HARTFORD – The Connecticut Health Insurance Policy Council, a group of business and health care industry leaders formed last July to find ways to improve the state’s health care system, last week released a 10-point agenda that includes a goal of cutting the uninsured rate in half within three years and aiming for near-universal coverage in the long run.
The panel also wants Connecticut to aim to have the lowest smoking and obesity rates in the nation within five years, and to be the “healthiest state in America” by 2020.
Rhode Island's Market Has Changed. Developers, Builders, Investors and Sellers Must Change With It.
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And it said the state should make its health care system “a source of economic vitality and a competitive advantage” by keeping cost hikes below the national average and becoming a leader “in deploying data and technology to measure and improve health care cost-effectiveness and quality in a way that is meaningful to consumers.”
The full report is at cthealthreport.mediaroomshowcase.com.
New managers take over Rhode Island MMJUA
PROVIDENCE – Beecher Carlson and Western Litigation Inc. have taken over management of the day-to-day operations of the Medical Malpractice Joint Underwriting Association of Rhode Island, the state’s medical liability insurer of last resort, as of Jan. 1.
The state’s MMJUA had been managed for years by Marsh USA Inc., but when its contract came up for renewal last year, the board made a change.
“The board was impressed with Beecher Carlson and Western Litigation’s revolutionary business platform and their energy, enthusiasm and leadership,” board chairwoman Maura Travers said on a statement on the MMJUA’s Web site. “We are confident that they will enhance the quality and responsiveness of service to our policyholders, while at the same time develop operational efficiencies.”
Beecher Carlson is an insurance brokerage and risk-management consulting firm headquartered in Atlanta. Texas-based Western Litigation Inc., a division of insurer Arthur J. Gallagher, is one of the nation’s leading malpractice claims and litigation managers.
The new MMJUA management team has set up an office at One Turks Head Place, in Providence, and established a new Web site: www.rhodeislandjua.com.
Landmark among best in ‘door-to-balloon time’
WOONSOCKET – Landmark Medical Center was recently ranked 26th out of 536 reporting hospitals in “door-to-balloon time,” a quality measure referring to the interval between arrival at the hospital and the opening of a blocked artery with an angioplasty balloon.
Prompt treatment – the standard set by the American College of Cardiology and others is less than 90 minutes – has been shown to increase the likelihood of surviving some heart attacks.
Landmark, a regional hospital that has broadened its services to include specialized cancer and cardiac care, including open-heart surgery, voluntarily reports its data to a registry kept by the American College of Cardiology. The ranking was for fiscal 2006.
“It is the spirit of teamwork and cooperativeness, coupled with our medical expertise, that allows us to be on the leading edge of science in the treatment of heart attack, and in our cardiac-care program in general,” CEO Gary J. Gaube said in a news release.
Health spending growth slows to 6.9% in 2005
BALTIMORE – The rate of growth in U.S. health care spending slowed for the third straight year in 2005, to 6.9 percent, the slowest growth rate since 1999, when enrollment in the tightly managed managed care plans peaked, shows a new federal report.
The report, based on a study by the National Health Expenditure Accounts Team at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, appears in the latest issue of the journal Health Affairs and is available online at www.healthaffairs.org.
Total U.S. health care spending in 2005, the study found, was almost $2 trillion, or $6,697 per person. The health spending share of U.S. gross domestic product in 2005 was 16.0 percent, slightly higher than the 15.9-percent share in 2004.
The slight slowdown in health spending growth was largely driven by weaker growth in prescription drug spending, the study found: 5.8 percent, compared with 8.6 percent in 2004.
Blue Cross helps clinic draw 145 new volunteers
PROVIDENCE – A partnership between Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island and the Rhode Island Free Clinic has dramatically increased the number of volunteers at the clinic, attracting an extra 145 people who volunteered more than 9,000 hours. Blue Cross also donated $35,858.
“Thanks to our partnership … we have almost doubled the number of volunteers at the Free Clinic and have received a generous donation,” the clinic’s executive director, Lisa Smolski, said in a news release. “We are thankful not only to BCBSRI but also to those Rhode Islanders that have volunteered their time.”
The year-long Good Health Starts with Good People Volunteer program was launched by Blue Cross and the clinic in 2005. Blue Cross agreed to match every volunteer hour at the clinic with a $2 donation and donated $1,000 for every 50 hours of service by a new volunteer.
Study finds surfing safer than soccer, other sports
PROVIDENCE – A study by researchers at Rhode Island Hospital and Brown University’s School of Medicine has found that competitive surfing is less dangerous – based on serious injury rates – than collegiate sports such as soccer and basketball.
The study, published in this month’s issue of the American Journal of Sports Medicine, was funded by the University Emergency Medicine Foundation, the nonprofit doctors’ group that staffs the ERs at Rhode Island, Hasbro Children’s Hospital and The Miriam Hospital.
Dr. Andrew Nathanson and his research team collected injury data from 32 surfing contests worldwide. They looked at documentation of every recorded injury, defining as “significant” those that prevented the surfer from surfing for one or more days, resulted in a hospital visit, or required on-site suturing.
They found a “relatively low” injury rate, of 6.6 significant injuries per 1,000 hours of surfing. But the risk more than doubled when surfing in large waves or in areas with a hard ocean bottom.
