Hospitals (Page 4)

On:
In: Fairview, Health Care Reform, Healthcare, Home, Hospitals, Nonprofit, Nurses

By Tara Fugate

MNA Strategic Researcher

 

Something that still manages to shock a lot of people in the US is the growing number of similarities between nonprofits and for-profit hospitals. In 2013, 7 of the 10 most profitable hospitals in the country were classified as nonprofit. A 2013 study published in Health Affairs, examined factors contributing to hospital profitability. The study examined data from Medicare Cost Reports submitted by 2,993 acute care hospitals and produced a list of the top ten hospitals in the country with the highest profit from patient care (for fiscal year 2013).
… Read more about: Your Guide to the World of Nonprofit Finance-part 1  »

On:
In: Home, Hospitals, Patient Safety

By Rick Fuentes

MNA Communications Specialist

 

There’s an old joke, “what’s the definition of a conservative?  A liberal who got mugged.  What’s the definition of a liberal?  A conservative who lost his job.”  More true than funny, it shows us how we cling to our political beliefs until something happens to us.  Case in point, this country music guitarist who has publicly admitted he was wrong on gun ownership.  He’s not alone.  We get sick, we want good healthcare.  We have kids, we want good schools.  We experience a shooting, we want gun control.  Conversely, when we don’t experience a shooting, we look the other way.
… Read more about: Making Sense of the Nonsensical  »

On:
In: Home, Hospitals, Nurses, Opiods

By Sara Wahto, RN

MNA Member

 

As if Nurses and other health professionals don’t have enough to worry about with long hours, no breaks, and assaults. Now we also have to worry about unintentional exposure and a possible overdose death. Carfentanil, an analog of synthetic opioids used for large animals, including elephants, is 10,000 times as strong as morphine, and it’s out on the streets and being mixed with multiple other drugs such as heroin. Normally, a nurse or any healthcare worker wouldn’t think that he or she would be in danger of something drug users use to get high, but, unfortunately Carfentanil in a powder form only takes 2 grains the size of a salt grain to cause death.
… Read more about: Lions and Tigers and Nurses and Elephants  »

On:
In: Home, Hospitals, Member Blog, Patient Safety, Standards of Care

By Juli Uzlik, RN

MNA Member

It’s amazing how just the smallest change can have the biggest effects on registered nurses and their patients.  At my hospital, Fairview Southdale in Edina, a temporary nursing consultant came in and decreased the staffing in the Heart Center by one nurse per shift. The hospital has taken away one charge nurse where there have been two since the inception of the unit.

Not a big deal, right?  Still have a charge nurse.  Not really.  The Heart Center is laid out in two separate sections with literally a wall and a hallway between the two sections. 
… Read more about: Brain Drain  »

On:
In: Home, Hospitals, Press Releases

$900 million given to insurance companies gone

For Immediate Release

Contact:  Rick Fuentes
(o) 651-414-2863
(c) 612-741-0662
rick.fuentes@mnnurses.org

Barbara Brady
(o) 651-414-2849
(c) 651-202-0845
barbara.brady@mnnurses.org

(St. Paul) – July 31, 2017 – The newly announced insurance rates for the 2018 individual market show that the current healthcare system continues to be volatile and can only be temporarily stabilized with an infusion of taxpayer dollars.  As a result, Minnesotans are still wondering whether they will pay more or less in 2018 versus 2017, even though the Minnesota Legislature and Governor Dayton pushed through a 25 percent discount in 2017 and propped up insurance companies with a new program, called “reinsurance.”

“Reinsurance appears to be a tourniquet for the individual market. 
… Read more about: Press Release: Minnesotans Still Not Getting Relief from Rising Insurance Rates  »

CentraCare

On:
In: CentraCare, Essentia, Fairview, Healthcare, HMO, Home, Hospitals, Insurance, Issues

By Tara Fugate

MNA Strategic Researcher

Hospital and health system consolidation is a rapidly expanding trend across the country, and Minnesota is no exception. Many large and mid-sized health systems have been looking to privatize the state’s dwindling number of public hospitals, combine smaller non-profit systems, and also incorporate physicians’ groups and outpatient services into hospital systems. The driving arguments to lobby for these mergers are that larger entities can provide more integrated care and have the ability to make bigger financial investments to improve the quality of care via new tools, such as electronic health records systems. Many studies, however, have shown that price, cost and quality of care are not improved by mergers (see below for links).
… Read more about: Why Minnesotans Should Pay Attention to Hospital Consolidation  »

On:
In: Health Care Reform, HMO, Home, Hospitals, Politics

By Tara Fugate

MNA Strategic Researcher

Minnesota is a unique state in many ways. For example, the infamous “Duck Duck Gray Duck” versus “Duck Duck Goose” debate still confuses this native Michigander. The healthcare landscape in Minnesota mirrors this individuality. Unlike a vast portion of the country, Minnesota has relatively few for-profit hospitals (2 out of 145 hospitals statewide). Having experienced the impact of a for-profit takeover first-hand on my home city of Detroit, it is evident that Minnesota’s public and nonprofit hospitals are worth protecting.

In 2011, the Detroit Medical Center (DMC), a 7-hospital system in Detroit, Michigan was purchased by for-profit Vanguard Health.
… Read more about: Keep for-profit out of Minnesota: Lessons from Michigan  »

On:
In: Fairview, HealthEast, Home, Hospitals, Nurses

By Mathew Keller RN JD

Regulatory and Policy Nursing Specialist

This past January, Pocono Medical Center (“PMC”) in Pennsylvania announced plans of a merger with Lehigh Valley Health Network. As details became more apparent, it was obvious that staffing changes and layoffs connected to the merger would affect more than 100 PMC nurses.

It’s no surprise that the word “merger” has come to be associated with “restructuring,” and “restructuring” with “layoffs.” And if a merger between a single medical center and a larger health system can affect 100 nurses, how much larger of an impact could a merger of two giant systems, such as HealthEast and Fairview, have?
… Read more about: Will HealthEast-Fairview Merger Hurt Nurses?  »

On:
In: Allina, Home, Hospitals, Labor Unions, Nurses

By Mathew Keller

MNA Regulatory and Policy Nursing Specialist

Allina’s final estimate of how much money it wasted on labor strife is in, with the health system pegging its total strike costs at 149 million dollars. As Allina employees know, however, this number is an underestimate. While the estimate includes the cost of shipping replacement nurses into Minnesota and paying them hourly rates that would make a cardiologist blush, and subtracts the costs Allina would have paid its trusted nurses were they not on strike– it does not account for the fact that Allina has been and will continue to pay eye-popping sums for replacement nurses well into 2017 due to the extreme level of nurse-turnover post-strike.
… Read more about: What can $149 million get you?  »

On:
In: HCMC, Home, Hospitals, layoffs, Nurses

By Mathew Keller, RN JD

Regulatory and Policy Nursing Specialist

Hennepin County Medical Center’s 2015 numbers are in, and many HCMC employees on the chopping block might be surprised by them. Despite HCMC’s public statements contributing layoffs to a “financial challenge,” 2015 was its second-most profitable year on record as the healthcare system pocketed $28.6 million in net income—up from $11.5 million in 2014.

HCMC’s MNA nurses are calling on HCMC CEO Jon Pryor to act with more transparency regarding these layoffs. This is not a good start for Dr. Pryor, who stated in an all-employee email on December 9, 2016, “if you’ve been paying attention to the media, you know that HCMC is not the only healthcare organization facing a financial challenge right now.” Only two months prior, the CEO had signed off on the financial report showing the huge 2015 net income increase.
… Read more about: HCMC Doubles Profits in 2015  »