Cyberattack Has Prolonged Impact On Hospital System In Several States
Prospect Medical Holdings is experiencing outages of key computer systems more than two weeks after a cyberattack. Among other news: Mayo Clinic is continuing its expansion; Axios says rural hospitals are experiencing a "squeeze" from Medicare Advantage; and more.
AP:
Cyberattack Keeps Hospitals' Computers Offline For Weeks
Key computer systems at hospitals and clinics in several states have yet to come back online more than two weeks after a cyberattack that forced some emergency room shutdowns and ambulance diversions. Progress is being made “to recover critical systems and restore their integrity,” Prospect Medical Holdings said in a Friday statement. But the company, which runs 16 hospitals and dozens of other medical facilities in California, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Texas, could not say when operations might return to normal. (Eaton-Robb, 8/18)
In other health care industry news —
Modern Healthcare:
Mayo Clinic Continues Expansion As Patient Volumes Improve
Mayo Clinic is the latest nonprofit health system seeing the benefits of improved patient volumes. The Rochester, Minnesota-based system saw a 10.4% year-over-year jump in patient service revenue, to $3.54 billion in the second quarter, and a 10% increase to $6.96 billion in the first half of the year, according to financial results released Thursday. (Hudson, 8/18)
Axios:
Legacy Health-OHSU Merger Shakes Up Health Care In Oregon
Two of Portland's largest health care systems, Legacy Health and Oregon Health & Science University, announced plans to merge, raising questions about the future of health care services in Portland. While many details of the merger remain unknown, it requires regulatory approval under Oregon's year-old oversight program of health care industry mergers. Until then, it's unclear how patients and providers will be impacted. (Gebel and Harris, 8/18)
Axios:
Rural Hospitals Feel Squeeze From Medicare Advantage
Already struggling rural hospitals see an increasing financial threat from the steady growth in Medicare Advantage enrollment. Lacking the bargaining powers of their larger peers who depend on commercial payers to turn a profit, some rural hospitals are losing money on private coverage like Medicare Advantage. The Medicare alternative's popularity with seniors is cutting into a typically better funding source for rural hospitals — traditional Medicare — as hundreds of rural hospitals face down financial calamity. (Dreher, 8/21)
CBS News:
Life In A Rural "Ambulance Desert" Means Sometimes Help Isn't On The Way
That single ambulance station in Carrollton serves all of Pickens County, dispatching one and sometimes two ambulances to serve just under 20,000 residents spread across 900 square miles. The farthest reaches of the county line are 25 to 30 miles away on two-lane country roads. In rural areas where hospitals have shuttered, like Pickens County, the nearest surviving facilities are long drives away, ambulance coverage is sparse, and residents in the throes of medical emergencies often find their situations even more precarious. (8/21)
Modern Healthcare:
Gundersen Health System, Xcel Energy Turning Trash Into Utilities
Fifteen years ago, Alan Eber watched from his car window as excess methane from the La Crosse County landfill was ignited into a five-foot flame. An engineer by trade, Eber knew he could use the natural gas at Gundersen Health System’s nearby campus in Onalaska, Wisconsin. “When you're driving down the interstate and see a large flame come out of a stack, you think to yourself, ‘Man, there must be energy there somehow,’” said Eber, director of Gundersen Envision, a for-profit subsidiary of the La Crosse-based seven-hospital nonprofit organization focused on sustainability. (Tepper, 8/21)
