Legislation set to come out of Washington will not change the most fundamental problems of the health
care system, leaving it up to states, cities and companies to figure out what to do about it.
Mike Rinebold, director of government relations for the Indiana State Medical Association, discussed the
national health reform effort of 2009 as well as the 2010 session of the Indiana Legislature that
began Jan. 5.
Clarian North Medical Center named Damita Williams, a registered nurse, its chief nursing officer and vice president of patient care services. She has been interim chief nursing officer since September. Williams joined Clarian North in 2005 as director of Riley Hospital North and Resource Center.
Dr. Andy Dillingham, has joined St. Vincent Physician Network in Carmel as a family medicine physician. Dillingham, a former pharmacist, earned a pharmacy degree from Butler University and a medical degree from Midwestern University’s Arizona College of Osteopathic Medicine.
Whew! A contract dispute that almost kicked seven central Indiana hospitals out of the network of Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield was averted at the last minute last week. On Dec. 30, Anthem released a “News Flash” saying that its customers no longer would receive negotiated discounts at Hancock Regional, Hendricks Regional, Henry County, Morgan, Riverview, Westview and Witham hospitals, beginning the next day. The hospitals are part of Indianapolis-based Suburban Health Organization. But by 4 p.m. the same day, the two sides came to terms.
What Dow AgroSciences has done with corn, it’s now trying to do with cotton. The Indianapolis-based company has licensed genetically engineered cotton traits from Switzerland-based Syngenta AG. Dow Agro will combine Syngenta’s traits with cotton traits it developed. In 2012, Dow Agro expects to launch cotton seeds stacked with the traits to better protect against cotton pests. Dow Agro, a subsidiary of Michigan-based Dow Chemical Co., developed corn seed with eight genetically engineered traits following a licensing deal with St. Louis-based Monsanto Co. Dow Agro and Syngenta did not disclose financial terms of their deal.
St. Francis Hospital and Health Centers has sued three OrthoIndy physicians over the group’s new $20 million outpatient surgery center scheduled to open in Greenwood next year. The complaint alleges the new facility breaches an earlier partnership between the two health care providers. According to St. Francis’ civil complaint, filed Dec. 18 in Hamilton County Superior Court, St. Francis and an OrthoIndy affiliate agreed in 2001 to become equal partners in another facility—the Indiana Orthopaedic Surgery Center at 5255 E. Stop 11 Road on the St. Francis campus on the south side. But in December 2008, OrthoIndy announced it had purchased property four miles from the Indiana Orthopaedic Surgery Center and planned to construct a competing facility there. An attorney for the OrthoIndy physicians said St. Francis’ lawsuit has no merit.
When production at Tippecanoe Laboratories in Lafayette started today at 9:30 a.m., it officially launched a new era for the drugmaking plant. Germany-based Evonik Industries AG is now operating the plant after acquiring it from Indianapolis-based Eli Lilly and Co. Lilly sold the plant as part of $1 billion in operating cuts it wants to achieve by the end of 2011. Lilly signed a nine-year contract for Evonik to supply it with the materials made at the Lafayette plant. Gov. Mitch Daniels attended the start of production this morning.
Community Health Network’s philanthropic foundation received $1 million in cash from John W. “Jack” Heiney, a retired president and CEO of Evansville-based Indiana Gas Co. Heiney’s gift, made in honor of his late wife Betty, will be used to fund outreach, wellness and prevention programs, as well as improve Community’s facilities and employees.
Lebanon-based hospital system also wants to refinance about $21 million in debt on new medical office building.
Doctors are pushing again to strengthen their hands in contract negotiations with health insurers, especially market leader
Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield.
Roche Diagnostics Corp. named a new CEO Tuesday for its North American operations, which are headquartered
in Indianapolis. Jack Phillips, currently head of commercial operations for North America and Japan at Roche subsidiary Ventana
Medical Systems, takes the reins from Michael Tillmann, who resigned on Friday. Tillmann had been in the job 18 months, but
Roche continued to lose market share in its diabetes business. Phillips is the third North American CEO for Roche Diagnostics
in less than two years.
Republican U.S. Sen. Richard Lugar requested Indiana’s attorney general to conduct
a legal analysis of the Senate health insurance proposal, according to the Associated Press. Attorney General Greg Zoeller
will examine the constitutionality of parts of the federal health care bill, including the so-called Nebraska compromise that
would give Nebraska funding for expanded Medicaid obligations. Indiana law gives the attorney general authority to review
proposed federal legislation for any of the state’s U.S. senators or representatives. Zoeller said he’ll provide a report
to Indiana’s congressional delegation by the time Congress starts House-Senate conference committee negotiations.
The long-term impact of health care reform is uncertain, but many analysts are expecting big health insurers like Indianapolis-based
WellPoint Inc. to benefit in 2010, according to the Associated Press. WellPoint, which insures more Americans
than any of its peers, has seen its stock price surge 10 percent in 2010. "As the health care reform
debate diminishes, we believe investors will continue their recent return to managed care stocks
in the first half of 2010 with a large-cap bias," Thomas Carroll, an analyst at Stifel Nicolaus
& Co., told investors.
Witham Health Services wants Boone County officials
to support a $35 million bond issue that the Lebanon-based hospital said could save it millions in interest
payments. Witham wants to use about $21 million to refinance a 95,000-square-foot medical office building in Lebanon
that it opened in September. Interest rates on bonds are lower now than when Witham began that project in mid-2007. Witham
would use the rest of the money, about $15 million, to purchase land in the Anson development near Zionsville, on which Witham
opened a free-standing emergency room in October. The 43,000-square-foot structure features cutting-edge imaging equipment
for open-sided magnetic-resonance imaging exams and high-resolution CT scans. It also includes office space for family and
specialist physicians.
The City of Evansville hired Maryland-based Meritain Health to manage its self-funded insurance
plan. The new city health plan will feature the Welborn Health Plan’s Dual Option Product, which gives members access
to both Deaconess and St. Mary’s hospitals, instead of only one as before. Meritain Health administers health plans
for more than 80,000 members in the greater Evansville tri-state area.
Observers expect a lull with inpatient facilities for five years or more, but continued proliferation of outpatient
clinics and surgery centers.
The massive far-east-side facility
already launders linen
for 30 hospitals and 400 clinics in Indiana, handling more than 36 million pounds of soiled linen each year.
The tiny Catholic institution in Indianapolis has $30 million raised toward new college that could train nearly half as many
students as the Indiana University medical school.
St. Francis and Westview hospitals are open to hosting the osteopathic-medicine school proposed by the Indianapolis Catholic
institution.
The locally based maker of nursing-education software will use the infusion to accelerate growth.
Dr. Kristine M. Powell, a pediatrician, joined St. Vincent Physician Network in Indianapolis. A graduate
of Indiana University in Bloomington and the IU School of Medicine in Indianapolis, Powell was most recently
a visiting professor at the University of Iowa Children’s Hospital.
Dr. James
Perry has been elected president of the St. Francis Hospital-Mooresville medical staff for a
two-year term. He is the obstetrics medical director for St. Francis Hospital-Mooresville and is affiliated
with Southwest Women’s Health.
Kathleen Marrs, a biology professor, has been named associate
dean of academic affairs at the School of Science at IUPUI.
Hey, wait a minute! That was the reaction, somewhat delayed, by the Indiana chapter of the National Federation
of Independent Business, to a late-December change to federal health reform legislation. The
Senate version of reform exempts companies with fewer than 50 employees from a requirement to provide
health benefits. But in late December, Senate leaders made a change for construction firms, saying the
exemption would apply only if they have five or fewer employees. The change was a favor to union groups,
which said non-union construction contractors would have an advantage over unionized shops that do provide
health benefits. Local NFIB leaders staged a protest/press conference last week, calling on Congress to “strip this
job-killing provision from a final health care bill.”
Orbis Education, a locally based maker
of nursing-education software, received $8 million in venture capital from Menlo Park, Calif.-based Lightspeed
Venture Partners. Founded in 2003, Orbis offers online instruction to help universities and hospitals
train new nurses. A key hurdle in the looming nursing shortage is the lack of capacity for nursing schools
to accept all qualified applicants. Last year, it had $4.5 million in revenue and 33 employees. Orbis
aims to boost its work force past 50 by the end of the year. Orbis had previously raised $4 million from
family, friends and angel investors.
Watch out, Eli Lilly and Co. A Greenwood pharmaceutical
firm plans to build a $28 million insulin facility there to make a cheaper version of the diabetes-fighting medicine. According
to the Daily Journal of Franklin, Elona Biotechnologies expects its 50,000-square-foot facility to employ as many
as 70 people. Greeenwood officials are considering $8.5 million in incentives, including some loans,
to help Elona build the facility and get it approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Elona
was founded in the late 1980s by former Lilly researcher Ron Zimmerman.
West Lafayette-based
IVDiagnostics LLC won a $124,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health to further
its cancer diagnostics research. The Small Business and Innovation Research Phase 1 grant will pay for
the company to improve the design of its IVFLow medical device, which analyzes and monitors tumor cells without taking blood
from a patient.
Physicians working in a surgery center connected to Community Hospital South kicked
in $500,000 to help the hospital complete a massive expansion. The gift, given by 65 doctors, boosts
to $1.2 million the money raised for the project by the philanthropic arm of Community Health Network.
The $130 million expansion will add 40 beds. It is scheduled to open in mid-2010.
St. Vincent Health’s agreement to lease the county hospital in Salem for five years is the latest in a string of deals
by Indianapolis hospital systems seeking a statewide presence.
Anti-tobacco advocates worry cost-cutting move could seriously diminish state’s efforts to curb Hoosier tobacco use.
The government has erected a high fence around a pot of $27 billion available to doctors and hospitals that successfully
computerize their patient records by next year, sparking complaints.
St. Vincent Health is near an agreement to take over The Care Group LLC, the city’s largest independent physician practice
and largest cardiology group in the nation.
Dr. Kristine Courtney, Eli Lilly and Co.’s senior director of corporate health services, describes
how and why the company spent two years making its clinics some of the first to electronically swap patient records with
a local hospital database.
