by Scott McIntyre on Monday, July 19, 2010
1About this time of year, many school-age children have one thing in common: they are making their parents crazy. A combination of mid-summer heat (or monsoons – take your pick), a declining number of organized activities and general listlessness leads to the well known distress call of bored kids: “There’s nothing to do.”
The answer might be to send your kid to the hospital.
Not for treatment, but for opportunities. Hospitals are always looking for volunteers and many have very active “volun-teen” programs. There are many pluses to hospital volunteering, particularly the lessons it teaches in responsibility, compassion and community. These lessons are valuable whether or not the young person is considering a health care career, though one of the biggest benefits of hospital volunteering is the chance to work with health care professionals.
Olivia Goodyear (left) and Beka Prull donated $350 from their lemonade stand to the hospital in Anamosa.
Most of the time in volun-teen programs, there is a minimum age requirement (typically around 14 years old). But with some guidance and a little creativity, children of all ages can find a way to get busy by giving to their hospitals. For example, a pair of young girls in Anamosa raised $350 at their lemonade stand that paid for a stove for Jones Regional Medical Center’s rehabilitation therapy department. The stove helps injured patients learn to function in their homes again.
Students in Panora made and donated more than 100 blankets to Mercy Medical Center in Des Moines. The blankets will be used in the hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit.
Senior softball players from Chariton High School auctioned off this quilt they created and donated the funds to Lucas County Health Center.
Players from the Chariton High School girls’ softball team made one of their home games this summer an “all-pink” event and raised $2,700 for Lucas County Health Center’s free mammogram fund. Each of the team’s players and coaches donated a handmade item that was auctioned off for the fund, including a quilt that was stitched by the team’s senior class.
And in Newton, two boys celebrated their recent birthdays in typical fashion: by having a party and collecting gifts. But instead of asking for presents for themselves, they requested that their party guests bring new and used DVDs, which were then donated to Skiff Medical Center for sick and injured children and their families to enjoy during their hospital stays. More than 30 DVDs were collected.
Talk to your local hospital. You might just find out that instead of making you crazy, your kids will make you proud this summer.
by Scott McIntyre on Friday, July 16, 2010
Featuring hospital and health care headlines from the media and Web.
Iowa News
Alegent’s CEO agrees to stay
Richard Hachten II, who returned to Alegent Health last fall to repair sour relations with physicians, will stay on indefinitely as CEO and president. The Alegent board in October brought Hachten, a founder of Alegent in 1996, back for two years. The board has decided to keep him for the long term at the helm of the largest hospital system in Nebraska and western Iowa. (Omaha World-Herald)
Hospital approves comprehensive strategic plan
While health care reform may result in significant changes for hospitals and physicians across the country, Spencer Hospital is preparing for the future through the development and implementation of a strategic plan. A five-year strategic plan, outlining specific hospital priorities and strategies, was approved by the Spencer Hospital Board of Trustees at the July board meeting Thursday morning. (Spencer Daily Reporter)
Drill centers on mock shootings at schools
Law enforcement, first responders, area hospitals and schools teamed up Thursday to participate in one of the largest emergency drills ever held in the Quad-Cities, with a scenario of deadly shootings taking place simultaneously at schools on both sides of the river. (Quad-City Times)
Adopted woman meets birth mother at Newton hospital
Early in the morning on Sept. 23, 1970, a 15-year-old girl from Colfax gave birth at Skiff Medical Center, in the former obstetrics unit that is now home to the Monarch Wing. Until that night, Debra Gregg Wiegand hadn’t even known she was pregnant. And because she was unconscious during the delivery, she knew nothing of her child, who was promptly handed over for adoption. (Newton Daily News)
U.S. News
How will “meaningful use” factor into doctor and hospital rankings?
U.S. News & World Report’s annual Best Hospitals rankings are now out, and Avery Comarow, the magazine’s health rankings editor, was asked whether the rankings will ever incorporate meaningful use benchmarks or other indicators of IT adoption. In an email, he says that “it’s safe to say that meaningful use of HIT will be folded into the Best Hospitals methodology at some point — provided that a link between such a measure and clinical quality can be established.” (Wall Street Journal)
Hospitals fight to lure primary-care physicians
Although family medicine needs doctors the most of any discipline, the field has the toughest time convincing medical students it’s a worthwhile investment. Still, it’s rare that medical students can handpick their next steppingstone, but in the cash-strapped field of family medicine, residency programs fight to capture the attention of students. (Orlando Sentinel)
Nevada presses hospitals for full accounting of preventable injuries
A Nevada State Health Division analysis found hospital patients suffered 342 preventable injuries or infections during the second half of 2009, while facilities reported only 44 sentinel events. Each of the 342 cases might fit Nevada’s definition of a sentinel event. The division is pressing the hospitals to review medical records from 2009 and see if they failed to report any sentinel events, and to report them now, if need be. (Las Vegas Sun)
A mathematical David stuns a health care Goliath
A respected actuary working from his rural California home — and for a time from a hospital bed — uncovers the errors that led Anthem Blue Cross to cancel rate increases of up to 39 percent. (Los Angeles Times)
New Hampshire to test health care collaboration at five sites
Five groups of hospitals and other health care facilities are embarking on a five-year project aimed at keeping patients healthier while reducing health care costs. The five sites will become “accountable care organizations” in a project that attempts to tackle what many consider to be a big problem in the current system: having accountability spread across hospitals, doctors’ offices, insurance carriers and employers with no one group responsible for the overall management of care. (Bloomberg/Businessweek)
Putting patients at the center of the medical home
Call it a P.R. issue, an information disconnect or simply an unfortunate choice of a name, but in all the discussions about patient-centered medical homes, one group of individuals has been conspicuously missing: the patients themselves. And it’s hard not to notice the irony; in a model of care premised on the strength of the patient-doctor relationship, few people other than doctors and experts are even sure what it is or how it affects their care. (New York Times)
Bad nurses able to keep working in other states
The ease of a drug-addicted nurse’s move from one hospital job to another illustrates significant gaps in regulatory efforts nationwide to keep nurses from avoiding the consequences of misconduct by hopping across state lines. (USA Today)
North Korean health care system in crisis
North Korean doctors perform operations without anesthesia in clinics where hypodermic needles are not sterilized and sheets are not washed, the human rights group Amnesty International said in a report released on Thursday. (New York Times)
by Scott McIntyre on Thursday, July 15, 2010
IHA has released results from its latest hospital community benefit survey, which show Iowa hospitals provided a total of $1.2 billion in community benefit. Community benefits are activities designed to improve health status and provide greater access to health care. Along with uncompensated care (which is made up of both charity care and bad debt), community benefits include such services and programs as health screenings, support groups, counseling, immunizations, nutritional services and transportation programs.
IHA also includes hospital losses to Medicare and Medicaid in its community benefit report. This is because those losses – more than $310 million in 2009 – impact the hospitals’ ability to provide community benefit.
Providing community benefits is an essential mission of non-profit community hospitals (117 of Iowa’s 118 hospitals are non-profit) and it is also required under federal laws that cover these hospitals’ tax-exempt status. However, those laws do not specify an “amount” of community benefit from each hospital.
Instead, hospitals are given the flexibility to determine how to meet the specific needs of their individual communities through these programs and services. IHA believes that flexibility is important because community needs vary, not only from hospital to hospital and community to community, but from year to year – even from month to month. A one-size-fits-all approach to community benefit would negate that flexibility and undermine the ability of hospital boards, administrators and employees to react to community needs in a timely fashion – if at all.
In the coming weeks, IHA will be sharing more about the unique programs and services Iowa hospitals provide to their communities.
by Scott McIntyre on Thursday, July 15, 2010
Featuring hospital and health care headlines from the media and Web.
Iowa News
Grassley: Finance hearing needed to legitimize Berwick
In a letter to the head of the Senate Finance Committee delivered Wednesday, Senator Chuck Grassley and the other Finance Republicans argued that Berwick’s testimony before the committee would ensure that the controversial appointment “does not result in circumventing the open public review that should take place for a nomination of such importance.” (The Hill)
Gov. Culver Tours Genesis Health System in Davenport
“I am committed to making Iowa the most connected state in the nation,” Governor Chet Culver said. “Health care is also at the top of my agenda. Genesis is an example of how both can go hand-in-hand by using e-health technology to enhance health care.” During a public forum with employees, Culver outlined his accomplishments in which access to affordable health care was expanded to 57,000 Iowa children. (Iowa Politics)
Better technology will deliver better health care to Iowans
In less than two years, a high-speed, safe and secure wireless and fiber optic health care network will have the capability of serving almost 2 million Iowans, 650,000 households and 134,000 businesses in the state. It will open the way to offer tele-health to even the most remote rural areas of the state, into residents’ homes and through doctors’ offices and clinics. It will make possible the transmission of X-rays and CT-scans to virtually any hospital or medical center in Iowa. (Des Moines Register)
U.S. News ranks UIHC among best hospitals
Several University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics specialties were ranked in U.S. News & World Report’s annual America’s Best Hospitals rankings. The magazine ranks hospitals in 16 different specialties, with UIHC showing up in 10 of them. Only 152 of the almost 5,000 hospitals rated by the magazine were ranked in at least one of the specialties. (Iowa City Press-Citizen)
UI to host health care symposium
The University of Iowa will host a symposium on health care reform from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Coralville Marriott Hotel and Conference Center. The event reviews and discusses how the recently enacted federal health reforms may affect health policy in Iowa. (Iowa City Press-Citizen)
U.S. News
What hospital certifications say – and don’t say
Certifications can be valuable tools for consumers because they encourage participating hospitals to find (and presumably fix) systemic problems. Moreover, those taking the trouble to get these stamps of approval (aside from considerable time, applying can run from several thousand dollars to as much as $50,000) likely specialize in treating the specific disease. And the fact that outside experts peer over the hospital wall means patients can assume at least minimal standards of care. (U.S. News & World Report)
The appointment of a new health-care tsar angers Republicans
Conservatives accuse Dr. Berwick of being anti-market and suggest that he will run the new health-care system with a bureaucrat’s self-regard and heavy hand. But the doctor’s career has been built on spreading private-sector practices into the American hospital industry, which is dominated by not-for-profit institutions. Drawing on successful practices developed by other industries, he has helped many hospitals reduce their errors and improve their performance. (The Economist)
Health plans must provide some tests at no cost
The White House on Wednesday issued new rules requiring health insurance companies to provide free coverage for dozens of screenings, laboratory tests and other types of preventive care. The new requirements promise significant benefits for consumers — if they take advantage of the services that should now be more readily available and affordable. (New York Times)
Health lobbyists focus on a once-obscure group
For years, an obscure federal task force sifted through medical literature on colonoscopies, prostate-cancer screening and fluoride treatments, ferreting out the best evidence for doctors to use in caring for their patients. But now its recommendations have financial implications, raising the stakes for patients, doctors and others in the health-care industry. (Washington Post)
FCC to propose $400 million rural health care broadband fund
The Federal Communications Commission will announce at its open meeting Thursday a plan to create a $400 million program that would bring broadband connections to rural healthcare providers. The effort, supported by money drawn from a $8 billion annual phone subsidy known as the Universal Service Fund, has been a pilot project at the FCC since 2007. But it has attracted little interest, mainly because of restrictions on who can apply for the funds and what the money can be used for, according to the FCC. (Washington Post)
Verizon creates medical information exchange cloud
Verizon announced on Wednesday a new cloud-based service offering for healthcare providers that will handle the sharing of patient information electronically between disparate platforms. The new service, called the Verizon Health Information Exchange, consolidates clinical patient data from various providers and translates it into a standardized format that can then be accessed via a secure Web portal. (ComputerWorld)
Jobs in health care are faring well
Despite the economic downturn, the health care industry is still thriving and is expected to be one of the fastest growing career fields in the coming years, according to a new book by career experts Wendy Enelow and Louise Kursmark called “Expert Resumes for Health Care Careers, Second Edition.” (Washington Post)
by Scott McIntyre on Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Featuring hospital and health care headlines from the media and Web.
Iowa News
Hospitals provide millions in uncompensated care
A new survey finds Iowa hospitals were not paid for over $1 billion worth of the patient care they delivered in 2009. A survey from the Iowa Hospital Association shows the amount of charity care combined with unpaid bills that were written off increased by 12 percent last year, to nearly $800 million. The Iowa Hospital Association says on top of that, hospitals provided $310 million in care to Medicare and Medicaid patients that was not reimbursed by the state or federal government. (Radio Iowa)
Extend Medicaid lifeline to poor
It makes no sense to force states to reduce health coverage for the poor when the economy has not recovered. It’s absurd only months after Congress passed health reform legislation to insure more Americans that it would refuse to provide a lifeline to the poor. Washington lawmakers can justify extending increased matching dollars for Medicaid until the economy improves. (Des Moines Register)
Turf battle continues over pain relief injections
A legislative committee has failed to settle a turf battle between doctors and nurses over treatment for chronic pain. At issue is the Board of Medicine’s decision to prohibit nurse anesthetists from using an x-ray machine to monitor pain relief injections near the spine. Critics say it hurts rural hospitals, which find it difficult to keep anesthesiologists on staff. (Radio Iowa)
Mercy-Des Moines adding second air ambulance
The second helicopter will be based in Knoxville, officials said. “We’ve been exploring the possibility of an expansion for a while,” said Dan Keough, director of emergency transport services at Mercy. “We have seen a large increase in the number of requests for air ambulance transport.” (KCCI)
Harkin Applauds health information technology incentives
Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) today applauded Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius on the announcement of final rules that pave the way for the expanded use of electronic health records in America. In March of this year, Harkin joined 37 other Senators in commending a proposed rule to distribute Recovery Act funds for health information technology and urged improvements to increase flexibility and encourage participation among providers. (IowaPolitics)
Braley to propose federal version of Ed Thomas Bill
First District Rep. Bruce Braley announced Wednesday that he’ll introduce a federal bill aimed at helping law officials track patients facing criminal charges. Braley said the legislation he will propose this week will allow hospitals to release information about patients facing criminal charges to law enforcement. (Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier)
U.S. News
GOP Senators ask Kagan to step aside on health law
Senate Republicans today asked Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan whether she would recuse herself from a possible Supreme Court challenge to this year’s health care law. Kagan, the solicitor general, represents the Obama administration before the Supreme Court. She has said she would decline to participate in deciding cases that she worked on but has not said whether that includes a challenge to the health care law. (Wall Street Journal)
Most Provena tax money to go into escrow
Local taxing districts now stand to receive only a part of the $8.8 million Provena Covenant Medical Center paid Champaign County last week in back taxes. Urbana officials say most of the money will be held in escrow, until legal issues surrounding the tax payments and Provena Covenant’s taxable status for several prior years are resolved. (Urbana News Gazette)
No, the ‘free market’ will not fix health care
Free markets are wonderful. They have brought millions of humans out of poverty. But there are large problems when applying markets to 21st century health care. (Baltimore Sun)
Study: Many docs don’t blow whistle on colleagues
A new survey finds that many American physicians fail to report troubled colleagues to authorities, believing that someone else will take care of it, that nothing will happen if they act or that they could be targeted for retribution. A surprising 17 percent of the doctors surveyed had direct, personal knowledge of an impaired or incompetent physician in their workplaces, said the study’s lead author, Catherine DesRoches of Harvard Medical School. (Associated Press)
A new practice: The doctor will see you today
At this doctor’s office, no one has to spend weeks trying to wrangle an appointment, and once patients arrive, they rarely wait more than a few minutes for the doctor. That might seem mind-boggling to those who have cooled their heels for 30 minutes, or an hour, in their doctor’s reception room — after waiting weeks to get the appointment in the first place. It takes an average of 63 days in the Boston area to get an appointment with a family physician, according to a 2009 survey by physician recruiters Merritt Hawkins & Associates, and 20 days on average for the nation as a whole. (Boston Globe)
