Cleveland Clinic to provide heart care in Chicago; Johns Hopkins increases primary care in D.C. area

Chicago Tribune: "In a move likely to shake up the market for heart care in the Chicago area, the Cleveland Clinic's cardiac surgery program has signed an affiliation agreement with Central DuPage Hospital in west suburban Winfield. The deal, announced Thursday, is designed to enhance the heart care provided at the 313-bed hospital and potentially bring Cleveland Clinic patient referrals at a time when fewer heart surgeries are needed than were a decade ago. Heart care typically is a hospital's most lucrative service, drawing tens of millions of dollars to the average community hospital. The Cleveland Clinic is reaching out nationwide for patients as changes in technology and increased use of medications like cholesterol drugs lead to a declining need for surgery. Open-heart surgery volumes have been dropping nationally since 1998, according to American Heart Association statistics" (Japsen, 7/15).

Washington Business Journal: "Johns Hopkins Medicare is taking new steps to develop its beach head in the Washington area, installing more components of its system in Montgomery County and D.C." Johns Hopkins Community Physicians, a 230-member doctor group, is expanding in the area to meet the increased demand for primary care (Fischer, 7/15).

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This article was reprinted from khn.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.