Globalization and Other Big Changes Will Force Hospital Fund Raisers to Take New Approaches

Globalization, the rising importance of small businesses, and the growing need for new revenue are some of the trends that will force fund raisers at nonprofit hospitals and health-care organizations to change their approaches,

Full text article by Holly Hall is available via The Chronicle of Philanthropy, 3/1/10.

Charity hospitals get one-year reprieve in state budget proposal

Louisiana's charity-hospital system will get a one-year reprieve from sweeping budget changes designed to shift mental-health money from state institutions to private and neighborhood care options. The charity system, run by Louisiana State University, was facing the prospect of closing several small hospitals due to budget pressure. But the state's Health and Hospitals Secretary, Alan Levine, said Gov. Bobby Jindal's proposed 2010-11 spending plan provides enough money to get the system through the year while a long-term plan for its future is developed.

Full text article by Jan Moller is available via The Times-Picayune, 2/10/10.

St. Vincent’s Gets Loans for a Four-Week Reprieve

A combination of state loans and assistance from creditors will help New York's St. Vincent's Hospital stay afloat for another four weeks while officials seek a long-term solution to the facility's financial woes. St. Vincent's, the city's last Catholic general hospital, is $700-million in debt and seeking a partner to avoid a second bankruptcy in five years. Continuum Health Partners, one of New York's largest hospital systems, has offered to step in but wants to make St. Vincent's an outpatient center.

Full text article by Anemona Hartocollis is available via The New York Times, 2/3/10.

SE hospital believes nonprofit status could help finances

Washington's United Medical Center is seeking charitable status to stave off a worsening financial crisis and continue serving the city's poorest neighborhoods. Frank G. DeLisi, the hospital's chief executive, said the conversion would save the center hundreds of thousands of dollars in tax bills, lift fund raising, and qualify it for higher Medicaid and Medicare reimbursements.

Full text article by Tim Craig is available via The Washington Post, 1/24/10.

Burnham Institute Gets A Big Gift And A New Name

The Burnham Institute for Medical Research has been renamed the Sanford-Burnham institute. This follows a $50 million gift from South Dakota banker Denny Sanford.

Full text article by Tom Fudge is available via KPBS, 1/26/10.

Offer to Take Over Ailing Hospital Stirs Outcry

Nonprofit Continuum Health Partners, one of New York's largest hospital systems, has made an offer to take over the financially ailing St. Vincent's hospital, the city's last Catholic general hospital, and turn it into an outpatient center. St. Vincent's has been losing millions of dollars a month and is facing a possible second bankruptcy three years after emerging from its first. The Greenwich Village hospital gained iconic status in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, terror attacks, when it became a gathering place for people searching for loved ones.
Full text article by Anemona Hartocollis is available via The New York Times, 1/26/10.

Using a Pfizer Grant, Courses Aim to Avoid Bias

Stanford University is expected to unveil plans today to develop new, bias-free programs of continuing medical education for doctors. The work is being made possible by a $3-million grant from the drug maker Pfizer. The university announced in 2008 that it would severely restrict industry support for medical education in order to avoid conflicts of interest. Adriane Fugh-Berman, a Georgetown University medical professor, called the announcement "self-satirizing." But Stanford's medical dean, Philip Pizzo, said he understood the skepticism about whether an industry-backed approach could be free of bias, but asserted that Pfizer would have no say in how the grant was used.

Full text article by Duff Wilson is available via The New York Times, 1/11/10.

Kenneth and Anne Griffin give $16 million to Children's Memorial Hospital

The billionaire hedge-fund managers Kenneth and Anne Griffin will give $16-million to establish an emergency-care center at Chicago’s Children’s Memorial Hospital. Mr. Griffin, founder of Citadel Investment Group, and his wife, who heads Aragon Global Management and serves on the hospital’s investment committee, started a charitable foundation last year. The gift is part of a capital campaign toward the 50-year-old hospital’s plan to move to an expanded facility in 2012.

Full text article by Melissa Harris and Bruce Japsen is available via the Chicago Tribune, 1/7/10.

Hospital CEOs face pay freezes amid recession

Nonprofit hospital systems in southwest Ohio froze or cut pay for their top executives in 2009 after many of them offered significant raises the year before. All nine hospital networks in the Miami Valley area were cautious about the salaries of their chief executives as the recession hit. The largest entity, Premier Health Partners, froze base pay in 2009 but did give top executives bonuses, while raising general staff salaries by 2.5 percent.

Full text article by Ben Sutherly is available via Dayton Daily News, 1/2/10.

Pioneering L.A. nonprofit is saving lives in Afghanistan

The International Medical Corps’ longstanding relief work in Afghanistan and other war zones is the subject of an article in the Los Angeles Times. The Los Angeles organization, founded in 1984 to shore up an Afghan health-care system devastated by the Soviet invasion, has forged deep ties in Afghan communities, winning protection from village councils and facing relatively little threat from the Taliban. It has sought to help Afghans build their own abilities to provide health services by hiring native-born doctors, midwives, pharmacists, and other medical experts to operate its clinics.

Full text article by Alexandra Zavis is available via the Los Angeles Times, 1/5/10.

Recession Leaves Its Mark on Hospital Fund Raising

In a sign of how the recession is changing giving patterns. hospitals say more donors are making long-term pledges and fewer are making outright cash gifts, according to a new survey of 58 hospitals conducted by the Association for Healthcare Philanthropy.

Full text article by Holly Hall is available via The Chronicle of Philanthropy, 12/28/09.

Bezos Family Gives $10-Million to Hutchinson Cancer Center

The parents of Amazon.com’s founder, Jeff Bezos, have donated $10-million to Seattle’s Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center to explore immunotherapy as a potential cancer treatment. The gift from Jackie and Mike Bezos will help the center recruit and retain top researchers and pay for clinical trials and the development of new drugs. The Hutchinson center is seeking to raise $28.5 million for its immunotherapy effort in all.

Full text article by Kristi Heim is available via The Seattle Times, 11/23/09.

U. of California Regents Back Deal to Reopen Troubled L.A. Hospital

Martin Luther King Jr. Hospital, in South Los Angeles, will reopen by 2013 under a plan unanimously approved Thursday by the University of California’s board. The board’s vote came after county officials pledged to seek a $100-million letter of credit to underwrite the hospital for up to six years. The pharmaceuticals billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong has also promised a $100-million guaranty.

Full text article by Molly Hennessy-Fiske is available via the Los Angeles Times, 11/20/09.

Hospital honors Knight for lifetime of philanthropy

Norman Knight, a noted Boston philanthropist, is the founder of The Hundred Club of Massachusetts, which provides money and aid to the families of fallen firefighters. After a deadly 1994 fire, he donated the funds for the state’s first hyperbaric chamber to be installed at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary. The hospital now has three chambers, which have been improved and upgraded over the years. Knight’s donations for this project top $1 million, hospital officials said.

Full text article by John M. Guilfoil is available via The Boston Globe, 11/15/09.

PILOT deal is on its way

Boston officials are nearing an agreement with large nonprofit organizations that could double or triple the amount the city collects in payments from them in lieu of taxes. City Councilor Steve Murphy said a pact could be ready within 90 days that would raise the payments from colleges and hospitals for local services from the current $15-million a year to between $32-million and $46-million.

Full text article by John Ruch is available via the Jamaica Plain Gazette, 11/6/09.

Fairfield man's philanthropy makes Yale cancer center a reality

Smilow Cancer Hospital at Yale-New Haven is a brand new cancer center, reflecting the philanthropy of Fairfield resident Joel E. Smilow. The complex will feature 112 patient beds, a healing garden, a boutique, outpatient treatment rooms, state-of-the-art operating rooms, infusion suites, diagnostic imaging services, radiation oncology and a specialized women's cancer center. A member of the Yale University Class of 1954, Smilow has been one of the school's most ardent football boosters.

Full-text post by John Burgeson is available via the Connecticut Post, 10/20/09.

Pharmaceutical executive donates $100 million to St. John's Health Center

Patrick Soon-Shiong, founder and CEO of Abraxis BioScience, and his wife, Michelle Chan, have pledged $65 million to St. John's Health Center in Santa Monica. The gift comes on top of the $35 million the couple donated to the hospital two years ago. Soon-Shiong reported that, among other things, the gift will be used to help link doctors and patients to hundreds of other hospitals as well as researchers at the University of California at Los Angeles and the University of Southern California.

Full-text post by Molly Hennessy-Fiske is available via the Los Angeles Times, 10/1/09.

State Supreme Court gets hospital tax exempt case

The Illinois Supreme Court will hear oral arguments to determine if a nonprofit Catholic hospital is providing enough charity care to warrant tax-exempt status. The outcome of the case involving Provena Covenant Medical Center could affect nonprofit hospitals across the country.

Full-text post by Lindsey Tanner is available via The Chicago Tribune, 9/23/09.

Senator Baucus Releases Health-Care Proposal for Hospitals

Sen. Max Baucus' bill, known on the hill as the “chairman’s mark” and planned to be reviewed by the finance committee next week, would require nonprofit hospitals “to conduct a community health needs assessment at least once every three years and adopt an implementation strategy to meet the community needs.”

Full-text post by Grant Williams is available via the Government and Politics Watch, 9/16/09.

Insurers: Stop payouts to board members

Massachusetts officials revealed plans last week to tighten oversight of nonprofit health-care organizations, including what they pay top executives, The Boston Globe reports. The Attorney General's Office believes one of the cost drivers in health care that has gotten way too little attention in the current debate is the generous way insurers and hospitals pay their top executives.

Full-text post is available via The Boston Globe, 9/7/09.

Private Philanthropy — Another Key to Hospital Financial Stability ...

Colleges and universities have traditionally placed a much higher premium on generating both annual and planned gifts than the majority of hospitals. Rather than expounding on the many legitimate reasons why this is the case, let’s focus on steps the Board, the Executive Suite, and the Chief Development Officer (CDO) can take.

Full-text post by Jim Mahon is available via Better Hospitals - http://www.better-hospitals.com/

IRS Official Offers Preview of Much-Anticipated Compensation Study

A top official of the Internal Revenue Service has given a preview of findings from a much-anticipated study of more than 500 nonprofit hospitals. Under the IRS's
microscope are the compensation provided to hospital executives and the benefits that hospitals provide to the neighborhoods they serve.

Full-text article by Grant Williams is available via the Chronicle of Philanthropy, 1.12.09. [Subscription required.]

Hospitals Use 'Broad Latitude' in Reporting Charity Care, Report Finds

Nonprofit hospitals take a wide array of approaches to how they count their contributions to the cities they serve,according to a new federal study by the Government Accountability Office.

Full-text article by Eric Kelderman is available via the Chronicle of Philanthropy, 10.14.08. [Subscription required.]

Hospitals Endure Soaring Rates as Bonds Reset Weekly

The nation’s financial market meltdown is hitting many Massachusetts hospitals in the form of higher borrowing costs.

Full-text article by Mark Hollmer is available via the Boston Business Journal, 10.3.08.

Web Sites Compare How Hospitals Measure Up

A new Web site called “Hospital Compare” evaluates hospital death rates around the country and shows how individual hospitals stack up against the national average. Guests discuss the reliability of the data on the site and describe the measures hospitals are taking to improve performance.

The Hospital Compare Web site was created through the efforts of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), along with the Hospital Quality Alliance (HQA). The HQA is a public-private collaboration established to promote reporting on hospital quality of care. The HQA consists of organizations that represent consumers, hospitals, doctors and nurses, employers, accrediting organizations, and Federal agencies.

California Hospitals Brace for Earthquake Upgrades

Legislative mandates requiring the state's hospitals to replace or retrofit buildings has caused fear and trembling in the industry ever since the Northridge earthquake knocked 23 facilities out of commission in 1994.

The latest Rand Corp. report in 2007 estimated the costs at $110 billion. The figure did not include financing charges, which could double it. The California Hospital Association says that 66 percent of hospitals in the state are operating in the red.

Nonprofits Scripps and Sharp medical systems rely on philanthropy and bond markets. And others aren't sufficiently creditworthy to qualify for revenue bonds.

Full-text article by Ned Randolph is available via the San Diego Business Journal, 5.19.08.

America's 50 Best Hospitals

HealthGrades, the nation’s leading independent healthcare ratings organization, today identified America’s 50 Best Hospitals, an elite class of top-performing facilities. The HealthGrades America’s 50 Best Hospital designation represents the healthcare industry’s only quality ranking based solely on objective clinical outcomes among U.S. hospitals.

To identify the 2008 designees, HealthGrades researchers analyzed approximately 100 million hospitalization records from nearly 5,000 hospitals, from the years 1999 to 2006. To be listed among America’s 50 Best Hospitals, facilities must have demonstrated clinical outcomes among the top five percent in the nation, not just in one medical specialty, but aggregated across 27 different procedures and diagnoses, and must have maintained this superior level of care during all years studied. These hospitals were found to have an average 27 percent lower mortality rate, on average, than all other U.S. hospitals.

Full-study is available via HealthGrades, March 2008.

Suburban Hospitals "Greening" Their Facilities

Some suburban hospitals have been making strides toward the increasingly important goal of “greening” their facilities as much as possible to become more environmentally friendly.

Realizing that such efforts are not only good for their bottom line in that energy savings and pollution reduction equipment and materials can reduce costs, hospital officials in the area know that it’s also a stance that’s increasingly popular to the public.

Full-text post is available via the Business Ledger, 1.7.08.