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

Iowa News

Legislators address issues in mental health redesign
A group of four Iowa legislators addressed issues with regionalization, access to care and financing at a public forum on the state Mental Health and Disability Services System Redesign on Thursday night. More than 40 people packed into a conference room in the Johnson County Health and Human Services building to ask questions, many of them deeply involved in the mental health and disability fields. Much of the conversation centered on the issue of whether counties should group together in regions to administer care and pay for services. (Iowa City Press-Citizen)

DHS sued over Medicaid contract award
A North Dakota company is suing the Iowa Department of Human Services, alleging the agency unfairly awarded another company a $140 million contract to manage part of Iowa’s Medicaid system. Noridian Administrative Services wants a judge to review the state agency’s decision to pay a company called Accenture to handle Iowa’s Medicaid Management Information System. According to Noridian, Accenture’s bid proposal includes costs that are $23 million more than the costs included in Noridian’s proposal. Noridian says that because Accenture’s bid is “overly vague” in some areas, it could lead to even greater costs for taxpayers. (Des Moines Register)

Doctor will help usher in health care law
Dr. Matt Sojka, who runs Trinity Muscatine’s clinic in Wilton, is trading in a part-time job he described as “hospital policeman” for one that might be better described as “hospital visionary.” Sojka, 53, is giving up his medical director job at Trinity Muscatine to help Iowa Health System, Trinity Muscatine’s parent organization, anticipate and integrate changes under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the health care reform law passed by Congress in 2010. (Muscatine Journal)

Covenant to break ground on new ER
Officials have unveiled the plans for the $17 million addition at the Waterloo hosptial. “If you look at any new facility throughout the United States, the marquee signage and probably the most visible part of the hospital is the emergency room,” said Jack Dusenbery, president and CEO of Wheaton Franciscan Healthcare-Iowa. “(At ours) you have to find it off the back side of the hospital, then you go down a little tunnel without much parking and you find the ER entrance. We couldn’t hide it much better, but yet 30,000 people a year find it.” (Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier)

New clinic to ease UI hospital demand — but not for long
The Iowa River Landing outpatient clinic is on track to open in October with expectations of reducing visits to University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics’ main campus by at least 200,000 annually, but officials say the hospital’s patient numbers could climb back to pre-River Landing levels in three years. Growth of inpatient programs like surgery and transplants at the hospital will continue to fuel a rise in numbers even after River Landing opens, those officials said. (Cedar Rapids Gazette)

Marengo CEO: Hospital remains the same, regardless of name
CEO Barry Goettsch told those attending a meeting at the hospital, “We want to attract more people to utilize the resource we have available here in the environment where the reimbursement mechanism continues to change, pressure from Iowa City and Cedar Rapids continues. We feel it’s important to do something that reaches out to those other people…Good sentiment gets us so far, but actual numbers through the doors and utilizing our services are going to help the hospital sustain.” (You Weekly Paper)

National News

Collaborating reduces costs of health care
The Hillsboro collaboration is one of a small but growing number of voluntary partnerships to tackle the problems of unsatisfactory quality and rising health costs. Similar programs are underway in Atlantic City; Lewiston, Maine; Muskegon, Mich.; Sacramento; San Francisco; and Seattle. One is budding in Orlando. All the efforts draw on quality-improvement models developed in manufacturing and other industries. Physicians and hospitals share cost savings with employers and insurers, and in some cases, share losses if savings targets aren’t met. Medicare has launched a similar program under the 2010 health reform law aimed at developing so-called accountable-care organizations. (USA Today)

Report finds most hospital errors go unreported
Hospital employees recognize and report only one out of seven errors, accidents and other events that harm Medicare patients while they are hospitalized, federal investigators say in a new report. Yet even after hospitals investigate preventable injuries and infections that have been reported, they rarely change their practices to prevent repetition of the “adverse events,” according to the study, from Daniel R. Levinson, inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services. (New York Times)

Workplaces ban not only smoking, but smokers themselves
As bans on smoking sweep the USA, an increasing number of employers — primarily hospitals — are also imposing bans on smokers. They won’t hire applicants whose urine tests positive for nicotine use, whether cigarettes, smokeless tobacco or even patches. Such tobacco-free hiring policies, designed to promote health and reduce insurance premiums, took effect this month at the Baylor Health Care System in Texas and will apply at the Hollywood Casino in Toledo, Ohio, when it opens this year. (USA Today)