Richard Pizzi

Texas Health Resources, a 14-hospital healthcare system serving the Dallas-Fort Worth area, has announced plans to build a new full-service hospital.

The Baylor Health Care System, based in Dallas, has selected a vendor to manage the automated processing of nearly 300,000 invoices per year across its 12-hospital system.

The HWS Labor Market Pulse Index, a quarterly barometer of local market healthcare workforce fluctuations, reveals broadening demand for healthcare workers across a number of regions, particularly in California and parts of the Midwest and Southwest, for the fourth quarter of 2009.

Hospitals and physicians across the United States have provided increasing amounts of uncompensated care over the past few years as the economy has deteriorated, but some fear their ability to meet the demand may be unsustainable.

A supply chain improvement project involving 12 hospitals in southwestern Missouri and southeastern Kansas has yielded reduced spending on clinical products and improved infection control efforts.

Mercy Hospital and Medical Center has saved $570,000 over three years on new energy contracts by participating in online pricing events.

Financial executives at most U.S. hospitals were happy to see 2009 come to a close. While the healthcare industry fared better than the economy at large, hospital costs increased at rates higher than revenues, straining operating and total margins.

Editorial by Healthcare Finance News Editor Richard Pizzi

Can healthcare organizations improve project management in a time of limited financial resources? David Shore, co-director of the certificate program in project management in healthcare at the Harvard University School of Public Health, asked panelists this question during the recent World Health Care Leadership Summit on Project and Portfolio Management in Boston.

The West Penn Allegheny Health System, a Pittsburgh-based, six-hospital health system, has cut 213 full-time jobs in its hospitals and corporate offices.