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OhioHealth, Cleveland Clinic, 4 more providers form cost control & quality collaborative
OhioHealth (Columbus, OH), Cleveland Clinic (Cleveland, OH), Premier Health Partners (Dayton, OH), ProMedica Health System (Toledo, OH), TriHealth (Cincinnati, OH), and Aultman Hospital (Canton, OH) partnered to form a statewide cost control and quality improvement collaborative named the Midwest Health Collaborative. These providers will also study whether and how to create a statewide “super-network” to negotiate with insurers. The Midwest Health Collaborative’s first initiatives involve using data analytics across all six systems to find the best procedures and most cost-effective supplies to encourage physicians to favor scientific data over personal opinion on what tools and devices work best. The collaborative’s members will join Explorys Inc (Cleveland, OH), a big data spinoff of Cleveland Clinic that analyzes how different supplies influence outcomes. They will also join Excelerate Strategic Health Sourcing (Lyndhurst, OH), a group purchasing cooperative of Cleveland Clinic and VHA Inc (Irving, TX).
Atlanta, Ga: CDC announces 46 percent decline in central line bloodstream infections since 2008
According to a report by the CDC (Atlanta, GA), there was a 46 percent decline in central line-associated bloodstream infections (CLABSI) between 2008 and 2013. The reports summarizes data from the reports of each state to the CDC’s National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN), an infection tracking system which is used by more than 14,500 healthcare facilities across the country who are joining together to eliminate the six infection types reported to the CDC, in particular methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bloodstream infections and Clostridium difficile (C. difficile) infections (deadly diarrhea).
Nashville, Tenn.: HCA poised to expand through acquisitions
HCA Holdings Inc (Nashville, TN) intends to make acquisitions a part of its strategic capital deployment plan in order to sustain consistent growth. HCA plans to assess two to three purchases in 2015, particularly for ambulatory care facilities and physicians practices located in markets it already serves. Systems would be large and often would be not-for-profit. HCA would return cash to shareholders if it were unable to find suitable acquisitions.
California: UCSF Medical Center at Mission Bay to deploy fleet of robots
UCSF Medical Center at Mission Bay (San Francisco, CA), which is scheduled to open in 2015, will implement a fleet of 25 robots called Eve, which are built by Aethon Inc (Pittsburgh, PA). The robot looks like a refrigerator and is designed to carry heavy loads of equipment and travel to different parts of the hospital to provide supplies to employees. The hospital is 800,000 square feet and includes 289 beds. Tasks assigned to the robot include delivering 1,000 meals to patients each day, picking up dirty trays, and delivering medicine, with a goal of making deliveries in 45 minutes or less.