Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Study Finds Most Rural Residents' End-Of-Life Wishes Go Unfulfilled
Daily Yonder: Gap Found In End-Of-Life Care For Rural Residents
When it comes to end-of-life wishes, a new study has found that while most people have end-of-life wishes, only a little over a third of them actually get them fulfilled. That is even more true with rural residents, researchers said. (Carey, 9/16)
The Philadelphia Inquirer: Pa. Rural Hospital Turns To GoFundMe In Fight To Survive
Bucktail Medical Center, a tiny hospital in the sparsely populated Pennsylvania Wilds region, has launched a GoFundMe campaign to help keep its doors open. The nonprofit, which has been losing between $100,000 and $150,000 a month, so far has found little resonance on the online fundraising platform since launching the campaign at the end of August. As of Saturday, the 16-bed hospital in South Renovo, in the north-central part of the state, has raised just $12,180 of its $1.5 million goal. (Brubaker, 9/16)
AP: Rural Hospitals Are Closing Maternity Wards. People Are Seeking Options To Give Birth Closer To Home
Fewer than half of rural hospitals have labor and delivery units and the number keeps dropping. It’s forcing pregnant women to travel longer distances for care or face giving birth in an emergency room. (Rush and Ungar, 9/17)
On cancer care —
The Boston Globe: Nurses Threaten Strike At Dana-Farber Merrimack Valley
Registered nurses at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Merrimack Valley plan to hold a one-day strike later this month as they attempt to negotiate their first contract since organizing as a union last year. The nurses at the institute located in Methuen are represented by the Massachusetts Nurses Association. In a letter on Friday, the union informed Dana-Farber’s chief nursing officer that the nurses will picket Sept. 27 at the facility, beginning at 6:30 a.m., unless a deal is reached. (Stoico, 9/16)
Boston Globe: Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Blindsided Brigham And Women’s
It’s Boston’s biggest divorce since Gisele and Tom split, but this one is epically acrimonious and has real-life repercussions for the region’s hospital industry and its patients. Dana-Farber Cancer Institute said on Thursday that it would end its long and nationally acclaimed adult oncology partnership with Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Instead, it plans to open a new freestanding cancer hospital with Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center where the Joslin Diabetes Center now stands in the Longwood Medical Area. (Joslin will relocate.) The announcement stunned Brigham’s leaders, who say they had been negotiating with Dana-Farber for the past 15 months, including over the weekend, to extend the relationship and jointly invest in new cancer facilities. (Edelman, 9/15)
Stat: Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Shows Cancer Centers Are In Vogue
Boston isn’t the only city slated for a new cancer center. Far from it. There’s little appetite to build general acute-care hospitals, especially as their financial outlook dims and more services move outpatient. So on its face, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute’s plan to build a new cancer hospital with Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center seems peculiar. (Bannow, 9/15)
Los Angeles Times: Hope Lives Here: City Of Hope Is Orange County's Most Advanced Cancer Care
“Cancer strikes so many families, and everyone needs to know that the most advanced cancer care is right here, in our community,” says Orange County resident and grateful City of Hope patient Donna McNutt. ... Construction is underway on Orange County’s only specialty cancer hospital exclusively focused on treating and curing cancer, opening in 2025. (9/17)
AP: University Of Kentucky Cancer Center Achieves Highest Designation From National Cancer Institute
The University of Kentucky’s Markey Cancer Center has achieved the highest level of recognition from the National Cancer Institute — a status that will further bolster research and patient care in a state plagued by some of the nation’s highest cancer rates, campus officials said Friday. State and university leaders gathered on UK’s Lexington campus to celebrate the Markey Center’s designation by the NCI as a “comprehensive” cancer center — putting it among several dozen cancer centers nationally to attain the status and the only one in Kentucky. (Schreiner, 9/15)
In other health care industry news —
Chicago Tribune: With New Spanish-Language Pulmonary-Thoracic Program, Northwestern Doctors Hope To Improve Health Outcomes For Hispanic Patients
Growing up on the South Side of Chicago as the child of Mexican immigrants who primarily spoke Spanish, Dr. Daniel Meza was often asked to translate for his parents during medical appointments. “It’s a skill that I grew up with, having that technical language,” Meza said. “I just recall how stressful it was for my parents when they were in clinics, and as well as for myself, being a small child.” (Arougheti, 9/18)
Crain's New York Business: DocGo’s Shares Fall 11% After Report Of CEO’s False Education
DocGo’s shares plummeted 11% Friday after a report that the medical service company’s chief executive Anthony Capone embellished his biography with a false education history. Capone's biography on the company's website stated that he had received a graduate degree in artificial intelligence from Clarkson University. But a spokesperson for Clarkson University told the Times Union that it had no record of Anthony Capone enrolling in or completing a graduate degree at the university. (Spivack, 9/15)
