The Health Care Blog

Health 2.0 Consciousness Dawns - Even In Jacksonville, FL!

by BRIAN KLEPPER Today, Matthew, Michael Millenson and I are converging at a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation conference on public reporting of health care pricing/performance information in Amelia Island, FL, three short barrier islands north of my home in Atlantic...
May 15, 2008 in Brian Klepper, Economics, Health 2.0, Health Plans, Hospitals, Policy, The Industry, Transparency | Permalink | Comments (2)

Mind your manners

By Paul Levy Dr. Michael Kahn, from Beth Israel Deaconess' Department of Pyschiatry, has published an article in the New England Journal of Medicine that suggests that doctors enhance their relationship with patients when they deal with patients in a...
May 14, 2008 in Hospitals, Personalized Medicine | Permalink | Comments (0)

The virtues of virtual visits

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn Rush-Presbyterian Medical Center's Virtual Integrated Practice (VIP) is more evidence that remote health care can improve health outcomes. At Rush, a team has been refining the VIP model for the past four years. The VIP's objective is...
May 7, 2008 in Health 2.0, Hospitals, Jane Sarasohn-Kahn | Permalink | Comments (2)

Searching for the price of one appendectomy

By Sarah Arnquist This month's Philadelphia Magazine ranks the city's top physicians -- a fad nearly all major city magazines have adopted because it attracts great advertising dollars. But tucked amid the pages of smiling surgeons and OB-GYNs is a...
May 6, 2008 in Consumers, Hospitals | Permalink | Comments (14)

MN lawmakers pass bill to ban sharing info on medical debt

By Eric Novack Perhaps this should be applied to groceries, utility bills, clothing, and, of course, housing… Oh, wait, that is what the mortgage lending industry was doing for several years.
May 6, 2008 in Eric Novack, Hospitals | Permalink | Comments (2)

Why it's impossible to close a hospital

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn Hospitals are major employers in their local markets; they are often the largest provider of jobs in a community. In its latest TrendWatch report, Beyond Healthcare: The Economic Contribution of Hospitals, the American Hospital Association details the...
April 9, 2008 in Economics, Hospitals | Permalink | Comments (5)

Is Non-Profit Business An Oxymoron?

By Paul Levy An April 4 article in the Wall Street Journal, entitled "Nonprofit Hospitals, Once For the Poor, Strike It Rich" has prompted a slew of comments on wsj.com. I think they are worth reading and do not intend...
April 9, 2008 in Hospitals | Permalink | Comments (11)

The Security of Patient Data

By Brian Klepper EXCLUSIVE TO THCB: HIMSS Analytics, the research arm of the powerful, thoughtful and highly regarded Health Information Management Systems Society, has published a sobering study, Security of Patient Data - see here - that highlights the gap...
April 8, 2008 in Brian Klepper, Electronic Medical Records, Health 2.0, Hospitals, Privacy, Technology, The Industry, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (1)

Medicare releases hospital patient satisfaction data

By Sarah Arnquist Before choosing a hospital for an elective procedure, patients can now use the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services' Hospital Compare Web Site to see how former patients rated their experiences at various hospitals. Patients can compare...
March 29, 2008 in Consumers, Hospitals | Permalink | Comments (5)

Dennis Quaid takes on hospital errors

By Sarah Arnquist Hospital patient safety has a new celebrity advocate in Dennis Quaid, whose twin newborns received a massive overdose of a blood thinner last year at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center while being treated for infections. While his twins bled...
March 28, 2008 in Hospitals, Patient Safety, Quality | Permalink | Comments (12)

Average Time of Discharge: Why a Hospital is Not a Hilton

By Robert Wachter Do you get as annoyed as I do about being pressured on your “Time of Discharge?” I just received my monthly report, and we’re in The Doghouse again: our average TOD – 3:28 pm – is hours...
March 26, 2008 in Bob Wachter, Consumers, Hospitals | Permalink | Comments (5)

Lessons From a Sad Error

By Paul Levy I think many people have seen this sad story of a wrong-sided kidney removal in Minnesota. We all feel the pain for this poor patient. It is difficult for us non-physicians to understand how this happens, for...
March 20, 2008 in Hospitals, Patient Safety | Permalink | Comments (2)

THCB UPDATE

Careseek CEO Gale Wilson Steele writes in to comment on the ongoing controversy over physician ratings: "It's not surprising that physicians are uncomfortable with the idea of others "rating" them. After all, what do others know about how well they...
February 22, 2008 in Hospitals, Nursing, Physician Rating | Permalink | Comments (2)

HOSPITALS: The SEIU & Paul Levy lovefest continues

The SEIU has been trying to organize Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, who’s CEO Paul Levy’s most famous accomplishment is writing a blog called Running a Hospital. (What could be more worthy than that? Yes, we feature Paul’s posts on...
February 20, 2008 in Hospitals | Permalink | Comments (7)

The Ethics of CEO Blogging by Paul Levy

Paul Levy is the President and CEO of Beth Israel Deconess Medical Center in Boston. Paul recently became the focus of much media attention when he decided to publish infection rates at his hospital, despite the fact that under Massachusetts...
February 6, 2008 in Hospitals, The Industry | Permalink | Comments (2)

Four Big Trends - Brian Klepper

Several events and trends emerged over the last year that will reverberate throughout the health care marketplace in 2008 and going forward. While none of these dominated the trade press like some other issues - electronic and personal health records,...
January 16, 2008 in Brian Klepper, Health 2.0, Health Plans, Hospitals, Medicare Advantage, Patient Safety, Physician Rating, Physicians, Policy/Politics, The Industry | Permalink | Comments (8)

HOSPITALS: Sunshine is the best disinfectant by Paul Levy

Our mail room staff called today to say that over 500 letters had arrived from the SEIU to doctors in the hospital. One of the doctors was kind enough to share his with me, a letter from Mike Fadel, Executive...
January 14, 2008 in Hospitals | Permalink | Comments (0)

QUALITY: CNN's Glen Beck--not a delighted patient

Looks like CNN's Glenn Beck won't say what his local hospital's CEO would like to hear when Press-Ganey call him! He accuses the staff there of not caring. At the hospital I was often treated more like a number than...
January 11, 2008 in Hospitals, Quality | Permalink | Comments (6)

The Politics of Publicly-Funded Health Care - Brian Klepper

Over at Health Care Policy and Marketplace Review, the always insightful Bob Laszewski walks us through the mechanics of the just-passed federal budget and its health care financing implications for SCHIP, physicians, hospitals, Medicare Advantage plans. This clear, common sense...
January 3, 2008 in Brian Klepper, Health Plans, Hospitals, Physicians, Policy/Politics, The Industry | Permalink | Comments (1)

Look at How Safe [Fill in the Blank] Is by Bob Wachter

But is it as simple as that really? Perhaps not. In the commentary that follows, Bob Wachter has a very different take on the airline analogy. Analogies are useful things, true, he argues. But perhaps not as useful as the...
December 29, 2007 in Bob Wachter, Hospitals, Patient Safety | Permalink | Comments (2)

My Nomination For Health Care Quote of the Year - Brian Klepper

I was reading through other peoples’ blog posts yesterday when amazingly enough, I was here on THCB and came across this straightforward statement by Paul Levy, the CEO of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. Of course, many readers...
December 22, 2007 in Brian Klepper, Health 2.0, Hospitals, Physicians, Policy, Quality, The Industry, Transparency | Permalink | Comments (6)

Say it Ain't So, Joe by Paul Levy

I heard a great presentation this morning by Joe Newhouse, from the Department of Health Policy and Management at Harvard Medical School. There was one point that he made that really caught my attention. It was a cite to a...
December 20, 2007 in Hospitals, Transparency | Permalink | Comments (1)

If Grady Fails By Brian Klepper

In an extraordinary move earlier this week, the politically-appointed Fulton-DeKalb Hospital Authority, the governing body over Atlanta's Grady Health System, unanimously and voluntary stepped aside, to be replaced by a new non-profit corporation. Projecting a $55 million deficit this year,...
November 29, 2007 in Brian Klepper, Hospitals, Policy/Politics, The Industry | Permalink | Comments (6)

When is a Medical Error a Crime? by Bob Wachter

Bob Wachter is one of the nation's leading experts on medical safety and one of the pioneers of the hospitalist movement. And now he's descending into the mire of blogging! So we're pleased to cross post one of the more...
November 16, 2007 in Bob Wachter, Hospitals, Patient Safety | Permalink | Comments (16)

A Patient in my own hospital by Paul Levy

Paul Levy is CEO at Beth-Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. Paul was one of the first CEOs to embrace blogging and continues to use his popular online column as a forum to express his views on the business of...
November 14, 2007 in Hospitals | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hospitals: Firing doctors by Paul Levy

As one of the first CEOs in healthcare to author his own blog, Paul Levy of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center has established a cult following with outspoken posts tackling the issues he faces as the top manager at one...
October 10, 2007 in Hospitals | Permalink | Comments (7)

Are We Willing to Accept a Two-Tier Hospital System? By Maggie Mahar

Frequent THCB contributor Maggie Mahar returns today with another of her "Inside Baseball" posts on the healthcare industry. Is the recent boom in hospital construction a sign of a healthy and vibrant industry as many prognosticators have argued, or a...
October 5, 2007 in Hospitals | Permalink | Comments (22)

Consultants to Hospitals: Prepare for Transparency - Brian Klepper

We must view and treat the community as the "owner" to whom we are fully accountable. Aggregate financial performance data, aggregate productivity performance and aggregate quality and patient satisfaction data belong in the public realm. How else can consumers make...
August 16, 2007 in Brian Klepper, Health Plans, Hospitals, Physicians, Policy, Policy/Politics, Quality, The Industry | Permalink | Comments (4)

Podcast: Mello on Health Courts

Professor Michele Mello, an expert on the health care justice system at the Harvard School of Public Health, has an interesting 9.5 minute audio podcast on why health courts would be an improvement over the current medical liability system. The...
August 16, 2007 in Brian Klepper, Hospitals, Policy, Policy/Politics, Quality, The Industry | Permalink | Comments (0)

Managed Care Redux - by Brian Klepper

Like democracy, managed care is a great idea. It's just that its rarely been tried. Even so, my guess is that its about to re-emerge in a new, improved form, and possibly with some other name. If the signs around...
August 15, 2007 in Brian Klepper, Health Plans, Hospitals, Physicians, Policy, Policy/Politics, Quality, THCB, The Industry | Permalink | Comments (7)

HEALTH PLANS/HOSPITALS: Kaiser's tame blogger at it again

I think that most of the latest fines for Kaiser, which are only vaguely related to its original problems at the kidney transplant unit and are for poor performance of peer review and handling complaints at its hospitals are generally...
July 30, 2007 in Health Plans, Hospitals | Permalink | Comments (2)

Don't Blame The VA

I never wrote too much about Walter Reed at the time of the scandal. But this week’s resignation of the VA Secretary, reported by the AP as being connected to Walter Reed, is now being used by some on the...
July 19, 2007 in Hospitals, Policy | Permalink | Comments (5)

HOSPITALS/QUALITY: Virginia Mason--living in the future before it gets here.

More proof that the Michael Porter-type solution is living in the future before it gets here. Another study, this one from HSC shows that Virginia Mason has improved its processes, is saving money for its customers, and is paying the...
July 11, 2007 in Hospitals, Quality | Permalink | Comments (8)

PHARMA/PHYSICIANS/HOSPITALS/QUALITY: Busy busy busy

My correspondents have sent me lots of articles today. All worth a read— When Is a Pain Doctor a Drug Pusher? Basically never as far as I can tell but in the DEA’s view any time the DEA feels that...
June 22, 2007 in Hospitals, Pharma, Physicians, Quality | Permalink | Comments (7)

HOSPITALS/POLICY: King-Drew and the wider issues of care for the poor

It looks like it might be the end for King Drew, or as it's known now, King–Harbor. Some of the LA board of supervisors are in favor of closing the hospital immediately, and yesterday the State of California initiated proceedings...
June 22, 2007 in Hospitals, Policy | Permalink | Comments (4)

HOSPITALS: The best way to spend the money?

One THCB reader apparently was boring their partner about this, and seeing eyes glaze over got so steamed up they decided to write to THCB: I was at a health care board meeting last night (the organization involved must go...
June 11, 2007 in Hospitals | Permalink | Comments (8)

HOPSITALS/POLICY: Spending on health care is good for the economy, really!

Hospital boom adds billions to Arizona economy Arizona's hospital construction boom will create a windfall for the state's economy by creating 14,900 jobs each year and add $2.6 billion in wages over that five-year period, according to a study commissioned...
May 29, 2007 in Hospitals | Permalink | Comments (0)

HOSPITALS: Most Innovative Acute Care Hospitals

My old employers and friends at FierceHealthcare are out with their Top Ten list of the Most Innovative Acute Care Hospitals.
May 14, 2007 in Hospitals | Permalink | Comments (0)

HOSPITALS: AHA declares war on DRG changes

Meanwhile, in the real business of health care, hospitals are gearing up to stop reimbursement cuts. Just wait till they find out the real end game of pay for performance.
May 1, 2007 in Hospitals | Permalink | Comments (1)

PODCAST/CONSUMERS/TECH: Interview with Joseph Kvedar, Partners' Connected Health guru

Joseph Kvedar wrote a piece for THCB a couple of weeks back on Connected Health and its potential. As I'm in Boston I dropped in on him in his office at the center of the world's greatest collection of medical...
April 30, 2007 in Hospitals, Physicians, Technology | Permalink | Comments (0)

HOSPITALS: Wow, a big new one in San Francisco

Looks like Sutter is opening its extensive coffers to create a big-ish new hospital mid-way between its flagship CPMC and their Fennian rivals at St Francis in the heart of San Francisco. Given that we’re not exactly underbedded here, I...
March 23, 2007 in Hospitals | Permalink | Comments (0)

HOSPITALS: HIStalk charity request for destroyed hospital

Read this, purloined direct from MrHISTalk’s site. If you’re feeling generous I think chucking a few bucks to the link at the end will at the least make you feel better this weekend, and to think that…at least it’s not...
March 23, 2007 in Hospitals | Permalink | Comments (0)

HOSPITALS/POLICY/QUALITY: Harvard Business Professor #2 doesn't understand economics

Today, following yesterdays lashing out at Reggie, the next Harvard Prof who's been teeing me off is Michael Porter (and his Virginia colleague Elizabeth Teisberg). I'd been meaning to comment on Michael Porter's latest piece in JAMA (not that I...
March 20, 2007 in Hospitals, Policy, Quality | Permalink | Comments (15)

HOSPITALS: These things happen By Paul Levy

Paul Levy is the President and CEO of Beth Israel Deconess Medical Center in Boston. Paul recently became the focus of much media attention when he decided to publish infection rates at his hospital, despite the fact that under Massachusetts...
March 9, 2007 in Hospitals | Permalink | Comments (1)

POLICY/QUALITY/HOSPITALS: Keynsian reporting trumps Smith-ian invisibilty

Michael Cannon at Cato picks up on David Leonhardt's NYT article about error/process reporting in hospitals and suggests that there's no need for regulation, as the market is getting us there already. Hmm… methinks Michael underestimates what one economist he...
March 7, 2007 in Hospitals, Policy, Quality | Permalink | Comments (1)

HOSPITALS: VA perfection revisited By Eric Novack

THCB contributor Dr. Eric Novack has been following the unfolding scandal at Walter Reed Medical Center very closely. Eric feels the problems discovered by the Washington Post are indicative of deeper institutional problems at the VA. And deeper problems with...
March 5, 2007 in Eric Novack, Hospitals | Permalink | Comments (16)

TECH/HOSPITALS: Voice recognition and instant translation

Those of you who’ve been listening to the podcasts I’ve been doing and reading the blog will notice quite how excited Cisco’s Jeff Rideout is with the Health Care Interpreter Network, which is a video over IP based network currently...
March 2, 2007 in Hospitals, Technology | Permalink | Comments (1)

Hospitals: Army pledges fixes at Walter Reed By John Irvine

Less than 24 hours after this weekend’s two part series in the Washington Post on substandard conditions at an outpatient facility at Walter Reed Medical Center, Army officials and VA spokespeople were at the facility apologizing and pledging repairs. An...
February 21, 2007 in Hospitals, irvine | Permalink | Comments (8)

HOSPITALS: More patient dumping in Los Angeles?

This time apparently Hollywood Presbyterian is at it.
February 12, 2007 in Hospitals | Permalink | Comments (2)

HOSPITALS: How much is too much?

The only major hospital CEO to also be a blogger, Paul Levy at Beth Israel Deaconess, is wondering whether his salary of $1m is too much. My flip answer is, well of course it is, but would you turn it...
February 5, 2007 in Hospitals | Permalink | Comments (13)

POLICY/HOSPITALS: (Google) Mapping NYC Health Care Disparity: 1985-2007, by Mike Connery, The Opportunity Agenda

About 9 months ago research director of The Opportunity Agenda, Brian Smedley, guest-blogged on THCB about a New England Journal of Medicine study. his colleague Mike Connery wrote to me to tell me about this: Yesterday, as part of our...
January 19, 2007 in Hospitals, Policy | Permalink | Comments (4)

HOSPITALS/TECH: VISICU

My article about VISICU, complete with allusions to rockumentaries, is up at Digital Health & Productivity A new star's emergence meets with wild success. Then problems emerge and it looks like the dream is over, until he or she makes...
November 21, 2006 in Hospitals, Technology | Permalink | Comments (2)

HOPSITALS/HEALTH PLANS: You'd think Kaiser's had enough bad publicity lately, but then again

The city of Los Angeles. is filing patient `dumping' charges against Kaiser Permanente. Obviously there are plenty of hospitals dumping patients onto LA’s Skid Row, and obviously the way our society deals with elderly people with dementia, (and younger ones...
November 16, 2006 in Health Plans, Hospitals | Permalink | Comments (6)

HOSPITALS: It's not all financial woe in the big white building

Just a reminder from the Rocky Mountain News that plenty of hospitals are doing just fine. A HealthOne hospital (a local JV with HCA) made a pre-tax margin of 25%! That'll make some pharma companies jealous!
November 15, 2006 in Hospitals | Permalink | Comments (4)

HOSPITALS/HEALTH PLANS: HCA and United---Someone blinked

After being at war in several markets for the past few months (Florida and Denver come to mind) HCA has agreed a national contract with UnitedHealthcare. United has been having member retention problems in N. California, meanwhile losing a major...
November 7, 2006 in Health Plans, Hospitals | Permalink | Comments (2)

TECH/QUALITY/THE INDUSTRY/HOSPTIALS: Transforming patient care, with UPDATE

Cisco has produced a video on transforming patient care which includes discussion from “Crossing the Chasm” author Geoffrey Moore, Jeff Rideout, Cisco’s head honcho Medical Director, several hospitals execs, and a cameo from me. Go to this site to register...
November 2, 2006 in Hospitals, Quality, Technology, The Industry | Permalink | Comments (0)

HEALTH PLANS/HOSPITALS: Maverick pulls hosptials out of HMOs

This medical maverick, (or that’s what the paper’s calling him) owns three hospitals in The OC (California) and has cancelled all his HMO contacts—going after Medicare patients and charging HMOs and PPOs full fare for those admitted via the ER...
October 20, 2006 in Health Plans, Hospitals | Permalink | Comments (20)

POLICY/HOSPITALS: New Orleans health care, not rebounding

This is long but well worth a read. Modern Healthcare ran a roundtable on health care in New Orleans post Katrina with 2 health care execs and 2 consultants who did a study on the state of play. Essentially because...
October 17, 2006 in Hospitals, Policy | Permalink | Comments (0)

POLICY/HOSPITALS: UNC relents from going after the house

Jerry Ansley has had a pretty tough time, catching encephalitis, going to the hospital alot, and losing his life savings because whatever level of health insurance he had wasn’t enough. The good news is that after lots of pressure Univ...
September 26, 2006 in Hospitals, Policy | Permalink | Comments (3)

INDUSTRY/TECH/POLICY/HOPSPITALS: ID Theft Infects Medical Records

In an LA Times article called ID Theft Infects Medical Records Joseph Menn tells several terrifying stories of people who have had their identities stolen by other people who have used them to get medical care. Not only does this...
September 25, 2006 in Hospitals, Policy, Technology, The Industry | Permalink | Comments (0)

QUALITY/HOSPITALS: Odd hospital stay ratings--only the good get mentioned?

In a vox populi column the SF Chronicle asked readers, How would you rate your last hospital stay? Funnily enough in every case when they had a good experience they mentioned the name of the hospital. If they had a...
September 18, 2006 in Hospitals, Quality | Permalink | Comments (1)

HOSPITALS/POLICY: Another hospital CEO calls for single payer

I put this up because you guys love this type of thing as an open thread. Albany Medical Center chief calls for hospital reform and single-payer system. Albany Med Center is a monopoly non-profit provider, so it’ll do fine under...
September 13, 2006 in Hospitals, Policy | Permalink | Comments (0)

HOPSITALS/CONSUMERS: Perhaps this is the future of "body attachements"

A couple of years back there was some bad publicity about a hospital in Illinois that had its debtors hauled off to jail. Perhaps they should instead have tried this solution from Burundi—Don’t let them out if they can’t pay!
September 8, 2006 in Hospitals | Permalink | Comments (0)

THCB/HOSPITALS: Google plus THCB makes for some interesting stuff!

So a little over a year ago, I wrote a piece following a WSJ article about a surgeon in S. Dakota, who’d opened a specialty hospital and done very well out of it. Today I was futzing around on my...
August 30, 2006 in Blogs, Hospitals | Permalink | Comments (0)

HOSPITALS: Tony Chen, happily paranoid

At Hospital Impact Tony Chen is a little bit paranoid about the multiple different competitors hospitals might face—I think they’ll be OK if they keep paying the lobbyists. On the other hand Tony, just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re...
August 28, 2006 in Hospitals | Permalink | Comments (1)

PHYSICIANS/HOSPITALS/POLICY: Explaining practice variation to the masses

I'm up over at Spot-on trying to explain practice variation to the masses. Let me know how I did back here.
August 24, 2006 in Hospitals, Physicians, Policy | Permalink | Comments (31)

TECH/HOPSITALS: IBM Consulting's view of the full employment future

Up over at Health IT World, there's an interview I did with Ivo Nelson, the Healthcare Industry Leader of IBM Global Business Services. Suffice it to say that Ivo doesn't think we're very far along in the transformation of clinical...
August 22, 2006 in Hospitals, Technology | Permalink | Comments (0)

HOSPITALS: Pick the odd one out

Quiz time at THCB this morning, where you get to pick the odd one out from this list 1 —Hospitals 2 —New Jersey 3 —Fraud 4 —The Sopranos The answer? Maybe Number 4, but I doubt it. Anyway, here’s the...
August 22, 2006 in Hospitals | Permalink | Comments (1)

HOSPITALS: McKinsey wants to inspire lots of change; caveat emptor

McKinsey, an organization that prides itself on increasing the amount of consulting dollars it gets paid by improving the strategic direction of American business is making another foray into health care. You may recall their last study on CDHPs was...
August 15, 2006 in Hospitals | Permalink | Comments (9)

HOSPITALS/TECH: Getting the machine that goes "ping" into the EMR

Tim Gee managed to get to one of my posts when I didn’t submit for the last HWR for which he was host, to my chagrin and I failed to return the favor. But he does have a really interesting...
August 11, 2006 in Hospitals, Technology | Permalink | Comments (2)

TECH/HOSPITALS: File under CMS, cojones, lack of

Not exactly a surprise, but when they talk tough about P4P (or anything else) remember that CMS lives in the real world, and where the real power lies. The federal government on Tuesday softened proposed double-digit cuts in reimbursement to...
August 2, 2006 in Hospitals, Technology | Permalink | Comments (5)

HOSPITALS: Yet more insider trading at HCA?

Apparently the SEC is understood to be examining suspicious option trades in the run-up to the HCA leveraged buyout. Which does give me the thought, can’t Bill Frist leave well enough alone?
July 27, 2006 in Hospitals | Permalink | Comments (0)

HOSPITALS: Dr. Anna Pou Defense Fund

From THCB's New York Desk ... A defense fund has been set up to help cover legal expenses for Dr. Anna Pou and the two nurses charged with murder by Louisiana attorney general Charles Foti in the Memorial Medical Center...
July 24, 2006 in Hospitals | Permalink | Comments (37)

HOSPITALS: The secret to Sutter's high margins?

Appears to be defamation suits! Yup Sutter just got awarded $17.3m because Unite Here, one of the nation's largest unions that represents hotel, restaurant and laundry workers, defamed Sutter Health early last year by sending postcards to women of child-bearing...
July 24, 2006 in Hospitals | Permalink | Comments (1)

POLICY/HOSPITALS: Joe agrees that end of life care costs too much

You don’t need me to prattle on about the systemic over-spending on end of life care when Joe Paduda is doing it instead. But on the day when we’re arresting doctors for delivering what they perceive to be the best...
July 20, 2006 in Hospitals, Policy | Permalink | Comments (2)

QUALITY/HOSPITALS: I shouldn't joke about this, but...

....you've got to ask if this is is a case of a fatal nosocomial illness.
July 20, 2006 in Hospitals, Quality | Permalink | Comments (0)

HOSPITALS/POLICY: Unhealthy & unhappy Returns from BillMon

I missed this but last week my favorite writer on the entire Internet, Billmon at the Whiskey Bar, wrote about health care. 99% of his posts are about foreign policy, from an extremely cynical point of view. But this time...
July 19, 2006 in Hospitals, Policy | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hospitals: Doctor in Katrina case arrested

From THCB’s NEW YORK DESK – Authorities in Louisiana have arrested a doctor and two nurses in connection with the deaths of scores of elderly patients at Memorial Medical Center in New Orleans during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Attorney...
July 18, 2006 in Hospitals | Permalink | Comments (7)

HOSPITALS: Apparently they're shooting them down in Texas.

Additional light shed on Houston Healthcare firings. I can’t claim to know anything about this, other than isn’t it a little rare for this type of mass firing in the rather clubby hospital industry? Usually grand larceny and Medicare fraud...
July 13, 2006 in Hospitals | Permalink | Comments (1)

HOSPITALS: Overpaid facility managers?

A long while ago (1995?) I was with Ian Morrison trying to sell something to an exec Mt Sinai Hospital in New York. Wondering by the exec's office was Jack Rowe, lately of Aetna, but then the CEO of Mt...
July 7, 2006 in Hospitals | Permalink | Comments (3)

HOSPITALS: HCA's Californication problem

Not all is well with HCA in California. The SEIU has been trying to start a fight with HCA over staffing for some time.. Apparently three Southern Calif hospitals are threatening to go on strike and in Northern California something...
July 3, 2006 in Hospitals | Permalink | Comments (1)

HOSPITALS: Scrushy guilty of something at last

Those of you despairing of rich people being able to buy their way out of trouble may be encouraged by this headline—Scrushy, Siegelman found guilty on federal conspiracy, bribery charges . Well at least he’s going down for something. Perhaps...
June 29, 2006 in Hospitals | Permalink | Comments (2)

HOSPITALS: Tenet saga over for now

This edition of the soap opera known as Tenet Healthcare Corporation is over, or at least has gone to commercial break. The DOJ settlement is for $725m in cash and another $175m in billing to Medicare it won't collect. How...
June 29, 2006 in Hospitals | Permalink | Comments (0)

HOSPITALS/QUALITY: A quiet little speech by Michael Millenson

Millenson on the lack of real committment to patient safety. Acerbic and fantastic. A few quotes, but as they say in the blogosphere read the whole thing If there is a quality crisis today, it certainly is not apparent from...
June 26, 2006 in Hospitals, Quality | Permalink | Comments (3)

HOSPITALS/POLICY: MY 2 cents on the non-profit conundrum....incentives matter more than labels

Here’s my follow up to Maggie’s interesting piece and it’s the editorial in FierceHealthcare later today The non-profit hospital world has been in the news lately, and this week a study of all the studies ever done on the non-profit/for-profit...
June 23, 2006 in Hospitals, Policy | Permalink | Comments (3)

Hospitals: LSU and VA to build Center

On Monday, Louisiana State University and the Department of Veterans Affairs announced a plan to build a new $1.2 billion medical center in New Orleans. The hospital will probably take over the role played by historic Charity Hospital, although no...
June 20, 2006 in Hospitals | Permalink | Comments (4)

Hospitals: The Rosenbaum Case

By JOHN IRVINE Three months ago retired New York Times reporter David Rosenbaum was mortally wounded by a mugger armed with a lead pipe in an encounter on a street near his home in Northwest Washington. Believing the injured journalist...
June 19, 2006 in Hospitals | Permalink | Comments (1)

CONSUMERS/HEALTH PLANS/HOSPITALS/TECH: Consumer comparison tools, not exactly wowing the world as yet

There’s a new report from CHCF, written by Katy Hendrickson at Forrester, it’s called (pdf) Health Care Cost Comparison Tools: A market under construction. I’ve read it and it does suggest that something is slowly happening in the Submio/Health Grades...
June 8, 2006 in Consumers, Health Plans, Hospitals, Technology | Permalink | Comments (2)

POLICY/HOSPITALS/HEALTH PLANS: Jockeying for position via the pages of the NY Times

Here’s my FierceHealthcare editorial this morning—Jon Cohn tells me that I’ve been a little rough on Milt Fredenheim lately. Any thoughts? (or have you all left for the Hamptons/Your Sonoma winery estate…) The mechanics of healthcare reimbursement have been getting...
June 2, 2006 in Health Plans, Hospitals, Policy | Permalink | Comments (9)

POLICY/HEALTH PLANS/HOSPITALS: More on the punking of Milt Freudenheim

Freudenheim has been the health care reporter at the NY Times for a long time — a quick Googling suggests 1993 was when he started. So letting this piece of propaganda from the health plans slip by him and writing...
June 1, 2006 in Health Plans, Hospitals, Policy | Permalink | Comments (11)

POLITICS: Bill Frist--A wonderful man and a great doctor who has never done anything worthy of criticism in his life!

There was an puff piece last week in the WaPo called Bill Frist: A Doctor at Heart Contrasted with the gossip-based assassination on fellow 08 candidate Hillary Clinton and her husband in the National Enquirer New York Times, this is...
May 31, 2006 in Hospitals | Permalink | Comments (10)

HEALTH PLANS/HOSPITALS: United--not in enough trouble, goes looking for more

I don’t know what’s going on at UnitedHealth Group, but I am missing the strategic subtlety of this latest move. If I were trying to manage PR for the biggest and most profitable health plan in the country, and I...
May 30, 2006 in Health Plans, Hospitals | Permalink | Comments (8)

POLIY/HOSPITALS: And if you can believe this...

A post in a policy/politics blog about the nursing shortage with 61 comments! Who knew people got so worked up about this stuff?
May 26, 2006 in Hospitals, Policy | Permalink | Comments (0)

HOSPITALS/PHYSICIANS: E-mail leads to doc lawsuit in Jefferson Health System

Dig into this story -- It's a juicy one "E-mail leads to doc lawsuit in Jefferson Health System" Sounds like there's a little war over patient ownership going on...just in case you forgot your hospital econ 101.
May 17, 2006 in Hospitals, Physicians | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

HOSPITALS/TECH: Is the kiddie porn hysteria going too far?

You would expect Children’s Hospital in San Diego to be very, very nervous about anything to do with porn. After all, this is the place where apparently a nurse and a tech roamed free taking pornographic pictures of children, molesting...
May 15, 2006 in Hospitals, Technology | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBack

TECH: Oops! Hospital loses 5,000 X-rays in hard-drive crash

Ore. hospital loses 5,000 X-rays in hard-drive crash. Apparently 4 out of 5 hard drives failed, and the back-up wasn’t backed up. Still that’s nothing—I lost a whole year of downloaded soccer videos when I knocked over my external hard...
May 8, 2006 in Hospitals, Technology | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack

HEALTH PLANS/HOSPITALS: Kaiser gets beaten up in LA Times

There’s a series going on in the LA Times suggesting that, after it created its own kidney transplant program, either through inefficiency, incompetence or worse, Kaiser Permanente caused a delay in the transplants of several kidney patients. This morning’s report,...
May 4, 2006 in Health Plans, Hospitals | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBack

HOSPITAL/PHYSICIANS/POLICY/POLITICS: Hubbard, transparency, clarity, earth & water, mixed

Today, direct your attention over to Spot-on, where I’m up with my summary over Hubbard’s arguments with providers over price transparency—it’s called Clear as Mud. As ever you can come back here to comment. Somehow this topic tends to get...
April 21, 2006 in Hospitals, Physicians, Policy, Policy/Politics | Permalink | Comments (36)

POLICY/HOSPITALS: THCB agrees with Tenet, shock horror probe

In a WSJ article about Glen Alan Hubbard, Bush’s man on transparency, the following little exchange occurred. In addition, doctors and hospitals are wary of Mr. Hubbard's push to publicize their prices. Providers' skepticism was obvious at a meeting last...
April 3, 2006 in Hospitals, Policy | Permalink | Comments (45)

HOSPITALS: The transparency debate

Here's my editorial from today's issue of Fiercehealthcare: We've been hearing a great deal about price transparency in health care. California has a new law mandating that hospitals release their chargemaster billing data. The Administration's advisors are demanding that hospitals...
March 24, 2006 in Hospitals | Permalink | Comments (21)

HOPSITALS: Is there a built in profit in DRGs?

I got this random question and I didn’t know the answer, so I’m doing an “ask the audience” hoping that some geek smart on Medicare is reading. Is there a pre-defined profit margin built into DRG payments when they are...
March 20, 2006 in Hospitals | Permalink | Comments (5)

PHYSICIANS/HOPSITALS/INDUSTRY: Customer service: are new market entrants showing the way?

Interesting piece from a marketing consultant called Chris Bevolo from boutique firm GeigerBevolo Inc., in Minneapolis. The report looks at new entrants into health care services and responses to improve the patient experience at Mayo and Park Nicollet. The new...
March 13, 2006 in Hospitals, Physicians, The Industry | Permalink | Comments (2)

POLICY/HOSPITALS/PHYSICIANS: Wennberg found wearing concrete boots at bottom of Lake Michigan

No, not really. But Wennberg’s disciples at Dartmouth are coming out with so many uncomfortable facts for the medical-industrial complex that it’s hard to keep count. Starting by introducing the notion of practice variation 30 years ago, the group is...
March 8, 2006 in Hospitals, Physicians, Policy | Permalink | Comments (51)

POLICY/HOSPITALS: Outsourcing West Virginia's Health Care

THCB can't claim to focus much on health policy (or anything else going on) in West Virginia. Bob Coffield, who writes the Health Law Blog, does a bit more, probably because he lives there. And he picked up this very...
February 3, 2006 in Hospitals, Policy | Permalink | Comments (13)

HOSPITALS/PHYSICIANS/POLICY: More data on specialty hospitals suggests the obvious

HSC is out with another study on local markets, and this time it’s looking at specialty hospitals. Not a new tune. HSC finds that purchasers in three local markets where there are plenty of specialty hospitals believe that the hospitals...
January 25, 2006 in Hospitals, Physicians, Policy | Permalink | Comments (2)

(Slightly) OFF-TOPIC: Not in front of the children

I’ve always heard rumors about this stuff but I thought they were inventions of the San Fernando valley’s favorite industry, but apparently in South Africa a group of nurses were busted in a sex orgy in hospital. While it sounds...
January 13, 2006 in Hospitals | Permalink | Comments (0)

TECH/HOSPITALS: Mr HISTalk says "Does Cerner Millennium kill children? I don't think so."

MrHISTalk, who’s blog is fantastic, out-does himself in an article about the University of Pittsburgh Children’s hospital CPOE implementation, which has had so much publicity since the article was released on Monday. His article is called, Does Cerner Millennium kill...
December 8, 2005 in Hospitals, Physicians, Technology | Permalink | Comments (1)

HOSPITALS/POLICY/TECHNOLOGY: More on the dodgy practices of the GPOs

Via Health Care Renewal, a great article on the ongoing scandals of the GPOs in the Fort Worth Weekly. It’s long but well worth a read. Essentially the GPOs, on behalf of the hospitals, agree to pretty much exclusive contracts...
December 2, 2005 in Hospitals, Policy, Technology | Permalink | Comments (1)

POLICY: Yet more Dartmouth proof about doing too much

We’re almost at the point that you know exactly what any study from the Dartmouth group is going to find before it’s published. Following the assessment last year that showed that the nations “Top 100” hospitals show a wide variety...
November 17, 2005 in Hospitals, Physicians, Policy, Policy/Politics | Permalink | Comments (2)

HOSPITALS: Friday Night Update by John Pluenneke

When the going gets tough, the tough form a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt non-profit organization. HealthSouth Corp. founder Richard Scrushy has formed a nonprofit group focusing on churches and religious charities. Richard and Leslie Scrushy Ministries was incorporated in Jefferson County last...
October 28, 2005 in Hospitals | Permalink | Comments (1)

HOSPITALS: The specialty hospital party looks like it's over

Specialty hospitals have made quite a few docs a very tidy penny, (for instance see this debate from the medical hotspot of South Dakota) and there's been plenty of propaganda from both sides of this debate. But my sense is...
October 27, 2005 in Hospitals | Permalink | Comments (9)

HOSPITALS: Sutter and Kaiser getting pissy, and fiddling while Rome burns

Just to follow up on the recent "SEIU hates Sutter but loves Kaiser" piece, this morning I was up at CPMC as a patient, having a doctor looking at my bum knee in the medical office building next door. (And...
October 6, 2005 in Hospitals | Permalink | Comments (1)

HOSPITALS: How to play nice with workers, and how not to

If you hadn't noticed, the next round of unionization will come in the big service industries. This is going to build over time, but health care services will be the biggest push because (with the obvious caveat about overseas surgeries)...
October 4, 2005 in Hospitals | Permalink | Comments (7)

HOSPITALS/INDUSTRY: How stupid is Navigant really?

So Navigant Consulting has been gilding the lily on its expenses in the apparently somewhat shoddy consulting job it's doing at King-Drew. Their basic excuse is that their private sector clients (almost all non-profit hospitals by the way) are quite...
September 26, 2005 in Hospitals, The Industry | Permalink | Comments (5)

HOPSITALS: Universal stopped from saving its people by FEMA

We've by now heard of the real heroics performed by HCA to get people out of Tulane Hospitals (and the city owned hospital next door). Yesterday Bob Herbert's NY Times Op-Ed highlights a case I missed where another for-profit corporate...
September 16, 2005 in Hospitals | Permalink | Comments (19)

HOSPITALS: Consumer-driven care and hospitals, by Richard Reece

Richard Reece, Editor-in-Chief of Physician Practice Options has been corresponding with me for some time. He's the author of a new book of interviews called Voices of Health Reform with interesting health care people, and I published a self-interview with...
September 15, 2005 in Hospitals | Permalink | Comments (0)

TECH/POLICY: Things to think about in Katrina's aftermath

Here's my FierceHealthcare editorial today: In Katrina's wake the inquests are beginning after the tragic failure to get help to where it was needed, especially in New Orleans. For healthcare organizations there are some immediate lessons, wherever in the country...
September 9, 2005 in Hospitals, Technology, The Industry | Permalink | Comments (16)

HOSPITALS/POLICY/INDUSTRY: Katrina and the response

We have all been shaken by the devastation in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. After a couple of days to reflect, three thoughts come to my mind. First has been the absolute heroism of health care workers in New...
September 2, 2005 in Hospitals, Policy, Policy/Politics, The Industry | Permalink | Comments (20)

HOSPITALS: Consultant in hospital facility management needed

A colleague of mine needs someone to help in a consulting gig his organization is doing for a hospital facility management organization. They need someone who understands hospital facility management to guide them in figuring out what the key metrics...
August 17, 2005 in Hospitals | Permalink | Comments (7)

HOSPITALS: Specialty hospitals make you rich, but everyone else is doing OK

Really good article in the WSJ about specialty hospitals, featuring one surgeon in the thriving metropolis of Rapid City, South Dakota. The founder of Black Hills Surgery Center, a neurosurgeon called Larry Teuber, has made some $9m in selling off...
August 2, 2005 in Hospitals | Permalink | Comments (14)

HOSPITALS: And while we're on the subject of making too much money

If you read the Bruce Bodaken interview referenced in my other post today you'll see that he complains about a certain hospital organization pricing too aggressively and being cut out of part of the CalPERS HMO network that Blue Shield...
July 28, 2005 in Hospitals | Permalink | Comments (16)

HOSPITALS: Hospitals on the verge of a nervous breakdown

Sorry, so the title is another bad attempt to be imitate an old Spanish movie but the problem is real enough. If the formula is, increase the number of jobs available without insurance, add more people moving into a county...
April 15, 2005 in Hospitals | Permalink | Comments (6)

HEALTH PLANS/PHYSICIANS: More patient confidentiality probs at SF Bay area institutions, with UPDATE

So not long after the mess with Kaiser and the Gadfly appears to be heading to a court solution, there are two more weird breaches of patient confidentiality both demonstrating that it's not technology but the physical security of data...
April 8, 2005 in Health Plans, Hospitals, Physicians, Technology | Permalink | Comments (4)

HOSPITALS/POLICY: King-Drew in context, part II

Late last year there was a five part series in the LA Times about the problems at King-Drew Medical Center, and in a blog piece I tried to put it in a little context. I promised then that I would...
January 18, 2005 in Hospitals | Permalink | Comments (0)