Modern healthcare
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A hospital in Michigan has found itself at the epicenter of a spiraling fungal meningitis outbreak that has turned the facility into a learning laboratory and tested its emergency preparedness. "Disasters usually have a defined time period, and we quickly realized we were going from a sprint to marathon," says Rob Casalou, CEO of St. Joseph Mercy Ann Arbor.
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Last month, the AHA released its annual list of closed acute-care hospitals. The report showed that the number of closings dropped to 45 hospitals in 1991 from 50 hospitals in the previous year, continuing a downward trend. A MODERN HEALTHCARE special report takes a look at last year's shuttered facilities and also identifies some noteworthy correlations among the rates of hospital closures, mergers and profits.
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Just when healthcare chief information officers thought it was safe to return to business as usual, along comes the administrative simplification provisions of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996. Those regulations, which will require providers to reconfigure patient records into an electronic format, will be anything but simple for hospitals, systems and insurers.
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When costs overwhelm revenues in a particular service or program, it's time to stop and get a handle on what's gone wrong. Maybe the program idea is still good but needs a course correction or two. Maybe it was a bad idea all along, or it's become a loser because of new market forces. Getting at the problem requires a systematic approach, according to Sally Berger and Sandra Wisener of Ernst and Young.
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The American Hospital Association and the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations are at it again. The AHA once more is scourging the JCAHO for too much work outside of its accreditation role, and this time AHA President Richard Davidson (left) is accusing the commission of becoming a government regulator of hospital business and clinical practices. But the JCAHO maintains that its mission remains intact.