Sanford put in the hotseat over attempted Fairview/U of M takeover (Page 82)

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Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson listening to Sanford executive testimony

Sanford Health has a lot of money and a lot of hospitals, but one more thing they’re bringing to Minnesota is scrutiny.  The nonprofit healthcare giant that runs facilities from Adrian to Wheaton now wants to add the Twin Cities to its corporate footprint, but Sanford executives got an earful of how their arrogance caused them to underestimate the height of the hurdles needed to takeover Fairview Health and the University of Minnesota Medical Center and research labs.

Minnesota Nurses have been talking about the short staffing situations in Bagley, Bemidji, Thief River Falls, and other facilities since Sanford took those over.  MNA President Linda Hamilton and Bemidji bargaining unit chair Peter Danielson were invited to give testimony.  Hamilton was asked to speak about the effects of the continued corporatization of healthcare through hospital takeovers.  She prepared a statement showing how local hospitals become funnels for corporate giants to send patients to their hospital headquarters out of state.  She also came ready to talk about the lack of investment in needed women’s care versus Sanford’s expansion into high-dollar facilities such as orthopaedics and cath centers.

Danielson was invited to speak as a nurse in a Sanford facility who has seen patient care decline due to cost-cutting.  He tells of how a nurse with a patient recovering from lung surgery, for example, should only receive one more patient assignment but at Sanford they can get five more.

The Attorney General’s inquiry into a possible Sanford takeover of Fairview reveals that the cruel cost-cutting nurses have experienced is only the proverbial tip of the iceberg.

Swanson started by indicating that her office had been investigating Sanford Health for months for, of all things, incomplete nonprofit paperwork.  Swanson said, when her office subpoenaed Sanford for 21 necessary inquiries to approve nonprofit status in Minnesota, Sanford failed to respond, and her office noted that Sanford only recently replied with one document of answers.

Before calling representatives of the three parties, Sanford, Fairview, and the U of M, Swanson established through healthcare and non-profit experts that a deal of this type would have to be extraordinarily analyzed to pass muster.

Brian Short, a consultant in non-profit governance, noted that non-profits do have shareholders because the taxpayer pays the taxes that non-profits don’t to help them with their mission.

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Swanson thanks MNA President Linda Hamilton and Bemidji nurse Peter Danielson for agreeing to testify in the Sanford-Fairview merger

David Feinwachs, former attorney for the Minnesota Hospital Association, agreed that not only would this deal be like selling the county library to Barnes & Noble, but Sanford getting the U of M Medical Center sounds more like the library going to Wal-Mart.

Sanford executives clearly looked uncomfortable in their seats when their speakers, COO and Senior Vice-President Becky Nelson, and Senior Executive Vice-President David Link got grilled by Swanson.  Nelson told the Attorney General and her staff that Sanford and Fairview should be allowed to pursue these preliminary talks but then revealed that months of regular meetings between the two companies had been going on, which produced 10-15 “synergy” documents and cost analysis.

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Sanford Vice-Presidents under cross-examination by Minnesota Attorney General

Nelson and Link both shrank from questions about Sanford’s many donations to sports teams and stadiums by calling them investments into youth physical fitness.

Then Sanford execs sounded unclear on the relationships between the non-profit Sanford Health systems and Sanford’s other, for profit companies.  It was revealed that Sanford Health still uses the Sanford-owned Premier Bank to process payments.  The hospital chain uses a debt-collection company called Rushmore Service Center, also a Sanford company.  The A-G also pressed the two vice-presidents on a new company, Sanford Applied Bioscience, a medical research company.  When Swanson pressed for who sits on the board of the for-profit laboratory, neither could answer.  When she asked Link again, he suddenly remembered that he was.

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Sanford attorneys answering the Minnesota AG about why they haven’t responded to simple requests for license information

Nurses and patients in the standing-room only hearing room heard some news that would indicate that a Sanford-Fairview takeover is far from a done deal.  Fairview acting-CEO Chuck Mooty said that if the University of Minnesota is opposed to this deal, it won’t go through.  When Swanson asked him to clarify who would make that decision, Mooty indicated that U of M President Eric Kaler has the veto vote.  U of M General Counsel Mark Rotenberg also said that any deal would have to address the U’s missions of educating healthcare professionals and medical research.  Rotenberg also told the Attorney General that the U of M would not accept any alumni contributions to any sports teams or facilities that could show a conflict of interest during this inquiry.  That may have been in response to a recent newspaper story that Kaler was spotted in Augusta, Georgia, with T. Denny Sanford at the Master’s Golf Tournament.

Due to the length of the cross-examination of witnesses, two invited MNA witnesses didn’t get a chance to speak.  Swanson said Hamilton, Danielson and other witnesses will take the stand at the second public hearing over Sanford and Fairview on April 21.

Sanford Health has a lot of money and a lot of hospitals, but one more thing they’re bringing to Minnesota is scrutiny.  The nonprofit healthcare giant that runs facilities from Adrian to Wheaton now wants to add the Twin Cities to its corporate footprint, but Sanford executives got an earful of how their arrogance caused them to underestimate the height of the hurdles needed to takeover Fairview Health and the University of Minnesota Medical Center and research labs.

Minnesota Nurses have been talking about the short staffing situations in Bagley, Bemidji, Thief River Falls, and other facilities since Sanford took those over.  MNA President Linda Hamilton and Bemidji bargaining unit chair Peter Danielson were invited to give testimony. 
… Read more about: Sanford put in the hotseat over attempted Fairview/U of M takeover  »

NOTES ON NURSING

Better Staffing Would Help  Hospitals Fail to Take Simple Measures to Thwart Deadly Infections    The culprit is a strain of a spore-forming bacterium known as Clostridium difficile, or C. diff—in particular, a relatively recent strain that has grown more virulent and resistant to drugs.

LABOR UPDATES

Twin Cities Metro Plumbers Devote a Day of Service to Help Those in Need   It’s a chance to help Minnesotans who might not otherwise be able turn to a professional plumber, and to reduce wasted expenses going down the drain.

CEO Percs Flying High    Dodd-Frank rules?
… Read more about: MNA NewsScan, April 8, 2013: C-Diff on the rise; Swanson grills Sanford execs  »

Standards of Care Update

MNA nurses and representatives continue to meet with legislators to update them on the goals of the Standards of Care Act.  MNA is proposing that hospitals be required to report their staffing plans and actual nurse hours per patient day, and a Department of Health study of hospital staffing and its effect on nursing sensitive indicators like infections, falls and pressure ulcers.  We are confident that a MDH study will validate what nurses already know–that proper nurse staffing leads to better nurse outcomes–but we also recognize the need for Minnesota-specific data.  Our main objective for the remainder of the 2013 legislative session is to ensure that a comprehensive and accurate study is completed. 
… Read more about: MNA Legislative Update, April 5, 2013  »

KSTP-TV reports the final audit confirms what Minnesota Nurses have long argued-that the healthcare system in the state is need of greater transparency and some of Minnesota’s HMOs owe the taxpayers a refund.

“When taxpayer dollars for patient care are so scarce,” said MNA President Linda Hamilton, “it’s unconscionable that even one penny could be wasted when it could’ve gone to treat somebody’s mother or grandmother.  Instead it’s padding somebody’s bank account somewhere.”

An independent auditor, the Segal Company, reveals in a report issued March 31 the government overpaid the four insurance companies that run the state’s Medicaid program by $207 million. 
… Read more about: Final Report shows taxpayers overpaid HMOs $200 Million  »

Kathleen M. Harrington Mayo
Government Relations, Chair 200 First Street SW Rochester, MN 55905

Dear Ms. Harrington:

Thank you for bringing your Operations staff to meet with leaders from SEIU and UNITE HERE last Friday to discuss the Mayo Destination Medical Center (DMC) and the related legislative proposal. While we have significant concerns and unanswered questions, we are excited about the possibility of significant job growth in the health care and hospitality sectors.

We look forward to meeting again in the very near future and to discussing specific proposals about the future DMC workforce and how collective bargaining can ensure these are quality jobs.
… Read more about: Open letter to Mayo’s Government Relations Chair  »

LABOR UPDATES

Harry Kelber:   1914 – 2013     Harry Kelber spent 80 years as a labor activist. Through it all he championed worker ownership of their unions. When Labor Notes commissioned a roundtable on “organizing the unorganized” in 2007, Harry’s contribution argued that rank-and-file workers should be part of organizing drives.

HEALTH CARE 

Did Hospitals Profit Off Drugs Meant for the Poor?   An inquiry by a U.S. senator has found that three nonprofit hospitals in North Carolina have made millions from a discount drug program intended to help the poor and uninsured.
… Read more about: MNA NewsScan, April 3, 2013: RIP Harry Kelber; CAH Mortality Skyrockets  »

NOTES ON NURSING

Fatigue is Pervasive in the Health Care Industry; Directly Linked to On-the-job Errors     Sixty-nine percent of healthcare professionals surveyed said that fatigue had caused them to feel concern over their ability to perform during work hours. Even more alarmingly, nearly 65 percent of participants reported they had almost made an error at work because of fatigue and more than 27 percent acknowledged that they had actually made an error resulting from fatigue.

PA Considers Nursing by the Numbers   A pair of Democratic state lawmakers have introduced bills in both the House and Senate that would mandate a minimum number of registered nurses-to-patient ratio at all hospitals in the state.
… Read more about: MNA NewsScan, April 1, 2013: RN fatigue pervasive and harmful to patients  »

Nurses support Attorney General Review of Sanford-Fairveiw

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Jan Rabbers
(office) 651-414-2861
(cell) 612-860-8858
jan.rabbers@mnnurses.org
Rick Fuentes
(office) 651-414-2863
(cell) 612-741-0662
rick.fuentes@mnnurses.org

(St. Paul) – March 28, 2013 – The Minnesota Nurses Association welcomes Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson’s inquiry into the possible merger of Sanford Health and Fairview Health Services and the continued corporatization of healthcare in Minnesota.  Investigators need to continue to look into the effects that big corporations are having on Minnesota patients.

“We congratulate Lori Swanson for having the courage to examine any deal that further puts the operation of more Minnesota hospitals into the hands of fewer corporations,” said Walt Frederickson, RN, MNA Executive Director. 
… Read more about: Press Release-Minnesota Nurses Welcome Swanson’s Inquiry into Hospital Merger  »

NOTES ON NURSING

RN Grad Student:  “The $4450 Urgent Care Visit     “This was one patient on one day in one healthcare facility incurring every form of systemic waste Fineberg puts forth in his article and is also illustrated by Stephen Brill’s lengthy account of overcharging, particularly those who are uninsured or underinsured.”

HEALTH CARE

Fairview-Sanford Merger Talks Bring Scrutiny   Fairview Health Services, the Twin Cities’ second-largest hospital and clinic group, is weighing a merger with South Dakota-based Sanford Health in negotiations that have triggered concerns on the part of Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson. 
… Read more about: MNA NewsScan, March 27, 2013: AG Swanson sets public hearings on Fairview-Sanford merger  »

NOTES ON NURSING

Study Says NICUs Need Nurses   A surprising number of the nation’s neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) have too few nurses, a new study by researchers from the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ) has found.

HEALTH CARE

It’s Come to This – A Lottery for Health Care Coverage    Tennessee residents who have high medical bills but would not normally qualify for Medicaid, the government health care program for the poor, can call a state phone line and request an application. But the window is tight — the line shuts down after 2,500 calls, typically within an hour — and the demand is so high that it is difficult to get through.
… Read more about: MNA NewsScan, March 25, 2013: NICU nurses needed; Tennessee’s HC lottery  »