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Monday,
February 26, 2007 A major challenge in providing health care services to the rural areas of Ohio is connecting pregnant women with the appropriate prenatal and postpartum health care. To ensure that pregnant women in rural areas of Ohio have access to obstetrical (OB) care, OHA supports the creation of a special state fund to make supplemental payments to rural hospitals that provide OB services.
The 40 Ohio hospitals verified by the American College of Surgeons as level I, II or III trauma centers treat the state most critically-injured—providing services that illustrate the vital importance of hospitals but nearly always operate at a financial loss. To help preserve the state’s verified trauma centers through supplemental reimbursement, OHA requests the creation of a state fund at a cost of $4 million in state dollars for each year of the biennium.
In many rural areas of Ohio, the services of a single hospital support the health care needs of the entire community. To protect these vital services, Ohio classified 34 small and rural hospitals as “critical access hospitals,” which allows them to receive federal reimbursement for care to Medicare patients based on reasonable cost verses the formulas used to calculate payments for other hospitals. OHA asks that the Medicaid program also reimburse critical access hospitals on a reasonable cost basis. For more information, view the complete February Healthbeat at http://www.ohanet.org/healthbeat/2007/0207.htm. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) this week released its final draft revised wage and occupational mix data files, which will be used to calculate area wage indexes for the federal fiscal year 2008 Medicare inpatient hospital prospective payment system (IHPPS). The 2008 IHPPS starts with Medicare discharges on and after Oct. 1, 2007. This is the second go-round for this data, so CMS will only allow hospitals to submit corrections where it can be documented that the errors resulted from CMS or its fiscal intermediary mishandling the initial submission of the data, or where the revisions are related to desk audit adjustments. Hospitals have only until March 12 to review the data and submit any requests for corrections with documentation to their fiscal intermediary. The files can be found on the CMS Web site. (Charles Cataline, charlesc@ohanet.org) Commitment to Communities SPOTLIGHT The efforts of Ohio’s hospitals – and the 300,000 people working in these facilities – go far beyond providing basic health care services. Below is one example of the many ways Ohio’s hospitals support their communities.
Hospital
Connects Schools, Law Enforcement with Life-saving Equipment The Ohio Department of Health named Akron General Medical the administrator of the Ohio School AED program, which provides free Automated External Defibrillators (AED) to schools across the state. Terry A. Gordon, DO, a member of the medical staff at Akron General, directs the project and testified before the legislature to secure the necessary funding so that every school in Ohio has an AED. Akron General administered the first phase of the program as well, placing AEDs in 2,262 schools statewide by June 2005. In addition, Akron General partnered with the American Heart Association in 2006 to provide 46 AEDs to local police departments, Highway Patrol and the Summit County Sheriff’s Office. Wednesday, February 28, 2007 House Health Committee Outlines Priorities In a news conference this week, State Rep. Jim Raussen (R-Springdale) outlined the priorities and objectives for the House Health Care Access and Affordability Committee during the new General Assembly. Raussen announced that the committee plans to analyze Ohio’s existing health care system – from birth through long-term care – through a series of subgroups that include Medicaid, Medicare, the uninsured population and Ohio’s hospital system. He also noted three specific areas he plans to address in the coming months: the rising number of uninsured Ohioans, the rising costs for Medicaid and increasing health care costs. OHA will weigh in on these and other issues during the upcoming legislative session. View OHA’s Advocacy Agenda for 2007/2008 to learn more about OHA’s upcoming state advocacy efforts, and visit OHA’s legislative status sheet periodically to view the status of legislation with the potential to impact Ohio’s hospitals. (Bridget Gargan, bridgetg@ohanet.org; Jeff Klingler, jeffk@ohanet.org)
Thursday,
March 1, 2007 The national community pharmacy industry this week honored Ohio as a Safe-Rx Award Winner for its outstanding efforts to improve patient safety and practice efficiency through the use of electronic prescribing technology. Ohio placed ninth in the nation. The National Association of Chain Drug Stores, the National Community Pharmacists Association and SureScripts created the Safe-Rx award to raise awareness of e-prescribing as a more secure, accurate and informed means of prescribing medication to patients for outpatient/retail pharmacy communication. Over the last three years, Ohio pharmacies have upgraded computer systems to allow physicians to provide prescription information electronically. Also contributing to Ohio’s award are the efforts of several specific organizations:
For more information on the awards, visit www.SureScripts.com/SafeRx. For more information on how to start prescribing electronically, visit www.GetRxConnected.com/OH or call 1.866.797.3239. Ohioans interested in learning more about how electronic prescribing benefits them and their families can visit www.GetRxConnected.com/OH/patients. (Kim Keiser, kimk@ohanet.org) Funding Available for Cancer
Research
Friday, March 2, 2007 Initial letters of intent should be submitted to the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services by March 16, with final applications due by March 30. A bidder’s conference will be held March 8. The WIRED solicitation, letter of intent, news release and other related resources are available at www.ohioworkforce411.gov/wired/. The Web site will receive ongoing updates and new materials. Commitment to Communities
SPOTLIGHT
Training
Tomorrow’s Leaders Aultman’s Career Academy offers area high school students the opportunity to gain hands-on experience in the hospital setting—giving them an advantage for medical and nursing school and other health-related careers. The students report to the hospital four days a week during the school year, learning about health care and earning class credit. Each student selects eight, four-week rotations for the year. The students also participate in one-on-one clinical, non-clinical and group classroom lessons at the hospital. To round out the experience, students take field trips to local colleges, write research papers and are critiqued by hospital employees. © 2001-2008 OHA. Last updated
January 03, 2008. |
