Health Care Services

I don't want to pay for other people's contraceptives, abortifacients and abortions. Further, I don't want to be forced to participate in insurance plans which mandate the provision of abortions and other services to which I am morally opposed. We should have the liberty to abstain from such programs and choose other plans from a competitive insurance marketplace. The federal government is limited to enumerated powers by the Constitution, which means the states are free to establish their own insurance laws and regulations.

John Hopkins Medicine International entered into a collaboration with a network of Peruvian hospitals in an effort to improve medical services in the area. The deal with Pacífico S.A. Entidad Prestadora de Salud also includes making improvements at an oncology clinic, clinical and pathology laboratories and outpatient centers that have recently been acquired by Pacífico Salud. One of the main goals of the partnership will be accreditation of the hospitals. The organizations will also work on strengthening patient safety, operation and the infrastructure for delivering care.  “This important endeavor is designed to raise the quality of health care services across a vast and committed corps of caregivers,” Steven J. Thompson, chief executive officer of Johns Hopkins Medicine International, said in a statement. 

With Carroll's rapidly growing senior population, county officials can expect demands for more health care services, less costly prescriptions, improved transportation and even discounts on garbage collection. "The age wave is coming and it is going to need services," Michael R. Lachance, a legislative liaison for the Maryland Department of Aging, told Carroll officials during a town meeting on senior needs at Westminster Senior Center yesterday. About 75 people attended the three-hour meeting.

Like a one-two punch, two major Maryland employers in the health care service and pharmaceutical industries were the targets last week of multibillion-dollar acquisition deals. Both homegrown companies — Human Genome Sciences Inc. and Catalyst Health Solutions Inc. — are based in Rockville. Both were courted by out-of-state companies. Human Genome ultimately rebuffed a $2.6 billion offer by biopharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline, saying it was too low. But Catalyst agreed to be acquired by a larger Illinois competitor for $4.4 billion, and Human Genome has officially acknowledged it's on the market.

John Hopkins Medicine International entered into a collaboration with a network of Peruvian hospitals in an effort to improve medical services in the area. The deal with Pacífico S.A. Entidad Prestadora de Salud also includes making improvements at an oncology clinic, clinical and pathology laboratories and outpatient centers that have recently been acquired by Pacífico Salud. One of the main goals of the partnership will be accreditation of the hospitals. The organizations will also work on strengthening patient safety, operation and the infrastructure for delivering care.  “This important endeavor is designed to raise the quality of health care services across a vast and committed corps of caregivers,” Steven J. Thompson, chief executive officer of Johns Hopkins Medicine International, said in a statement. 

Manor Care Inc. has taken control of In Home Health Inc., a major supplier of home health care services.The transaction announced yesterday gives Silver Spring-based Manor Care, which specializes in nursing home services, entry into the rapidly expanding home health industry.In Home Health, based in Minneapolis, does business in 13 states and has annual revenues of $130 million. It provides skilled nursing, rehabilitation, personal care and other services to patients in their own homes.Manor Care operates 193 facilities with 26,000 beds in 28 states.

Integrated Health Services Inc. churned out record revenues of $278.4 million in the second quarter, up 101 percent from a year ago, as it converted more health care beds to ones that are reimbursed by the government at a higher rate.The low-cost provider of health care services earned $13.9 million before extraordinary items, up 104 percent from a year ago. Earnings per share before extraordinary items were up 35 percent, to 54 cents a share.This is the 18th consecutive quarter that the Owings Mills-based company has chalked up record revenues and earnings, officials said.

Stuart Butler's op-ed ("An enterprising approach to health," Feb. 29) on what our proposed Health Enterprise Zones (HEZs) can learn from urban "economic" enterprise zones is a valuable critique. His focus on incentives, innovation and community partnerships echoes the strengths of our legislation, the Maryland Health Improvement and Disparities Reduction Act. Like economic enterprise zones, we intend to blanket a distressed community with incentives that draw in the expert people and quality services needed to address a specific problem: health disparities among underserved communities.

Manor Care Inc.'s profit before one-time special charges jumped 15 percent to $23.6 million in its fiscal first quarter, the company said yesterday.The Gaithersburg-based health care concern reported earning 37 cents a share from continuing health care real estate operations and discontinued health care services operations, compared with earnings of $20.3 million, or 32 cents a share, in the corresponding period a year earlier.Manor Care's stock slipped 56 cents a share to $32.69 yesterday.

PRINCETON, N.J. - Fourteen communities have received three-year grants from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to develop programs to help organize, finance and provide health care services to people without insurance. The grants, which average $700,000, were made under a program called Communities in Charge: Financing and Delivering Health Care to the Uninsured, which encourages communities to rethink how funds and services are organized for the uninsured. "Increasingly, the challenge of providing health care to the uninsured is falling disproportionately to local communities," said Judith Whang, senior program officer at the foundation.

Stuart Butler's op-ed ("An enterprising approach to health," Feb. 29) on what our proposed Health Enterprise Zones (HEZs) can learn from urban "economic" enterprise zones is a valuable critique. His focus on incentives, innovation and community partnerships echoes the strengths of our legislation, the Maryland Health Improvement and Disparities Reduction Act. Like economic enterprise zones, we intend to blanket a distressed community with incentives that draw in the expert people and quality services needed to address a specific problem: health disparities among underserved communities.

I don't want to pay for other people's contraceptives, abortifacients and abortions. Further, I don't want to be forced to participate in insurance plans which mandate the provision of abortions and other services to which I am morally opposed. We should have the liberty to abstain from such programs and choose other plans from a competitive insurance marketplace. The federal government is limited to enumerated powers by the Constitution, which means the states are free to establish their own insurance laws and regulations.

Before this week, when an uninsured Baltimore woman needed contraception, she had an open door to affordable, confidential services. She could go to her local family planning clinic to receive comprehensive reproductive health care services. But thanks to a last-minute rule change ordered by the departing Bush administration, this is no longer the case. Now, care can be denied if a doctor, a nurse - even a receptionist - has a moral objection to a woman's legal right to contraception or other sexual health services.

Older adults, people with mental illnesses and low-income individuals in Howard County should see improved health care services over the next few years under a new $3 million partnership between the Horizon Foundation and Howard County General Hospital. After several years of planning, the Community Health Partnership officially took shape last week with a commitment of $950,000 over four years from Horizon -- the largest grant in that philanthropy's nine-year history -- and $2.1 million from the hospital.

Ernst & Young has announced its Maryland winners for the 2006 Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award. The winners, who are eligible for the national contest, were chosen from 25 state finalists. Winners, announced last month, were chosen by six Maryland judges, from area business, academic and civic organizations. Criteria for selecting winners were based on company growth, innovation and community involvement, a spokeswoman said. Winners include: Construction services: Mark Richardson, president, Case Design/Remodeling Inc. Consumer and retail products: Brad MacDonald, chairman and chief executive officer, Medifast Inc. Financial services: Gary Marino, CEO, I4 Commerce.

The state did a poor job of providing medical care to prisoners at Baltimore's downtown prison over much of the past five years because of a flawed and underfunded contract with a private company that took effect in 2000, according to a grand jury report released yesterday. But the report, which supports findings of a Sun investigation published this year, credits the Ehrlich administration for its efforts to come up with an innovative solution to the problems through a new set of medical care contracts that state officials signed in June.

Ernst & Young has announced its Maryland winners for the 2006 Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award. The winners, who are eligible for the national contest, were chosen from 25 state finalists. Winners, announced last month, were chosen by six Maryland judges, from area business, academic and civic organizations. Criteria for selecting winners were based on company growth, innovation and community involvement, a spokeswoman said. Winners include: Construction services: Mark Richardson, president, Case Design/Remodeling Inc. Consumer and retail products: Brad MacDonald, chairman and chief executive officer, Medifast Inc. Financial services: Gary Marino, CEO, I4 Commerce.

Older adults, people with mental illnesses and low-income individuals in Howard County should see improved health care services over the next few years under a new $3 million partnership between the Horizon Foundation and Howard County General Hospital. After several years of planning, the Community Health Partnership officially took shape last week with a commitment of $950,000 over four years from Horizon -- the largest grant in that philanthropy's nine-year history -- and $2.1 million from the hospital.

IN THE LEXICON of civil service, outsourcing is too often a dirty word. It shouldn't be. The truth is governments that effectively outsource services better performed by the private sector have more money to do the important work that many people go into civil service to do - the work that the public counts on and values most. None of this is foreign to Marylanders. Right here in the state, the Army is doing it. The Navy is doing it. And the state already uses private companies to deliver important services, including health care services for the poor, math instruction, operation of the Motor Vehicle Administration's electronic licensing system and the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene's data and technology systems.

In a windowless room with map-covered walls, troop deployments are monitored meticulously. The maps are not of Iraq, but of the states from Virginia to Maine. And the "contingency operations center" is not at the Pentagon or any military facility but in the Inner Harbor headquarters of Sierra Military Health Services Inc., a Baltimore-based company that manages health care for active and retired military personnel and dependents in the Northeast. As the United States has mobilized for the war in Iraq, Sierra Military has had to marshal its own forces.