ALTOM: 2010 meltdowns, missteps and breaches … oh my
Welcome to the annual Christmas snafu edition of this column. This year’s crop of meltdowns, missteps and breaches reminds us once again that technology is a fickle friend and unreliable ally.
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Articles
Clarian off to slow start in insurance
Clarian Health got few takers in its first year offering a health care benefits program to large employers, but the Indianapolis-based hospital system is undeterred in growing its budding insurance services business.
Company news
California-based Beckman Coulter Inc., which employs more than 500 people in the Indianapolis area, is up for sale, according to the Wall Street Journal. The company has hired Goldman Sachs Group Inc. to investigate a sale. After the Journal’s report, the company’s market value neared $5 billion. Potential buyers include private-equity firms such as the Blackstone Group and Apollo Global Management, or other companies in the medical-device industry, such as Illinois-based Abbott Laboratories, Germany-based Siemens or even Roche Diagnostics Corp. a Swiss company that operates its North American headquarters out of Indianapolis. Beckman’s testing machines are used in hospitals and medical research labs. In 2007, it moved more than 200 jobs to Indianapolis as it relocated its centrifuge development and manufacturing facilities. In October, Beckman announced plans to add 95 more jobs in Indianapolis over the next three years.
What is it about White County? In the same month that White County Memorial Hospital said it’s ready to merge with Indianapolis-based Clarian Health, now White County’s Monticello Medical Center is selling its four-physician family practice to St. Elizabeth Regional Health in Lafayette. St. Elizabeth is part of the Franciscan Alliance, which operates the three St. Francis hospitals in the Indianapolis area. Monticello, the White County seat, is about 30 miles north of Lafayette. St. Elizabeth will employ the four physicians, as well as three nurse practitioners, who collectively serve the largest percentage of White County residents. Locking up family practitioners is key for hospitals right now as they try to form themselves into “accountable care organizations” that will be paid by Medicare and private insurers for managing the long-term health of patients. Medicare’s rules will require accountable care organizations to provide family, or primary, care to at least 5,000 patients.
Indiana University’s health care budget will fall $24.9 million short of projected expenses in 2011-12, according to the Herald-Times of Bloomington, as a low-deductible Anthem Blue Access health care plan has become too expensive to offer to its 18,000 employees. IU trustee Tom Reilly Jr. implied that employees need to cover some of the extra costs.
Eli Lilly and Co. suspended a Phase 3 clinical trial of a skin-cancer drug after 12 patients in the study died, according to Bloomberg News. The deaths, among the 300 patients in the study, “may be treatment-related,” said Amy Sousa, a Lilly spokeswoman. Lilly was testing tasisulam on patients whose skin cancer had spread and who didn’t benefit from earlier treatment. No new or existing patients will be given the drug while the company evaluates safety data for the trial. But Lilly will continue to study tasisulam against breast, ovarian and renal cancers and against soft-tissue sarcoma, the company said.
Clarian Health looks to scoop up White County hospital
The Indianapolis-based hospital system’s board of directors could vote to acquire the 25-bed hospital as early as next week, but might put off a decision till February.
Law affects hospitals with doctor-held debt
Health care reform put strict limits on physician-owned hospitals, but it seems the law also restricts hospitals that have physician-owned debt.
2010 CFO OF THE YEAR: Brian D. Morris
The St. Vincent Medical Group chief financial officer is the winner in the private companies (revenue $100 million or less) category.
St. Francis plans $20M medical campus near Greenwood
The project along Indiana 37 will include outpatient facilities and an emergency room.
St. Francis-WellPoint deal is a sign of the times
St. Francis, which operates three Indianapolis-area hospitals, and WellPoint, the giant health insurer, announced this month that they have agreed to jointly form an accountable care organization.
Med school students share their stories
Five students at Indiana University School of Medicine contemplate whether to opt for family practice or a specialty.
Indiana medical students opt for specialties, not family practice
Interest in primary care has fallen off markedly due partly to relatively low pay.
People
Dr. Heather Maria Greist, an internist, has established a practice with St. Francis Medical Group Rheumatology & Osteoporosis Specialists, located on the St. Francis Hospital-Indianapolis campus. Greist earned her medical degree at the Indiana University School of Medicine; she also holds degrees from Purdue University and Vanderbilt University.
Dr. Robert Prince, an anesthesiologist, has joined the St. Francis Medical Group Spine Specialists, located on the St. Francis-Indianapolis campus. He is the former chief of the Department of Anesthesia and Pain at Riverside Tappahannock Hospital (Virginia) and at St. Anthony’s Hospital in Effingham, Ill.
Dr. Cindy De Neira has established a practice with St. Francis Medical Group Plainfield Family Medicine. De Neira earned a doctorate in osteopathic medicine at Des Moines University in Iowa. She also holds degrees in nutrition and chemistry from the University of Florida.
Timothy Gee has been appointed director of cardiovascular practices for St. Francis Medical Group. In that role, Gee will oversee operations at Indiana Heart Physicians and Vascular Surgeons. Previously, he was a business consultant for Indianapolis Medical Management.
Company news
Eli Lilly and Co. said that next year, for the first time, it would hire an outside firm to search for state disciplinary actions against its hired speakers and advisers, after reporting by New York-based ProPublica found that Lilly was paying more than 100 physicians who had been under state sanctions. Indianapolis-based Lilly and British firm GlaxoSmithKline plc had the most state-sanctioned physicians among their speakers and advisers out of the seven pharmaceutical companies that ProPublica scrutinized. For example, Lilly used cardiologist Ali Sherzoy as a speaker, paying him more than $4,300 in the first two quarters of this year. But Sherzoy had his license suspended in New York and New Jersey early this year after he pleaded guilty to one count of criminal sexual contact in 2008. Sherzoy said the matter involved his family's nanny and not his practice. He said he pleaded guilty on his lawyer's advice to put the matter behind him.
A trade group of health insurers, which includes Indianapolis-based WellPoint Inc., gave the U.S. Chamber of Commerce $86.2 million in August 2009 to wage a campaign against the health reform law being debated by Congress, according to Bloomberg News. The bill eventually was passed and became law in March 2010. The money came from America’s Health Insurance Plans and exceeded its entire budget for the previous year, according to Bloomberg. The $86.2 million paid for advertisements, polling and grass-roots events to drum up opposition to the bill. The Chamber said in a statement it used the funds to “advance a market-based health care system and advocate for fundamental reform that would improve access to quality care while lowering costs.” A WellPoint spokesman declined to comment to Bloomberg.
Teams of researchers at Indiana University and Purdue University both made striking medical breakthroughs recently. Purdue researchers found evidence that an environmental pollutant may play an important role in causing multiple sclerosis and that a hypertension drug might be used to treat the disease. They noticed that the toxin acrolein was elevated by about 60 percent in the spinal cord tissues of mice with a disease similar to multiple sclerosis. Acrolein is found in tobacco smoke and auto exhaust. Previous studies by this research team found that neuronal death caused by acrolein can be prevented by administering the hypertension drug hydralazine, also known as Apresoline. At the IU School of Medicine, researchers induced a complete remission of metastatic melanoma in mice when they introduced a potent anti-tumor gene into the stem cells in bone marrow that produce all blood and immune system cells. IU’s research has now led to a small clinical trial of 12 patients in late 2011.
L.H. Medical Corp. will add 65 jobs in Fort Wayne by 2013 as it expands its production of custom medical-device components for the orthopedic implant industry. The company will move to a new facility and begin hiring manufacturing workers and engineers early next year. Indiana Economic Development Corp. offered L.H. Medical up to $550,000 in performance-based tax credits and up to $60,000 in training grants. Also, Allen County officials will consider an additional property tax abatement.
Sisters of St. Francis Health Services Inc., which operates three hospitals in the Indianapolis area, has decided to change its name to Franciscan Alliance. The Mishawaka-based system, which has 13 hospitals in Indiana and Illinois, announced the decision of its board of directors Monday morning. The announcement comes after months of consumer research—and six months after rival system Clarian Health said it would change its name to Indiana University Health. Beginning in early 2011, all St. Francis hospitals will have the name Franciscan added to their logos, with the previous name of each hospital written below it.
Study: Indianapolis high-priced hospital market
Indianapolis-area hospitals have negotiated reimbursement rates with private health insurers that are two and three times higher than those paid by the federal Medicare program, suggesting the hospitals have the upper hand over insurers, according to a new study.
Clarian grows market share to 40 percent
Clarian Health has been growing faster than its peers in the Indianapolis market the past five years and is now generating healthy margins, according to a report this month by Moody’s Investors Service.
St. Francis hospitals getting Franciscan Alliance name
The Mishawaka-based health system’s move comes after months of consumer research—and six months after rival system Clarian Health said it would change its name to Indiana University Health.
Community, Westview hospitals in ‘strategic alliance’ talks
The form an alliance would take is not clear, but Westview looked for additional resources from city’s four major hospital systems.
Company news
West Lafayette-based Kylin Therapeutics Inc. received a nearly $250,000 grant from the U.S. Internal Revenue Service that will advance the company's nanoparticle cancer-treatment research. Kylin's technology uses RNA and a natural process called RNA interference to directly target and "turn off" disease-causing genes. Kylin’s technology was discovered at Purdue University by former Purdue professor Peixuan Guo.
Lilly Ventures, the venture-capital arm of Indianapolis-based Eli Lilly and Co., led a $24 million investment round in Massachusetts-based Cerulean Pharmaceuticals, which is developing nanoparticle drugs. According to Xeconomy.com, the Series C funding round will help Cerulean pay for Phase 2 clinical trials of its leading nanoparticle drug, which is designed to treat lung cancer. Steve Hall, a venture partner at Lilly, has joined Cerulean’s board of directors in connection with the funding round. Cerulean has now raised $56 million in venture capital.
Johnson Memorial Hospital asked county officials to approve a $14 million expansion of its surgical center to accommodate larger surgery suites, as well as new recovery beds and physician offices, according to the Daily Journal of Franklin. That expansion would add 29,000 square feet and renovate 9,300 square feet of existing space. Johnson Memorial wants to start construction in the spring and complete the project by late summer of 2012.
Lilly scores series of small victories
The Indianapolis-based drugmaker finally won FDA approval for its antidepressant Cymbalta to treat chronic pain and fended off a patent challenge to rising-star cancer drug Alimta, but got a ratings downgrade on its debt.