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People, Places, Processes & Products that Influence the Supply Chain |
| Around the Nation |
December 2007 |
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As Medical Costs Soar, The Insured Face Huge Tab The Wall Street Journal, 11.29.2007 As spending on health care has climbed to almost $2 trillion a year, or 16% of the U.S. economy, the number of Americans burdened with massive medical bills has soared as well. According to a 2005 survey by the Commonwealth Fund, an estimated 34% of adults aged 19 to 64 face problems with medical bills or have accrued medical debt. A majority of those people -- 62% -- had health insurance, the survey found. Million-dollar medical bills, while still unusual, are becoming more common as insurance policies once thought to provide catastrophic coverage prove inadequate when it comes to high-cost illnesses. Part of the problem: Even as medical progress and new technologies raise health-care costs, health plans have been slow to raise their caps. Another issue is the widespread practice of bill padding by hospitals and other health providers. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119610495315004214.html Hospitals marshal resources to wipe out MRSA USA Today, 12.2.2007 A recent federal report on the growth of "superbugs" — deadly bacteria resistant against most antibiotics — has renewed public attention to how hospitals are faring in their decades-long war. Hospitals across the USA have been stepping up their fight against all types of infections, especially superbugs that have been found to be more common and more deadly than previously believed. http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2007-12-02-superbug_N.htm HealthLeaders, 12.6.2007 The Office of Inspector General and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services relaxed the Stark and anti-kickback laws in August 2006 in an effort to increase electronic medical record adoption by allowing hospitals to assist affiliated physicians. But the new rules haven't affected Jim Nania much. The chief financial officer of Hallmark Health in Boston, Nania wasn't waiting for the feds to act; Hallmark formed a joint venture two years ago to spur EMR adoption-and that was before the laws were relaxed. Still, despite the elimination of a regulatory barrier, many hospitals remain cautious about providing financial help in this area.
http://www.healthleadersmedia.com/print/content/200934/topic/ Many States Still Fall Short in Emergency Preparedness: Report HealthDay News/Washington Post, 12.19.2007 Most Americans don’t feel safer now than they did before 9/11, and their fears might be justified, a new report claims. For example, seven states have not purchased antiviral medications in the event of a pandemic, 13 states don’t have effective plans to distribute vaccines, antidotes and medical supplies in a public health emergency, and seven states and the District of Columbia don't have the ability to test for biological threats. The report, compiled by the Trust for America’s Health and released Tuesday, says that while many states have made progress in preparing for a potential public health disaster, much more needs to be done, and cuts in federal funding for state and local preparedness programs “threaten the nation's safety.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/18/AR2007121801040_pf.html
New rules on 990 forms mean nonprofit hospitals can guard less information on their community work Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 12.21.2007 The IRS unveiled sweeping changes to the forms that all nonprofits must file detailing their finances, operations and community benefits. The reporting overhaul -- the first for the IRS in more than a quarter century -- is a way of bringing more transparency and accountability to the nonprofit world. The changes affect more than 6,000 tax-exempt organizations that operate in southwestern Pennsylvania. Starting in 2010, hospitals in the area will have to break out how much they give back to their hometowns in a variety of categories, from free care to unreimbursed Medicaid costs to education programs, research and cash contributions to community groups. The IRS also will ask hospitals to describe any joint ventures, including ownership interests of doctors in any for-profit activities, as well as a more detailed accounting of compensation to top executives. http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07355/843384-28.stm Hospitals step up surveillance of scary "superbug" infections East Bay Business Times, 12.14.2007 Washington Hospital in Fremont is among the first Bay Area hospitals to take a technology once used to identify anthrax and employ it in the fight against the superbug that's killing more Americans than HIV/AIDS. Cepheid Inc. of Sunnyvale improved the rapid DNA sampling technology developed at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to create a test that helped federal agencies detect possible anthrax contamination after deadly powder was sent through the U.S. mail in 2001. Now the company is using the same DNA technology in its GeneXpert test that helps hospitals more quickly identify the equally scary MRSA, or methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, the superbug named for its resistance to certain antibiotics including methicillin. The test works by extracting DNA from the organism to make a positive identification very quickly. Previously, lab workers had to take a swab, grow a culture over two or three days, and then test it for methicillin resistance. Local nurse's invention keeps germs in the bag Business Courier of Cincinnati, 12.14.2007 In 24 years as a nurse, Jennifer Giroux has seen stethoscopes carried in purses, stuffed in pockets and jammed into lockers next to gym shoes. They're so much a part of health care, doctors and nurses take them everywhere, and they're hardly noticed. Unfortunately, they're hardly cleaned, either. Fearing that the devices could be spreading infections, Giroux came up with an invention to reduce the risk. Essentially, disposable plastic stethoscope covers are carried in a dispenser clipped to the stethoscope. Six years, a patent and $150,000 of her own and investors' money later, StethoClean is on the market.
7 Medical Myths Even Doctors Believe LiveScience, 12.20.2007 Popular culture is loaded with myths and half-truths. Most are harmless. But when doctors start believing medical myths, perhaps it's time to worry. In the British Medical Journal, researchers looked into several common misconceptions, from the belief that a person should drink eight glasses of water per day to the notion that reading in low light ruins your eyesight.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20071221/sc_livescience/ SSM Healthcare-St. Louis to restructure St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 12.21.2007 SSM Healthcare-St. Louis said that it will restructure the hospital system to strengthen its focus on innovation, efficiency and patient care. The reorganization divides SSM's local hospitals into two regional entities. It also creates another organizational structure that will focus on treating individual diseases and conditions.
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/business/stories.nsf/story/ The war to foil the new superbugs Minneapolis Star Tribune, 12.23.2007 The spread of the MRSA superbug strikes fear in many. But for an entrepreneurial few, it's prompting a burst of marketing for products and services that they maintain can foil the scary drug-resistant staph bacteria. From disposable condom-like covers for stethoscopes to room-fogging that dispenses disinfectants originally created to fight bioterrorism, the MRSA fear factor is spurring an anti-MRSA industry. Health officials who preach the low-cost, low-tech effectiveness of hand washing to curb the bacteria show some exasperation at these more elaborate approaches. But with the public spotlight on MRSA, some companies clearly think their anti-microbial ship may have come in.
http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/health/12791212.html
Year in Health: Here's to your safety USA Today, 12.23.2007 Persistent questions about the safety of both prescription and over-the-counter drugs, a menacing microbe spreading throughout the U.S. and a globe-trotting TB patient garnered headlines this past year. Here’s a look back at the top health stories of 2007. http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2007-12-23-yearend-diabetes_N.htm Life-saving advances, medical mishaps mark 2007 Miami Herald, 12.25.2007 Milestones and miscues characterized medical news in Florida in 2007. A new heart-valve procedure spared a 13-year-old Hollywood boy from another open-heart surgery and had him at home text-messaging his friends within hours. Stem cells from a donor mother's cord blood battled a 9-year-old Kendall boy's leukemia. But tragedy struck when staffers at a University of Florida medical clinic accidentally administered a wrong dosage to a 3-year-old Gainesville boy, leading to his death. Not everyone benefited from the medical advances. At least 47 million Americans had no health insurance, an increase of 2.2 million for the year -- mostly from erosion of employer-paid insurance policies, according to U.S. Census data. http://www.miamiherald.com/1057/story/355700.html Cancer Fight Goes Nuclear, With Heavy Price Tag The New York Times, 12.26.2007 Medical centers are rushing to turn nuclear particle accelerators, formerly used only for exotic physics research, into the latest weapons against cancer. Some experts say the push reflects the best and worst of the nation’s market-based health care system, which tends to pursue the latest, most expensive treatments — without much evidence of improved health — even as soaring costs add to the nation’s economic burden. The machines accelerate protons to nearly the speed of light and shoot them into tumors. Scientists say proton beams are more precise than the X-rays now typically used for radiation therapy, meaning fewer side effects from stray radiation and, possibly, a higher cure rate. But a 222-ton accelerator — and a building the size of a football field with walls up to 18-feet thick in which to house it — can cost more than $100 million. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/26/health/25cnd-proton.html?_r=2&hp=&oref=slogin&pagewanted=all
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