Pittsnogled

USA Today highlights West Virginia's newest living sports legend and first sports figure in West Virginia's history to have etymologists turning him into a verb -- you've just been pittsnogled. I don't recall anyone saying you've been Jerry Wested.

Direct link to the USA Today article.

Tags: WV, West Virginia, Mountaineers, Pittsnogle, Pittsnogled, Jerry West

Some Question Third Year of Law School

Interesting AP article today on the value of the third year of law school. It discusses the motivations of keeping student an extra year -- including increased revenue and employment of law faculty.



My experience with new lawyers coming out of school is that there needs to be an increase in the practical education of lawyers, similar to internships and residency programs.

CMS Annouces Rate Increase for Inpatient Stays in Acute Care Hospitals

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid (CMS) has announced that "acute care hospitals that report selected quality data will receive a 3.7 percent increase in payment rates for inpatient services under a final rule issued today by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS)."



Also, the final rule reduces the outlier threshold to $23,600 from $25,800 in 2005, which will impact hospital's calculation of what extra payments might be warranted when the costs exceed the Diagnosis Related Groups (DRG) payment.



The CMS press release also states that the final rule will contain "important changes to the Diagnosis Related Groups (DRGs) which serve as the basis for the payment rates under IPPS, particularly improvements in accuracy of cardiac DRGs; revision of the postacute care transfer policy; changes to provisions affecting Critical Access Hospitals (CAHs); and revised policies for direct and indirect graduate medical education (GME).



The final rule will appear in the August 12, 2005 Federal Register. The new policies and payment rates will become effective October 1, 2005.

Traffic Court Map Googling

A great example showing the value of having wireless access and Google maps. Remember this post, it might save you some $$ the next time you are in traffic court. When I saw the following Google map story posted by Ernie Swenson and Tom Mighell I just couldn't resist adding a comment.

I'm constantly fascinated by the Google map feature including the ability to flip between maps and satellite images along with combining the two into "hybrid maps". As you can see I like to use the feature to check out the greatest golf courses, such as Pine Valley Golf Course. I also love the feature that allow you to move the map by dragging the image.

If you are interested in maps I would also check out the block viewing feature of the A9 Beta maps section.

National Network of Electronic Health Records

Are the benefits from a national network of electronic health records worth $200 Billion?

UPDATE: For comparison purposes of how much $200 Billion is see this post at Hospital Impact.

According to a article citing a research study funded by the Commonwealth Fund and the Harvard Interfaculty Program for Health Systems Improvement the estimated coast would be $156 billion to build the system and $48 billion annually to run it.

Dr. David Brailer, National Healthcare IT Coordinator, who is directing the federal government's efforts to improve health care technology believes the estimates are high. The article states the following:

"We know it's in the billions of dollars, perhaps in the tens of billions of dollars, and possibly even the hundreds of billions," Brailer said. "But the principle question is not how much it is. It's how do we create incentives to involve the private sector and prevent the federal government from financing it all. We want it to be market-driven."

Brailer noted that the researchers relied on expert estimates — not primary data.

He estimated that the current spending throughout the federal government on health information networks totals about $4 billion a year. He believes the estimate of $156 billion in startup costs and $48 billion in operating costs to be on the high end of what the system would actually total.

Thanks to the HIPAA Blog for pointing out this article.

Yahoo News reports: "Google's Growth Prompts Privacy Concerns"

Privacy experts look at the continued growth of Google, its varios services and how this information is aggregated and worry about the increase chance of abuse of yours and my privacy. More on Google and Privacy.

LifePoint Hospitals, Inc. Signs Agreement to Purchase Four West Virginia and One Virginia Hospital

According to a press release issued late today LifePoint Hospitals, Inc. has signed a definitive agreement to purchase four West Virginia Hospitals and one Virginia Hospital for approximately $285M, plus working capital. The deal is expected to close by the end of 2005.



The press release states that the facilities included in the sale are:



200-bed Clinch Valley Medical Center, Richlands, Virginia

325-bed St. Joseph's Hospital, Parkersburg, West Virginia

155-bed Saint Francis Hospital, Charleston, W. Virginia

369-bed Raleigh General Hospital, Beckley, West Virginia

68-bed Putnam General Hospital, Hurricane, West Virginia



This will give LifePoint a large footprint in West Virginia when you add in that it currently owns 132 bed Logan Regional Medical Center in Logan, West Virginia and 19 bed Guyan Valley Hospital also located in Logan, West Virginia.

West Virginia Seminar on Privacy & Confidentiality

Ted Martin and I have been busy preparing the materials for a repeat of a seminar we developed and gave last year on Confidentiality and Privacy of Medical Information in West Virginia. Here is a post following last year's event. Last year's seminar was well attended by health information specialists, medical record directors, business managers, hospital administrators, nurses, physcians and attorneys throughout West Virginia.

We will again be speaking on the topic of Confidentiality and Privacy of Medical Information in West Virginia at the Lorman Education Services seminar scheduled for August 25, 2005, in Charleston, West Virginia. You can find a complete copy of the agenda and information about registering for the event here.

I am also planning on being involved in a new Lorman Education Services seminar being offered in West Virginia in December 2005. The topic will be on the "Management of Medical Records and the Impact of the EMR Revolution". We are currently working on the agenda for this seminar. Stay tuned!

Hospital Impact

Check out a new blog (at least to me) called Hospital Impact which uses the inviting moniker of "what will it take for our hospitals to be the best run organizations on the face of the planet?" The blog is based out of Chicago and focuses on hospital leadership ideas and issues. However, the blog also has categories covering hospital related "links" and "scoops." Check out this post for more details on each of these topic areas.

I've just scanned the blog which got up and running in March 2005. I like the quality and diversity of the posts and plan to add it to my Bloglines RSS reader. Also I really like the feature built in that allows you to choose different types of "skins" for the blog. I haven't seen this on a blog.

I look forward to seeing more posts from this blog run by Tony. I found his personal category of posts perceptive and worthy of note. I particularly liked his post on "taking time to reflect more". I completely agree that we all need to take more time to put the pieces in place in this sensory overloaded information world that we now live in today. Also I can relate to many of his posts on getting his blog up and running and how he felt through the process.

Thanks to Matthew Holt over at The Health Care Blog for pointing me to this new blog.