance and President Barack Obama’s overhaul law are both complicated, the new federal safeguards will not immediately apply to most Americans with private coverage. (Associated Press)

Mediating malpractice: hospitals agree to court alternative
To cut medical-malpractice costs, five New York City hospitals have agreed to a pilot program to divulge medical mistakes early, offer settlements quickly and use special state “health courts,” where judges will help negotiate agreements before cases go to trial. The program, funded for three years with $3 million from the federal government, aims to cut the $1.4 billion spent annually in New York State on medical-malpractice premiums, hospital and state officials say. (Wall Street Journal)

Sullenberger urges hospitals to adopt aviation culture of safety
Hospital leaders attending the American Hospital Association’s Leadership Summit in San Diego Thursday got a stern lecture from Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, who told them adopt the mentality of the aviation industry. They must stop thinking of accidents “as inevitable and start thinking about them as unimaginable,” he said. “We in aviation have learned a lot, and we’re anxious to share it with you.” (HealthLeaders Media)

Computer Science Corp. opens online community on meaningful use
Computer Sciences Corp., a $16 billion provider of IT and managed services to businesses and the public sector headquartered in Falls Church, Virginia, said it has launched an interactive, online community whose main focus is to provide a forum for health care professionals to share information on meaningful use of electronic health record technology. (IT Channel Planet)

Company seeks to prevent hospital errors with simple sensor
The new tool, by Seattle-based Mirador Biomedical, could be incorporated into central venous procedures that are performed 6 million times a year in the U.S., and could have potential to prevent thousands of mistakes that can cause severe complications, or even death. (Xconomy)

GAO investigators say DNA tests give bogus results
A government investigator told members of Congress on Thursday that personalized DNA tests claiming to predict certain inheritable diseases are misleading and offer little or no useful information. An undercover investigation by the Government Accountability Office found that four genetic testing companies delivered contradictory predictions based on the same person’s DNA. (Associated Press)

Leave a Comment