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Robert Whitcomb

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Texas system files for protection, blames insurers

 

Becker’s Hospital Review reports that Woodlands, Texas-based Victory Healthcare has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection while it tries to sell its medical and surgical centers.

“The system manages six for-profit medical and surgical centers in Texas, and the system said it has ‘many interested buyers for its centers.’ Last month, Houston-based Nobilis Health agreed to acquire Victory Medical Center in Plano, Texas, and Victory intends to petition the court to accelerate that sale, ” Becker’s reports.

“Two of Victory’s facilities, Victory Medical Center Beaumont and Victory Medical Center Houston-East, were excluded from the bankruptcy filing. Those two hospitals already have buyers in place outside of the court process.”

“We had built an extremely high quality, state-of-the-art group of community-centric medical centers and hospitals,” said Victory CEO Robert Helms. “Unfortunately, as out-of-network providers, we came under attack by large insurance carriers. Even though we were able to execute in-network agreements with three large insurers, the extreme slowness and lack of payment from the carriers constrained liquidity significantly.”

So Victory cut expenses, in part by  providing fewer services.  But “Unfortunately, now we have no other choice except to sell our facilities with the intent of remunerating secured and unsecured creditors alike,” said Mr. Helms.


Challenges for the new generation of hospital CEOs

 

Using the example of old and new leadership at White Plains Hospital, Hospitals & Health Networks looks at what the new generation of hospital chief executives will be called upon to do.

Tom Giella, managing director, healthcare services, for executive recruiter Korn Ferry in its Chicago office, told H&HN that “The CEO of the future will be someone who understands the continuum of care, from inpatient to physician offices to ancillary services to home health, pharmacy and nursing homes, and is capable of bundling it all around providing excellent service at reduced cost.”

H&HN notes: “Indeed, the growing demands of population health management and accountable care appear to be major factors driving CEO turnover rates to record highs — breaking 20 percent for the first time in 2013 and averaging more than 17 percent over the past five years.

“The continuing trend of consolidation among organizations, the increasing demands on chief executives to lead in a complex and rapidly changing environment, and the retirement of leaders from the baby boomer era may all be contributing to this continuing higher level of change in the senior leadership of hospitals,” says Deborah J. Bowen, president and CEO of the American College of Healthcare Executives….”

 

 


Scary E.R. supply shortages

Emergency department physicians are hard at work cooking up work-arounds for shortages of such essentials as IV solution and at least one life-saving drug because suppliers can’t meet demand.

Carol A. Cunningham, M.D.,   state medical director for the Ohio Department of Public Safety’s division of emergency medical services and an emergency physician at Akron General Medical Center, told Health Leaders Media that a saline-solution shortage left her feeling “like we were practicing medicine in a Third World country.”

 

 

 

 

 

 


David L. Brown, M.D., joins Cambridge Management Group

 

David L. Brown, M.D., an anesthesiologist and a leading expert on pain management, has joined Cambridge Management Group  (cmg625.com) as a senior adviser. He survived his own prolonged life-threatening illness related to military-acquired hepatitis C, which gave him a particularly deep understanding of the needs of patients and their families facing end-of-life decisions. The experience led Dr. Brown, an Air Force veteran, to found Curadux — a firm dedicated to pioneering a revolutionary decision-support model for those facing advanced illness.

Dr. Brown’s research has focused on acute pain relief in post-surgical patients, as well as relief of pain related to pancreatic cancer. He and colleagues are investigating a novel cannabinoid-2 compound (MDA-7) that shows promise for Alzheimer’s disease symptom management and relief of neuropathic pain.

He recently retired academically and clinically from the Cleveland Clinic, where he was professor and chairman of the Anesthesiology Institute.

Previously, he led the departments of anesthesiology at the University of Texas’s M.D. Anderson Cancer Center; the University of Iowa Hospital and Clinics, and the Virginia Mason Medical Center, as well as serving as professor of anesthesiology at the Mayo Clinic.

Dr. Brown is past president of the American Society of Regional Anesthesia and Pain Medicine; past editor-in-chief of the journal Regional Anesthesia and Pain Medicine; past president of the Association of University Anesthesiologists, and past chairman of the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education’s (ACGME) Residency Review Committee for Anesthesiology. He was also a member of the ACGME board.

He has been a director of the American Board of Anesthesiology and chairman of the Foundation for Anesthesia Education and Research.

Dr. Brown received his medical degree in 1978 as a member of Alpha Omega Alpha, the medical honor society, at the University of Minnesota, after undergraduate work at Iowa State University and the University of South Dakota. In 1982 he completed his anesthesiology residency at Wilford Hall U.S. Air Force Medical Center, in San Antonio. Before that, he was a flight surgeon in the USAF for the 319th Bombardment Wing.


Karen L. Miller, M.D., joins Cambridge Management Group

Karen L. Miller, M.D., an obstetrician and gynecologist, has joined Cambridge Management Group  (cmg625.com) as a senior adviser. She brings many years of experience in serving a wide range of patient populations as well as extensive research and teaching. She brings to Cambridge Management Group particularly strong expertise and experience with low-income and other disadvantaged populations.

She is currently providing outpatient gynecologic services at the Maliheh Free Clinic, in Salt Lake City, while conducting genetics research to develop a noninvasive test for endometriosis. Meanwhile, she continues to teach obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Utah Medical School, with which she has been associated for many years as a professor whose work has included, besides teaching, mentoring and research, helping to develop certain national guidelines for gynecological care.

Dr. Miller has a broader clinical background than most ob-gyns. This has included a year of training in general surgery, and serving as urgent-care physician for the Industrial Medical Center, National City, Calif., where she treated victims of industrial accidents, and as general medical officer for the Indian Health Service at the Unitah and Ouray Reservation, in Roosevelt and Ft. Duchesne, Utah. Other activity for underserved populations has included doing ob-gyn work in American Samoa

She received her medical degree from the University of Oklahoma and a B.A., in German and a B.S. in general science from Oklahoma City University.

 


Barry Ensminger joins CMG

 

Barry Ensminger has  joined Cambridge Management Group  (cmg625.com) as a senior adviser.

He has had a long career in health-related issues. This has included promoting healthy births and reproductive choices as well as broader healthcare access for women and children in urban areas.

He brings senior healthcare management, direct-services, policy and legal experience to his work with Cambridge Management Group, along with a population-health perspective to help organizations working in a rapidly changing and increasingly competitive environment.

Mr. Ensminger has served as vice president for external affairs for Maimonides Medical Center, in Brooklyn, N.Y. His responsibilities included public relations and other internal and external communications, marketing, development and government relations for a 700-bed teaching hospital and ambulatory network.

His other posts have included serving as executive director for Planned Parenthood of New York City; general counsel and vice president for education for the March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation; general counsel for the New York City Human Resources Administration, and counsel and policy director for the Office of the New York City Council President.

Barry Ensminger has a law degree from the University of Pennsylvania and a bachelor of arts degree from Stanford University.


A rough road to insurance

 

Video: One man’s hard road to health insurance in the age of the Affordable Care Act.


ER patients need to get pushier

er

New research suggests that lack of follow-up care explains the  great frequency of some patients’ visits to hospital emergency rooms. And the study, perhaps surprisingly, also shows that many people go to a different ER the second time around.

The Associated Press reported that  the  new research, based on records in six states, “suggests patients should be pushy about getting follow-up care so they don’t have to return to crowded emergency departments.”

‘”You need to make sure the next day, you connect the dots,’  study co-author Dr. R. Adams Dudley of the University of California at San Francisco, told the AP. “‘You cannot count on the health system to connect the dots.”‘

“It’s also a reminder of how disconnected our healthcare system is. Chances are, your primary care doctor won’t know you made an ER visit unless you call about what to do next,” the AP said.

“And if your second visit was to a different ER, often doctors can’t see your earlier X-rays or other tests and have to repeat them, adding preventable costs. While more hospitals and doctors’ offices are trying to share electronic medical records, it’s still far from common, especially in the fast-paced ER.”

“‘It’s frustrating. We’re open 24 hours a day and we don’t necessarily have access to those records,”‘  said UCSF assistant  Prof.  Dr. Reena Duseja, an emergency physician who led the research.

Still, revisits may be appropriate, Dr. Duseja noted. After all,  nearly  30 percent of revisits involved hospitalization, suggesting that either patients got  sicker or ER physicians felt  that more scrutiny or testing was needed.

 


Public-private alignment in healthcare reform

skaters

Alignment of state health agencies with large, private employers and/or commercial health plans  is essential in realigning efforts and resources and changing how we pay for healthcare, with the central goal of  shifting from volume-based payment models to value-based ones  to improve quality and control costs.

As this HealthAffairs blog notes:”Alignment allows both state and commercial payers to send clear messages to providers about the expectations they have in moving to a more value-based healthcare payment and delivery system. This gives providers direction when it comes to deciding what to target and invest in to improve the care they offer. It also can help streamline quality measures and reduce providers’ administrative burden.”

Here are  lessons from some states on best practices in public-private alignment.

 

 

 

 

 


When considering opening urgent-care centers

 

Here are four tips  in Medical Economics for hospitals, clinics, pharmacy chains and physician groups that are considering starting urgent-care centers:

Choose your location carefully.

Select design and layout based on patient and staff needs.

Branding is important.

 


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