Nebraska
ranks 12th in nation for health care access, cost and qualityA state-by-state scorecard released last week in the report, Aiming Higher: Results from a State Scorecard on Health System Performance, by the Commonwealth Fund Commission ranks Nebraska twelfth in the country across key dimensions of health care delivery. The report ranks states on 32 indicators grouped in categories that include access, quality, avoidable hospital use and costs, equity and healthy lives.
In quality of care provided, Nebraska finished ninth, with the report ranking the state in the top quartile in six of the 14 quality measures. One of those measures, a composite score based on how well hospitals provide recommended care for myocardial infarction, congestive heart failure and pneumonia, put Nebraska second.
“These findings reaffirm that Nebraska’s hospitals provide some of the best care possible to people in need,” said NHA President, Laura J. Redoutey, FACHE. “Our hospital leaders, trustees, physicians, nurses and others work every day to provide patients and communities with the best, safest care possible. We should be proud of the quality of care we receive in our state,” she said.
Read the full news release from the NHA.
NHPCP seeks volunteers for new speakers bureau
To increase public awareness of end-of-life issues and consequently increase hospice admissions, the Nebraska Hospice and Palliative Care Partnership (NHPCP) is launching a statewide speakers bureau.
Work is already happening to place end-of-life and pain issues on organizations’ meeting agendas, including church, veteran and civic organizations. The organization is looking for volunteer speakers across the state that can present on behalf of NHPCP and as experts in their communities. Prepared presentations will cover a range of topics including hospice, Nebraska’s End-of-Life Survey Report, advance directives, and pain. For more information contact Tracy Rathe, communications coordinator at 402/477-0204 or
Tracy@nehospice.org by Monday, June 25.
States, feds split on kids' health insurance
Governors and Medicaid directors have put their weight behind a bill that would more than triple funding for a children's health insurance program—from about $5 billion a year to more than $15 billion. This would allow them to reach out to 5.5 million uninsured children presumed eligible for government health insurance based on their incomes.
Read the full article.
— AP/USA Today, Jun 19, 2007.
Expert panel says to call kids 'obese'
CHICAGO (AP) - Doctors ought to quit using fuzzy terms to define children's weight problems and instead refer to truly fat kids as overweight or obese, a committee of medical experts recommended.
Less blunt terms used by the government and many doctors diplomatically avoid the term "obese." Instead, they refer to children many would consider too fat as being "at risk for overweight," and "overweight" for those others would consider obese.
Those categories don't adequately define the hefty problem, according to the group, which was convened by the American Medical Association and funded by federal health officials including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Read the full article.
— Lindsey Tanner, Associated Press, June 13, 2007.
Nominations sought for “Country Doctor of the Year”
The Country Doctor of the Year Award honors the spirit, skill and dedication of America’s rural medical practitioners, and is sponsored by Staff Care, Inc., a national temporary physician staffing firm.
Nominations for the 2007 Country Doctor of the Year Award will be accepted for physicians who practice in communities of 30,000 or less and who are engaged in such “primary care” areas as general practice, family practice, internal medicine, and pediatrics. Anyone can nominate a physician, including friends, patients, co-workers or family members, and all stories or anecdotes about the physician’s practice are welcomed.
Nomination forms can be downloaded from the Country Doctor of the Year Award Web site at
www.countrydoctoraward.com, or you may call Staff Care for a nomination form at 800/685-2272. Completed nominations are due by September 5, 2007.
Methodist adds new medical center
A three-story building with physician offices and a diagnostic imaging center will expand a Methodist Health System campus in west Omaha. Methodist Hospital is partnering with NP Dodge to build the 63,000-square-foot West Dodge Medical Center, which will sit immediately west of Methodist Health West at 162nd Street and West Dodge Road.
Health West houses an ambulatory surgery center, an imaging center and physician offices.
West Dodge Medical Center will feature high-end imaging technology, including MRI, or magnetic resonance imaging, and a 64-slice CT scanner that can do cardiac imaging and virtual colonoscopy.
The diagnostic center will be on the first floor. The two upper floors will be physician offices. Steve Goeser, Methodist's executive vice president and chief operating officer, said the hospital was building the facility because physicians affiliated with or practicing at Methodist had expressed the need for more medical office space.
Read the full article.
— Christine Laue, Omaha World Herald, June 19, 2007.
Hospitals
announce new access to breakthrough cancer research
People in and around Lincoln, Grand Island and Kearney will now have improved access to the very latest breakthrough clinical research studies for cancer, along with a proven system of high-quality cancer care and enhanced treatment. A unique three-year pilot program announced Thursday by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) will reach 16 communities across the nation—including Good Samaritan Hospital in Kearney, Saint Elizabeth Regional Medical Center in Lincoln, and Saint Francis Medical Center in Grand Island.
The NCI Community Cancer Centers Program, a three-year pilot project aimed at reducing health care disparities and improving research, will increase collaboration between community hospitals and the medical, surgical and radiation oncologists who have forged close links to the national network of 63 NCI-designated cancer centers, which are principally based in research universities in large urban areas. NCI will provide $15 million over the length of the project, with individual hospitals supplying matching funds and in-kind donations.
Read the news release from Good Samaritan Hospital.
IRS issues draft of revised Form 990
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) released on June 14 draft revisions to Form 990 and 15 associated schedules filed by tax-exempt organizations, along with related draft instructions. While the revised Form 990 will be completed by all tax-exempt organizations, hospitals and medical care providers also must complete Schedule H, and many hospitals will also need to complete schedules dealing with executive compensation, related organizations, asset transfer/termination of exempt entity, governance, and tax-exempt bonds.
The Service will accept comments on the documents through Sept. 14 and plans to implement the new form and schedules in time for tax year 2008. “We commend the IRS for adopting portions of the Catholic Health Association and VHA framework for reporting community benefit endorsed by the AHA,” said AHA President and CEO Rich Umbdenstock. “We also welcome the addition of a number of questions that will allow tax-exempt hospitals to better communicate the important community benefit work that they do.” He expressed concern that some questions in Schedule H “don’t appear to relate to hospitals’ tax-exempt activities, are likely to be confusing and may be burdensome.”
View the NHA’s comment letter
to the CMS regarding proposed changes to the hospital Inpatient Prospective Payment System for FY 2008.
— AHA News Now, June 14, 2007.
Senate introduces R-HoPE
Sens. Kent Conrad (D-ND) and Pat Roberts (R-KS) recently introduced new AHA-supported legislation that would help rural hospitals and health care providers care for patients.
The Craig Thomas Rural Hospital and Provider Equity Act
(R-HoPE) would extend the outpatient hold-harmless provision for rural hospitals under 100 beds and sole community hospitals. The bill (S.1605) also would continue the grandfather clause allowing direct payments to independent laboratories for the technical component of pathology services, and the five percent rural add-on payment for home health services. In addition, the bill would provide cost-based reimbursement for critical access hospitals' outpatient lab services regardless of where the patient is physically located, remove the cap on disproportionate share adjustment percentages for all hospitals and improve payments for ambulance services in rural areas.
— AHA, June 14, 2007.
OIG withdraws excessive charge rule
The Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Inspector General (OIG)
announced Monday that it has withdrawn a 2003 proposed rule that would define when a Medicare claim contains “excessive charges” that could lead to exclusion of a provider from the Medicare program. The AHA welcomed the action. In its comment letter, the AHA called for withdrawal of the rule, saying it “would impose an unworkable, burdensome and extraordinarily costly regulatory regimen for hospitals, all without any benefit to Medicare or other federal programs, nor to the patients we serve.” The OIG cited, among other reasons for withdrawal, that it could not assure itself “that a final rule would not have the unintended effect of increasing health care costs across the industry.”
— AHA News Now, June 18, 2007.
Vaccine
makers to expand pandemic capacity
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has agreed to pay two U.S. flu vaccine makers a total of $132.5 million to expand their manufacturing capacity for a potential flu pandemic. Under the five-year contracts, Sanofi Pasteur and MedImmune will renovate and upgrade their domestic facilities to produce pandemic flu vaccines. The project is expected to expand domestic manufacturing capacity for pandemic vaccine by 16 percent. It also will allow year-round production of pre-pandemic flu vaccines for the national stockpile, currently limited to three months each year. “We must prepare for a flu pandemic, although it may not be possible to be certain when the next one will come or how severe it will be,”
said HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt.
— AHA News Now, June 15, 2007.
Bill
would support nurses for rural areas
Legislation introduced last week by Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) and Gordon Smith (R-OR) would provide grants and programs to help train, recruit and retain nurses in rural areas. Their Nursing Education and Quality of Health Care Act also would create demonstration projects that integrate patient safety practices into nursing education programs. "One of the greatest needs for nurses will be in rural areas where the pool of nurses is small and the loss of just one nurse from the workforce can have a profound impact on the health of the community," Clinton said. "If we don't act now, we run the risk of compromising the quality and care across the country." The American Organization of Nurse Executives, an AHA subsidiary, has endorsed the bill in a letter.
— AHA News Now, June 13, 2007.
Nelson
co-sponsors legislation to promote nursing and PT education
Nebraska’s Sen. Ben Nelson joined a bipartisan group of senators on June 14 in introducing legislation to expand educational opportunities in the areas of nursing and physical therapy. “We currently face critical shortages in both the civilian and military health care systems for qualified nurses and physical therapists,” said Nelson. “Congress has taken steps to encourage students to enter these careers, but we now need the faculty and resources to train all these prospective health care providers.”
The Nurse Faculty and Physical Therapist Education Act of 2007 would establish grants for nursing schools to provide them with the ability to enhance recruitment and retention of faculty, with the overall goal of increasing enrollment and graduation rates. It would also expand learning opportunities by creating nursing and physical therapy distance education pilot projects, and create geriatric career awards for nursing faculty to specialize in clinical geriatrics.
Read the full article.
— Southwest Nebraska News, June 15, 2007.
NHA Newslink is published by the Nebraska Hospital Association, 3255 Salt Creek Circle, Suite 100, Lincoln, NE 68504-4761. Phone 402/742-8140, Fax 402/742-8191. Christy Rasmussen,
director of communications, at 402/742-8151, or email, crasmussen@nhanet.org.
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