Hospitals under pressure from flagging budgets, regulators

May 20 2010

News outlets covered challenges for local hospitals.

The Washington Post reports on one suburban Maryland health system: "A special panel in charge of finding a company to take over Prince George's County's ailing health-care system has been unable to complete a sale of the system after a two-year search ... Bidders have been interested in separate parts of the system. But the panel's mandate is to ensure the facilities are sold at the same time to prevent buyers from cherry-picking ... The long-troubled system, which includes the three hospitals and two nursing homes, serves as many as 180,000 patients a year, many of them poor and uninsured. The system has been losing millions for years, industry analysts said, and has survived only through repeated infusions of public cash" (Sun and Mummolo, 5/19).

Maryland Gazette on a dispute in another suburban county: "A state hospital rate regulator doubts either Adventist HealthCare or Holy Cross Hospital could finance, construct and operate a new hospital in upper Montgomery County, according to a memo released Friday. ...The two hospitals are competing for regulatory approval from the Maryland Health Care Commission" (Ford, 5/17).

The Wall Street Journal: "Two financially struggling New York City hospitals [Jamaica Hospital in Queens and Brookdale University Hospital in Brooklyn] linked to a corruption scandal in Albany would be allowed to borrow an additional $160 million with state backing under a bill now being considered by lawmakers. ... The two hospitals are part of MediSys Health Network, a $1 billion health-care enterprise whose finances have come under scrutiny by federal prosecutors and state Medicaid investigators, a top state official said" (Gershman, 5/19).

Caspar (Wyo.) Star-Tribune: "A Wyoming business group pushing for more transparency in health care has asked 27 of the state's hospitals to participate in a national performance survey. ... The survey measures how hospitals perform according to various quality and safety measures. It's produced by the Leapfrog Group, which was founded in 2000 by the Business Roundtable to encourage improvements to the health care system." (Wolfson, 5/19).