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

Iowa News

Best and worst places to get sick
Are there places where you are out of luck and resigned to less than top-shelf treatment? It was with these questions in mind that TheStreet and Bundle set out to look at how health care services compare state by state. While other assessments and “top ten lists” zero in on more granular metrics, this survey focused on top-of-mind items for consumers – and it ranked Iowa among the five best states. (TheStreet and Bundle)

Q-C hospitals step up mergers and acquisitions, reflecting national trend
Such affiliations should come as no surprise at this time of national health-care reform.  The health-care sector is poised for significant activity in terms of mergers and acquisitions, according to hospital executives and a firm called mergermarket that generates information used by financial institutions to originate deals. A recently released survey predicts that government health-care reform initiatives will drive most of the new hospital activity. (Quad-City Times)

Iowa hospital to offer patient-friendly loan program
A critical access hospital in northern Iowa has implemented a program offering below-market interest rate loans to help patients cover self-pay hospital expenses. Hancock County Memorial Hospital, a 25-bed county-owned facility, is partnering with CSI Financial Services, a San Diego-based firm specializing in patient loan programs, to offer the service. (Healthcare Finance News)

MDA clinic aims to improve patients’ quality of life
The clinic, based at Iowa Methodist Medical Center, has helped patients for nearly 30 years. Roughly 500 people are registered with the Muscular Dystrophy Association in central Iowa and can benefit from the facility’s services. The clinic serves adults with inherited neuromuscular disorders as well as ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s Disease. (Des Moines Register)

Mercy-Centerville celebrating 100 years of care
Mercy Medical Center, formerly St. Joseph’s Mercy Hospital in Centerville, is celebrating its centennial year – 100 years of compassionate care to Centerville, Appanoose County and the surrounding area in southern Iowa and northern Missouri. (KTVO)

U.S. News

Conservative group forecasts Medicare doctor access problem
Getting a doctor appointment may become increasingly difficult for seniors and the disabled over the next decade unless Congress changes the new health law, according to a report that the conservative National Center for Policy Analysis plans to release today. Due to scheduled “draconian” changes in payments to doctors and hospitals serving Medicare beneficiaries, the NCPA says, seniors may soon face the same access issues that sometimes send poor Medicaid recipients to community health centers and safety net hospitals. (Kaiser Health News)

Ads attacking health plan miss some facts
Republicans and their allies are taking to the airwaves to attack it as elections near, often resorting to exaggeration and omissions to make their points. Democrats generally shy away from even talking about the subject, unless it’s to distance themselves from it. Meanwhile, Obama allies try to draw attention to the most immediate provisions, ignoring the biggest — and most contentious — parts of the expanded health care law that are still four years away. (Associated Press)

Health insurers plan hikes
Health insurers say they plan to raise premiums for some Americans as a direct result of the health overhaul in coming weeks, complicating Democrats’ efforts to trumpet their signature achievement before the midterm elections. Aetna Inc., some BlueCross BlueShield plans and other smaller carriers have asked for premium increases of between 1 percent and 9 percent to pay for extra benefits required under the law, according to filings with state regulators. (Wall Street Journal)

Consumer Reports is rating surgical groups
The magazine published ratings of 221 surgical groups from 42 states online. Groups are rated, not individual doctors. The groups receive one, two or three stars, for below average, average or above average. The scores were based on complication and survival rates, whether the groups used the best surgical technique and whether patients were being sent home with certain medicines that research has shown to be beneficial after this type of surgery. (New York Times)

Japan confirms first case of superbug gene
Japan has confirmed the nation’s first case of a new gene in bacteria that allows the microorganisms to become drug-resistant superbugs, detected in a man who had medical treatment in India, a Health Ministry official said yesterday. The gene, known as NDM-1, was found in a Japanese man in his 50s. (Boston Globe)

Three in 10 Americans would track PHI with their phones
Three in ten Americans reported they would use their cell or smart phone to track and monitor their personal health, and 40 percent would be willing to pay for a remote monitoring device that sends health information directly to their doctor, according to a survey by PricewaterhouseCoopers’ Health Research Institute. (Health Care IT News)