Richard Pizzi
The economic downturn continues to impact New Jersey hospitals through the loss of jobs and services, according to survey results released this week by the New Jersey Hospital Association.
The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission recommended this week that Congress give hospitals a fiscal year 2011 payment update equal to the rate of change in the market basket index, currently projected at 2.4 percent, concurrent with implementation of a pay-for-performance program.
New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo announced financial settlements this week with five healthcare facilities located in the New York City region to immediately end the practice of disposing of pharmaceutical waste into the watershed.
Employment in the U.S. healthcare sector increased by approximately 21,500 jobs in December, while the national unemployment rate remained unchanged at 10.0 percent, according to recent data from the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Caring Hands Health Clinics of McAlester, Okla., has initiated a new program to offer discount medications to patients in southeastern Oklahoma.
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.