On June 20 at 11 a.m. (PT), the Hospital Quality Institute (HQI)
will host an
informational webinar about upcoming opportunities for
hospitals to participate in TeamSTEPPS, an evidence-based team
training program that helps hospitals improve their cultures of
safety, prevent medical errors, and enhance inter-professional
working relationships.
Over the weekend, the Legislature’s budget conference committee
completed its work of negotiating the differences between the
Governor’s, Assembly’s, and Senate’s budgets. The Senate and
Assembly now need to approve the final budget bill and the
accompanying trailer bills and send them to the Governor no later
than June 15, for his approval by July 1.
Every day, hospitals stand united to prevent and reduce violence.
To support today’s Hospitals
Against Violence national awareness day, Scripps Health CEO
Chris Van Gorder speaks
out on behalf of workplace and community safety in a new
CHA-produced video clip.
This week’s special elections yielded important results for
hospitals, including the defeat of a Los Angeles ballot measure
that would have taxed hospitals. Measure EE, proposed by the Los
Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), would have enacted a
parcel tax (a type of property tax ) to generate money that would
support smaller class sizes and staffing increases for the next
12 years. Hospitals in the LAUSD would have been subject to
the new tax.
With the Legislature required to send the Governor a final budget
no later than June 15, budget negotiations are in full swing at
the Capitol. The budget conference committee will address the
many discrepancies between proposals from the Senate, the
Assembly, and the Governor, with plans to complete its work by
the end of this weekend.
Yesterday, CHA
submitted comments on the Department of Managed Health Care’s
(DMHC)
draft guidance implementing its recently finalized Knox-Keene
licensure regulation. The
regulation greatly expands the types of financial
arrangements requiring a license, and hospitals are
encouraged to consult with counsel to determine how the new
requirements will impact their organization.
Last week, a federal district court
ruled that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)
exceeded its statutory authority when it implemented a 30%
reduction to 2019 Medicare reimbursement rates — included in the
federal fiscal year (FFY) 2019 outpatient prospective payment
system (OPPS) final rule — for certain pharmaceutical drugs
covered by the 340B Drug Pricing Program.
Nearly 2 million people had data exposed in healthcare breaches
reported to the federal government last month, more than double
the number whose data was exposed in April-reported incidents.
In what may be one of the least unexpected lawsuits against a
proposed federal rule in recent history, drug
giants Merck, Eli Lilly, Amgen, and the
Association of National Advertisers are challenging the Trump
administration’s bid to require
TV drug advertisements to include the products’ list prices.
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) finalized the
proposed rule in May. It would force pharmaceutical companies to
publicize a treatment’s list price tag but has been criticized by
the industry for alleged shortcomings and free speech concerns.
As their minivan rolled north, they felt their nerves kick in —
but they kept on driving.
At the wheel: Lija Greenseid, a rule-abiding Minnesota mom
steering her Mazda5 on a cross-border drug run.
Her daughter, who is 13, has Type 1 diabetes and needs insulin.
In the United States, it can cost hundreds of dollars per vial.
In Canada, you can buy it without a prescription for a tenth of
that price.
So, Greenseid led a small caravan last month to the town of Fort
Frances, Ontario, where she and five other Americans paid about
$1,200 for drugs that would have cost them $12,000 in the
United States.
Victor Gutierrez contracted valley fever, an illness caused by a
soil-borne fungus, and he thinks he got it in the summer of 2011
when he worked in the nectarine orchards of California’s dry,
dusty Central Valley.
“The wind was really strong, and we were almost falling off our
ladders,” Gutierrez said. “The dust would rise up in the fields
and we would get lost in [it].”
Then again, he might have contracted it during that year’s grape
harvest. “We would walk out of the vineyard with our faces full
of dirt. Only our eyes were visible,” Gutierrez said. When he
showered at night, he could see the layer of soil washing off his
body.
As the Democratic presidential candidates make the case for
Medicare for All without scaring away voters wary of “socialism,”
they might look to California for guidance.
Democrats here have created a road map for how to not just talk
about health care coverage, but to provide it — all while not
abandoning a long-term goal of universal, single-payer coverage.
Gov. Gavin Newsom is about to sign a budget that will make health
insurance accessible to an estimated 377,000 lower-income people
who don’t have it now. It will also provide help with punishing
premium costs to an additional 660,000 middle-income people,
according to estimates by the nonpartisan Health Access
California. Couples making north of $65,000 a year could get up
to $100 a month to help them pay for insurance.
The University of California announced a major deal Thursday with
the drug company GlaxoSmithKline, in which the pharmaceutical
firm will provide up to $67 million over five years to fund
researchers’ work using the
gene-editing tool CRISPR to develop new medicines.
The partnership will create a new lab, called the Laboratory for
Genomics Research, near UCSF’s Mission Bay campus in San
Francisco, and jobs for 24 university employees and up to 14
GlaxoSmithKlein employees. It is jointly led by London-based
GlaxoSmithKline, CRISPR co-inventor and UC
Berkeley biochemist Jennifer Doudna, and UCSF scientist
Jonathan Weissman. The lab is already open and some initial hires
have been made.
A young girl from Connecticut turned her time spent in the
hospital into a chance to help ease the fear of many other young
patients.
Ella Casano, now 12, was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease
called Idiopathic Thrombocytopenia Purpura (ITP) when she was
seven.
“It’s when her body attacks and destroys its own platelets, so it
puts her at higher risk for bleeding or injury, more than most
people,” Meg Casano, Ella’s mother, told CNN.
A visit to a new doctor can be a stressful experience. You know
the feeling. Sitting in a cold exam room, naked save for a flimsy
gown, waiting for a stranger to poke and prod you. When the
doctor finally enters, most of us are looking for signs that we
can trust this person, that they are going to help rather than
harm us.
So what is it that makes us trust doctors enough to allow them to
stick needles in our skin or put us on a diet? That’s what Owen
Garrick wanted to know. He’s a doctor and researcher in Oakland,
California, and has been trying to improve health outcomes for
black men. Black men have the lowest life expectancy of any major
demographic group. Owen says they are dying of preventable or
chronic diseases like prostate cancer.
Join us October 14-15 at the Golden 1 Center in Sacramento
and learn strategies and take home tools for achieving reliable
care and delivering value to each patient, each time, and in each
community.
CHA’s digital community of more than 1 million supporters, has
been awarded two national health care advertising awards for its
promotion of one hospital’s efforts to care for homeless
patients, as well as its work to raise awareness of and
destigmatize mental health issues.
In an effort to reinforce to lawmakers the need to address
California’s severe health care workforce shortages, CHA just
completed a month-long social media campaign to position
hospitals’ leadership role in developing the current and future
health workforce.
Nearly 50 of California’s hospital and health system leaders
trekked almost 3,000 miles to D.C. to share with members of
Congress the legislative changes they need to successfully meet
their mission of care back home.
The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration
(SAMHSA) has released a series of resources intended to help
providers incorporate, in their disaster planning, strategies to
care for patients with serious mental illness.
CHA’s latest guidebook, Discharge Planning for Homeless
Patients, explains California’s new homeless patient
discharge planning law and offers insights to help hospitals
prepare to return homeless patients to the community.
June 19, 2019
10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m., Pacific Time
Members-only
A technique we have seen payers use more commonly in recent months than in the past is to unilaterally implement policies and guidelines through provider manuals that arguably change the coverage, steerage, and/or reimbursement of key healthcare services for their members. These policy changes oftentimes have material effects on the amounts hospitals actually receive under their contracts. Providers seldom have any input into these revisions, and they are frequently imposed on providers with little or no notice.
June 25, 2019
7:30 – 8:30 a.m., Pacific Time
A complimentary, CHA members-only forum
CHA will host a call on June 25 at 7:30 a.m. (PT) to update members on proposed legislation that would protect patients from balance billing but includes a rate-setting provision that harms hospitals and helps insurance companies.
Significant changes to Medi-Cal and Medicare reimbursement are imminent – is your hospital ready? Over the past year, there’s been a lot of activity at federal and state level that will directly impact how hospitals are reimbursed, which can lead to transforming the way care is delivered in the future.
CHA’s Disaster Planning for California Hospitals conference is the largest statewide conference developed by and for California hospitals. Mark your calendars for this annual event where you will bolster your emergency preparedness knowledge and learn about innovative programs, tools and lessons learned from across the industry.
Throughout the year, CHA offers numerous programs designed to
meet the needs of hospital executives. Whether you work in human
resources, risk management, reimbursement, disaster planning or
plant operations we are likely to have a program that will help
you do your best for your facility.
CHA hosts events year-round that give providers of health care
services and products the opportunity to meet face-to-face with
hospital executive management. Our conference and symposiums each
have unique audiences — disaster planners and their teams,
medical rehabilitation experts, skilled nursing professionals,
behavioral health care providers and rural hospitals.
Learn about other opportunities to support hospitals andways to
get involved with the California Hospital Association.
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CHA’s EMTALA Manual explains the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) to minimize risk and help hospitals avoid lawsuits. The manual is full of sample scenarios and answers to hundreds of real-world questions, and provides practical guidance to hospitals, physicians, and nurses to simplify compliance with patient anti-dumping laws.
The 2018 edition has been updated to reflect five more years’ experience with the law, and:
CHA’s Hospital Compliance Manual is the only publication written for hospital compliance officers that integrates California with federal law on high-risk compliance areas. Written by Hooper, Lundy & Bookman, PC, and CHA, the manual focuses on high-risk compliance issues and the key components of an effective compliance program.
This comprehensive resource addresses all state and federal laws related to the privacy of health information, and provides guidance to help hospitals comply with increasingly complex regulations. Laws covered include:
