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

Iowa News

Cited as one of country’s most profitable hospitals, St. Luke’s officials disagree
Forbes Magazine states that St. Luke’s has an operating margin of 36 percent. St. Luke’s officials said the hospital’s true operating margin last year was 5.4 percent. Hospital officials noted that the information does not accurately reflect St. Luke’s complete financial picture because many support services and administrative department expenses were omitted from the calculation of operating margin. (Eastern Iowa Health)

Disaster Drill in Marcus
The Marcus Fire Department recently sponsored a community-wide fire and disaster drill that simulated a catastrophic explosion at the Marcus school.  Cherokee Regional Medical Center played a key role in the drill. (Cherokee Chronicle Times)

Chemo patients benefit from Skiff support group help
Skiff Medical Center’s chemotherapy treatment room, located in the Skiff Specialty Clinic, was in need of some renovations to accommodate its increasing patient load. The Pink Ribbon Support Group, after discussing the project with chemotherapy nurse Veronica Mangrich, willingly accepted the task of completing the renovations. (Newton Daily News)

U.S. News

Growth slows in health spending
Health care spending this year has grown at its slowest rate in a half-century, a sign that people are forgoing medical care during the recession. Spending on doctors, hospitals, drugs and other medical care climbed at a 2.7 percent annual rate per person in the first half of 2010, the smallest increase since the Bureau of Economic Analysis began tracking medical care in 1959. (USA Today)

Hospital CEO pay: Maryland Hospital Association responds
The compensation for hospital executives is determined by hospital boards and compensation committees who follow nationally recommended practices for setting contract terms, evaluating CEO performance, reviewing salary comparability data, setting and approving compensation and ensuring the process is free from conflict of interest. (Baltimore Sun)

Health insurance tax credit likely to affect small part of small-business workforce
About 16.6 million workers are employed by small businesses that are eligible for health insurance tax credits under the new health-care law, according to estimates that were to be released by a nonpartisan research foundation Thursday. However, the report by the Commonwealth Fund estimated that only 3.4 million of those workers are at firms that would take advantage of the tax credit. (Washington Post)

Falls represent a deadly public health problem, UN warns
Falls are a major public health problem across the world with an estimated 424,000 fatalities occurring each year, making it the second leading cause of unintentional injury and death after road traffic accidents, according to the United Nations health agency. More than 80 per cent of fall-related fatalities occur in low-and middle-income countries, with regions of the Western Pacific and South East Asia accounting for more than two thirds of these deaths, the World Health Organization said in a fact sheet issued today. (UN News Service)

Desperate for a treatment, one physician heals himself
In late May this year, Dr. Stephane Huberty inserted a needle into his upper arm and injected himself with a cloudy white vaccine previously tested only on rats and dogs. The reason for this desperate measure: Dr. Huberty suffers from myasthenia gravis, a rare neurological condition. It is one of more than 5,000 “orphan” diseases, so called because there are so few sufferers that most pharmaceutical companies are reluctant to invest in cures. (Wall Street Journal)