Maryland Business

The Daily Record hosted its annual Health Care Heroes awards breakfast Wednesday morning at the Hyatt Regency Baltimore. It was a great event, and I’m not just saying that because The Daily Record pays my mortgage.

It’s a pleasure talking with the doctors, nurses, public health officials and other professionals working on the front lines in an industry so central to the state’s economy and so critical to the nation’s prosperity. Their commitment to their craft is inspiring.

I encourage you to check out the publication when it hits the streets and our website Friday.

That the event was held on the same day as the one-year anniversary of President Obama signing the landmark health care reform legislation into law wasn’t lost on me, or others in attendance.

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The Sun’s Jay Hancock got well-deserved props in the Twitterverse Tuesday for his column on the latest in the St. Joseph Medical Center stent investigation (including praise from an old Daily Record/Maryland Business friend now at the Wall Street Journal).

Hancock revealed his star turn in some Abbott Laboratories’ e-mail correspondence subpoenaed by the Senate Finance Committee as part of its investigation into allegations that St. Joseph and Dr. Mark Midei needlessly implanted stents — metal mesh tubes, which Abbott makes, designed to prop open clogged heart arteries — in hundreds of patients. It seems an Abbott marketing exec took exception to a Hancock column on stents and asked a colleague if a “Philly” connection might be able to take him outside and, shall we say, do him bodily harm.

I won’t speak for Hancock, but this is typically a badge of honor for a newspaper columnist.

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When the new 18-story Mary Catherine Bunting Center opens at Mercy Medical Center this month, the state-of-the-art hospital tower will unveil an unlikely visual for an urban hospital: a series of rooftop gardens.

The gardens will stretch across the 8th, 9th and 10th-floor rooftops and will cover half of the surface.  Baltimore-based landscape architectural and urban design firm Mahan Rykiel Associates designed the highly-placed gardens as well as the streetscape. Rykiel worked with the center’s lead architectural group, Ellerbe Becket, on designs for the rooftop gardens.

Mercy officials say the roof gardens will provide a peaceful respite for patients and their families, as well as staff, at the more than $400 million brick, glass and metal structure. The gardens will feature native plantings and recycled materials, and the green roofs will help to maintain environmental sustainability.

“I refer to it as a spiritual oasis,” said Dr. Kathy Helzlsouer, of Mercy Medical Center. “You just need a break and nice environment.”

Mahan Rykiel Associates has been designing therapeutic, restorative gardens in healing and health care facilities for nearly 30 years. Other gardens by the firm are blooming (or going dormant at this point in the season) at the Kennedy Krieger Institute in east Baltimore, INOVA Hospital in Virginia and St. Luke’s Hospital in Pennsylvania.

The official opening of the new Bunting tower is Dec. 19.

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The week was dominated by politics and election news, as seen with The Daily Record’s five most-read staff-written stories.

Even a story on health care that cracked the list centers on health care reform — a galvanizing factor, pundits say, in many of the Republican victories across the country that resulted in the GOP taking control of the U.S. House of Representatives.

A story on air travel, however, tops the list. Here are summaries and links.

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The allegations surrounding unnecessary stent implants at St. Joseph Medical Center could lead to increased government scrutiny of Maryland hospitals and their medical practices.

That’s the main takeaway from a story the Baltimore Business Journal broke Wednesday morning. John M. Colmers, the state’s top health care regulator, is quoted in a nine-page report to Maryland Del. Peter Hammen suggesting ways to “enhance the state’s ability” to root out and prevent the types of medical fraud currently being investigated at St. Joseph Medical Center. Dr. Mark Midei, a cardiologist, is alleged to have performed unnecessary stent implants.

The Towson hospital has identified nearly 600 heart patients who may not have had blockages considered severe enough to warrant the implants. Midei is no longer practicing at St. Joseph.

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If you’ve followed Maryland health care politics in the last decade, Vinny DeMarco’s name should ring a bell.

He’s the guy who has fought unrelentingly for years to win health care coverage for more Marylanders, not to mention get publicity for his causes, and he’s made some impressive strides. Under DeMarco’s watch, his Health Care For All! Coalition has successfully lobbied to get coverage for 100,000 more Maryland citizens.

Now, DeMarco is the subject of a new book called The DeMarco Factor, written by Michael Pertschuk, former chairman of the Federal Trade Commission (the agency that advocates for American consumers), and founder of the Advocacy Institute.

Universal health care has been DeMarco’s most recent crusade — while interviewing him over the phone about the passage of health care reform this spring, our conversation was interrupted several times by passersby congratulating Vinny on the news — but the book tells the story of a guy who has passionately fought many other battles.

From the publisher:

In twenty years of organizing campaigns in Maryland, he has led successful efforts to pass gun control laws (against National Rifle Association opposition), to hike cigarette taxes to prevent youth smoking, and to extend health care to hundreds of thousands of low-income workers. He has also built a unique alliance of mainstream and conservative faith groups, which helped secure rare bipartisan votes in Congress for the enactment in July 2009 of landmark FDA regulation of tobacco manufacture and marketing.

The book promises backroom discussions, and apparently, DeMarco names names. Sounds like a compelling read.

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Waiting in the ER for care can be a guessing game.

It could be a relatively painless 20 minutes, or take hours. And, in some cases, the idea of a long wait might keep you from going to the hospital at all.

Now, patients in need of emergency care can tell how long they might sit and wait through a new web program offered by the emergency department at St. Joseph Medical Center in Towson. Read the rest of this entry »

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Medicaid, the country’s safety-net insurer for low-income families and individuals, is on the verge of a massive expansion, taking on coverage of millions more Americans under federal health care reform.

Expansion of the program from 70 million people to 86 million people is expected to cost billions of dollars. States, which are already struggling with delicately balanced budgets, are bracing for impact.

But a new report from UnitedHealth Group is identifying ways the federal and state governments can reduce the costs of health care reform — mostly from Medicaid efficiencies.

United says that with an estimated 274,000 new Medicaid enrollments in Maryland, it will cost the federal government $5.5 billion and the state $520 million from 2014 to 2019.

But by modernizing Medicaid, the potential savings to Maryland are huge. Tweaking the system could save Maryland $2.9 billion and the federal government $3.2 billion from 2011 to 2019, according to United. In total, making the proposed changes could save the nation $366.1 billion.

So, how does United recommend we get these savings? Here are some of their ideas:

• greater use of coordinated care techniques to improve access to high-quality care for low-income Americans
• greater use of managed care to support people with long-term care needs
• upgrading of Medicaid’s administrative and transactional processes

Some states are already proving that these approaches work. Check out the report for a lot more details and some barriers to making these plans functional.

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Just like last year, an alcohol tax is being proposed as part of health legislation in this year’s legislative session.

The bill, which has not been scheduled for a hearing, is emotional for both sides — higher taxes on the one side and health care on the other can elicit some pretty strong arguments.

Today I got an e-mail that the legislation is being renamed (maybe for an extra tug on those heart strings?) to the Lorraine Sheehan Health and Community Services Act of 2010 in honor of former Del. Sheehan who died last year. Sheehan was elected to the House of Delegates in 1974, 1978 and 1982. She also served as Maryland Secretary of State from 1983 to 1987 and was inducted into the Maryland Women’s Hall of Fame in 2002.

Emotions aside, let’s look at the breakdown. Essentially the bill would raise taxes to pay for health programs.

• Distilled spirits would go from $1.50 to $10.03 per gallon,
• Wine would go from 40 cents to $2.96 per gallon
• Beer would go from 9 cents to $1.16 per gallon

Con: Opponents of the act say restaurateurs and other distributors can’t afford another tax when the recession has made survival hard for many business owners. From the Restaurant Association of Maryland:

While tax increase supporters will argue that it has been far too long since such taxes were increased, they forget that sales tax on alcohol increased by 20 percent along with all other taxable goods and services during the most recent sales tax increase in January 2008. It would be unfair to our industry to target alcohol for another increase.

Pro: Supporters say the tax would only raise the cost by about 10 cents per drink while raising roughly $214 million in new revenue. Here’s how the revenue would be divided:

• 15 percent: Development Disability Support Fund
• 15 percent: Addiction Treatment and Prevention Fund
• 15 percent: Mental Health Care Fund
• 42.25 percent: Maryland Medicaid Trust Fund to fund health care coverage for childless adults

Like so many battles it’s business owners pitted against public programs — what side do you fall on?

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The death of former Dunbar High School basketball star and Boston Celtics captain Reggie Lewis during an off-season practice in 1993 shocked many, despite warning signs that Lewis may have had heart problems.

Lewis had previously fainted during a basketball game, setting off concerns about his heart health.

Not all athletes have a warning sign or know the risks of playing sports with heart problems. Bob Wade, Lewis’ former coach at Dunbar (and also a former head coach at the University  of Maryland), wants that to change.

Wade has teamed up with Johns Hopkins to offer a screening program to detect heart abnormalities in student athletes. Volunteers will test student athletes during the third annual Hopkins Heart Hype screening on Saturday at the 14th annual Basketball Academy Competition at Morgan State University’s student center.

Hopkins says that as many as 300 athletes from 18 teams, ranging from 14 to 18 years old, will be examined for hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM), an inherited heart defect, which produced the errant heart rhythm under exercise stress that caused Lewis’ sudden death.

Hopkins and Wade want to help more athletes discover hidden heart disease so they can save lives. They hope that their program will be a model for programs nationwide.

But some athletes may not want to know about their heart problems. After Lewis fainted during a playoff game, a team of 12 cardiologists at Boston’s New England Baptist Hospital told him he had an enlarged heart and should not play basketball. Lewis went for a second opinion at Brigham and Women’s Hospital where he got a new diagnosis that didn’t involve heart disease, rather a fainting condition brought on by exertion.

After his death, Lewis’ wife said he had gotten a third opinion and was told to monitor his heart. He was planning on doing just that, if he returned to playing for the Celtics. He just never got the chance.

Others are also working to compile a registry of sudden athlete deaths, following the deaths of several prominent athletes, including Joseph Kennedy, a Toronto Blue Jays pitcher, and Damien Nash, a Denver Broncos running back, who died after playing in a charity basketball game raising money for heart transplant research. Nash had started the Darris Nash Find a Heart Foundation for his brother, who had a transplant.

For more information, you can check out the Sudden Death in Athletes program, run by the Minneapolis Heart Institute Foundation.

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