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More than three-quarters of expenditures paid out by the state health
department in 2008 were used for cash benefits and services for Nebraskans. That's according to the recently released annual report for the state Department of Health and Human Services
(DHHS).
In 2008, more than half of DHHS' funding—$1.3 billion—came from federal sources. Another $1.1 billion came from the state.
The 14-page report provides a recap of the progress made in DHHS' six divisions and the challenges that lie ahead.
View report.
The financial common sense of ordinary Nebraskans is the key to the state's comparatively rosy financial situation, Governor David Heineman told a group of about 45 businesspeople
last week in Omaha.
Heineman said 41 of 50 states were in a fiscal crisis, which Nebraska has avoided.
"Last week, the State of Kansas couldn't make their state aid to education payments," Heineman told the real estate industry group. "Missouri, Iowa, other states are all having difficulties."
Read more.
— Omaha World-Herald, December 19, 2008
Cancer patients in the Omaha metro are now have a multi-million-dollar weapon at their disposal.
It's a unique radiation treatment called tomotherapy. Radiation is a common therapy when it comes to treating cancer but as it destroys cancer cells it often damages healthy, non-cancerous cells and tissue. That’s why tomotherapy is so valuable , doctors said.
“We're treating exactly the tumor and sparing the normal tissues as much as possible,”
states Alegent Health oncologist Dr. Joan Keit.
Read more.
— Omaha World-Herald, December 16, 2008
Many states have seen increases in the Medicaid rolls just as tax revenues
are falling below projections. Governors have lobbied President-elect Barack
Obama and Congress to help them weather the downturn by increasing the federal
government's share of Medicaid spending for at least two years. The governors
said the extra $40 billion would ease the service cuts or tax increases that
legislatures need to balance state budgets.
Read more.
— Associated Press/Yahoo, December 22, 2008
The Alliance for Consumer Education (ACE), a national non-profit educational foundation,
is utilizing social media to advance its health-related causes. Social media sites and frameworks such as Squidoo, Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, blogs, and Second Life have really helped ACE effectively reach a greater portion of its target audience.
To promote its new Second Life site, ACE is sponsoring a giveaway of a Nintendo Wii system. To win, participants will have to tour the “Stop Germs” house to pick up clues to complete an interactive quiz in order to be registered for the drawing. All participants or “avatars” will win a “virtual” T-Shirt.
Second Life is a virtual online community, and the site represents a 3-D version of its award-winning StopGerms.org site.
The launch of ACE’s educational resources coincides with the peak of the cold & flu season across the United States.
Consumers can click on objects in each room such as doorknobs, carpets, toothbrushes, or counters to see which germs are hiding or lurking on each item. A second click of the mouse lets consumers know more about each of the germs and educates them on steps they can take to help protect their families from germs and the diseases they cause.
Visitors new to Second Life, can go to the
Second Life Web site to get started.
Visit
the contest site.
Heeding the call of President-elect Barack Obama, groups of consumers are gathering to discuss what's wrong with health care in America and how to fix it. Early results suggest the public perception of the health care industry is that it's a broken system. In these focus groups, consumers say they want everything from comprehensive, employer-sponsored coverage to a new payment system to government-run universal health care.
Read more.
— New York Times, December 23, 2008
 OMAHA—It was a welcome change from the day-to-day rigors of being a child in the hospital. Dozens of pediatric patients and their siblings had a chance to visit with Santa Claus and get a brand new toy; thanks to the United States Marine Corps’ Toys for Tots program.
Santa flew to The Nebraska Medical Center on a LifeFlight helicopter. The patients, along with many of their brothers and sisters watched through the windows of the Storz Pavilion as the chopper landed on the Clarkson Tower helipad.
Santa, portrayed by Larry Hewitt, director of student services in the College of Nursing at the University of Nebraska Medical Center also went room to room, visiting patients who were not well enough to make the trip downstairs.
— The Nebraska Medical Center press release, December 19, 2008
OMAHA—Jingling bells and the bellow of “Ho! Ho! Ho!” signified Santa Claus had indeed arrived at
the University of Nebraska Medical Center's (UNMC) Munroe-Meyer Institute today to visit children and young adults with disabilities attending the winter session of Camp Munroe.
Some were apprehensive about Santa, others proudly proclaimed their age or milestones they’d reached over the last year, like getting their braces off. The older campers asked about Mrs. Claus and cell phone reception at the North Pole.
Ryan Roche was so excited he could barely get the words out to ask Santa for a country music CD for Christmas. But when it came time to recite “Twas the Night before Christmas,” Ryan shouted out the names of the reindeer in unison with jolly old St. Nick.
The end of the Christmas story was met with rousing applause and Santa presented Ryan with a hand-crafted wooden toy inscribed with the words “Made in the North Pole” for being his special helper.
Read more.
— UNMC article, December 23, 2008
ST. PAUL—After an extensive search process, Howard County Medical Center has
hired a new Chief Executive Officer. Timothy Wick, of Grantsburg, Wisconsin will
begin his duties on January 5, 2009.
Wick began his career in health care in nuclear medicine in Appleton, Wisconsin,
in 1979. While at St. Elizabeth Hospital, he designed and implemented new
imaging procedures in collaboration with radiologists and cardiologists. Knowing
health care administration was where he wanted to be, he dedicated himself over
the next two years to working on his Master’s Degree in Health Services
Administration. Following his education, he completed an Administrative
internship at West Allis Memorial Hospital in West Allis, Wisconsin, which is a
300-bed community hospital, with operating revenue over $70 million. From there,
he joined Brim Healthcare, a Hospital Management company, and became the CEO at
Guttenberg Municipal Hospital for nearly the next ten years.
In late 1997, Wick was promoted to a larger facility, Burnett Medical Center,
located in Grantsburg, Wisconsin. Burnett Medical Center is a rural medical
center consisting of a 25-bed Critical Access Hospital that included swing beds,
a 53-bed long-term care unit, a Family Practice Clinic, and 12 specialty
clinics.
— Howard County Medical Center press release, December 18, 2008
 OMAHA—For the second straight year, the University of Nebraska Medical Center
(UNMC) was one of the winners at The Big Event Awards Celebration recognizing the top special events in the community.
This year's UNMC winner was the "Kicks for a Cure" event, which was recognized in the Health Organization category. The event raised more than $152,000.
Read more.
— UNMC press release, December 23, 2008
KEARNEY—Safe Kids Platte Valley, a local organization sponsored by Good
Samaritan Hospital and part of the Safe Kids USA and Safe Kids Worldwide
networks, is supporting a new global effort to reduce the number of
unintentional injuries to children around the world. Currently, about 700,000
children die from unintentional injuries every year around the world – more than
from all childhood diseases combined.
Read more.
— Good Samaritan Hospital press release, December 22, 2008
Access to capital is critical for today’s hospital, because the delivery of high-quality health care is dependent on new technologies and the capacity to meet increasing demand. But, the ongoing and dramatic changes to the nation’s economy are shutting off access to that capital for many hospitals. Are you one of them?
Congress is expected to take up an economic stimulus bill when it convenes on January 5, and the AHA is already calling on legislators and the Obama Administration to keep in mind the necessity of maintaining the economic health of our nation’s hospitals by opening up the credit markets.
A November 2008 report by the rating agency Moody’s noted, “The current credit crisis has limited access to the capital markets for hospitals in recent months, especially for long-term debt issuance."
To effectively advocate on your behalf, we need to accurately gauge the impact the credit crisis is having on our member hospitals.
Hospitals can help by filling out this very brief survey to help AHA demonstrate
clearly to the new Congress and Administration that the current crisis is
limiting access to the debt markets, and, as a result, limiting hospitals’
ability to meet community demand for health care services.
Click here to
complete survey.
LINCOLN—The Nebraska Hospital Association (NHA) testified during last Thursday's public hearing on proposed changes to
the Nebraska Disproportionate Share Hospital (DSH) program in Title 471, Chapter
10 of the Nebraska Administrative Code.
The DSH program, created by Congress in 1981, compensates hospitals for serving a disproportionate share of low income individuals who are part of the Medicaid system or are uninsured.
As a low DSH state, with
expenditures less
than 3 percent of medical assistance expenditures—Nebraska is eligible for additional federal funding for the DSH program.
In order to receive these additional federal funds, the state must first
produce its matching portion of the DSH payment. The NHA and our member
hospitals have been working in cooperation with Health and Human Services (HHS)
to find a solution that would not require new state funds.
The NHA testified its opposition to the proposed changes, which would leave a
significant amount of federal funding on the table that has already been
allotted to Nebraska.
David Burd, NHA Vice President, Finance stated hospitals
are experiencing reduced reimbursement from multiple sources. He stressed that taking advantage of available federal
funding to assist Nebraska hospitals in their mission to provide quality care to
all patients 24 hours a day is essential.
Read NHA testimony.
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality released an online tool to help emergency planners estimate the time needed to evacuate health care facilities in a disaster area. The Mass Evacuation Transportation Planning Model answers questions such as how long it would take to move patients from one facility to another, how many vehicles would be needed to complete the evacuation within a certain time period, and how the evacuating and receiving facilities’ attributes might affect evacuation plans. Pilot tested in New York and Los Angeles, the model was developed with funding from the departments of Homeland Security and Health and Human Services.
Read more.
— Washington Post, December 16, 2008
How many processes contribute to the quality of care provided in your hospital? How many measures does your organization report to someone in a given year? How many complex requirements must your hospital decipher? Contemplating such migraine-inducing questions can make a hospital leader want to hide in a dark room and lie down for a while. The sheer volume of often conflicting demands placed upon provider organizations—coupled with a deteriorating financial climate—can make the notion of improving care quality seem like an idealistic improbability at best, an impossibility at worst. Is true quality improvement a realistic goal in health care's current landscape?
Read more.
— HealthLeaders Media, December 18, 2008
Maximizing the Performance of Your Pharmacy Benefit Program Webinar
January 13, 2009 – Webinar
The Normalization of Deviance and Good Gossip: Implications for Patient Safety Webinar
January 13, 2009 – Webinar
NeRHA Improving Patient Care in Rural Hospitals
January 14, 2009 – Kearney
Harnessing Social Media in Health Care Webinar
January 15, 2009 – Webinar
2009 Nursing Lecture Series
January 15, 2009 – Omaha
Click here
for a list
of upcoming NHA audioconferences and Webinars.
Visit the
Events page on the NHA Web site for more information on any of the events.
If you have an event you would like listed in Newslink or on the NHA Web site,
submit it to Heather Bullock, Marketing and Events Coordinator, at
hbullock@nhanet.org. Send news items to Kelley Porter, Director of
Communications, kporter@nhanet.org.
NOTE: Due to the holiday, we will not release an issue of
NHA Newslink next week. The next issue of Newslink will be emailed on January 7,
2009.
NHA Newslink is published by the Nebraska
Hospital Association, 3255 Salt Creek Circle, Suite 100, Lincoln, NE 68504-4778.
Phone 402/742-8140, Fax 402/742-8191. Contact Kelley Porter, Director of
Communications, at 402/742-8151, or email,
kporter@nhanet.org.
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