Three startups split prize in Children’s ‘shark tank’
"The panel of judges included venture capitalists, doctors, and entrepreneur Daymond John, a star of the television show “Shark Tank.” Brigham and Women’s Hospital held a similar contest several months ago, with the show’s Kevin O’Leary, a Boston venture capitalist."
At least it wasn't a three-headed hound doling out the dough:
Coakley reviewing Quincy hospital closing
Why bother? Let Healy do it.
"Quincy Medical Center to close; Would be largest Mass. hospital closure in a decade" by Priyanka Dayal McCluskey and Robert Weisman | Globe Staff November 06, 2014
Steward Health Care System said Thursday that it would close Quincy Medical Center and displace nearly 700 workers after the long-struggling hospital finally succumbed to the intense competition for patients south of Boston.
The shutdown, scheduled to be completed by the end the year, marks the biggest hospital closing in the state in at least a decade and the first failure for Steward, the for-profit company that promised to reinvent community health care when it entered the Massachusetts market four years ago.
Steward bought the 124-year-old Quincy Medical Center out of bankruptcy in 2011 and said it poured $100 million into equipment, maintenance, and other upgrades to try to make it profitable. But patients still chose to seek care elsewhere, and the losses at Quincy Medical Center mounted. The hospital is on track to lose $20 million this year.
The problem, Steward executives and health care specialists said, is that there are too many hospital beds in the area....
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Also see: Man faces burglary charges after quick action by Quincy teen
"Deborah Enos to step down as Neighborhood Health CEO" November 05, 2014
The chief executive of Boston-based Neighborhood Health Plan said Wednesday she will step down as the plan struggles with tens of millions of dollars in losses.
Deborah C. Enos will leave the job Feb. 1 and be replaced by the chief operating officer, David Segal.
Neighborhood Health Plan primarily serves patients on Medicaid, which pays less than commercial insurers for the same care. The nonprofit health plan has a projected operating loss of $99 million for the 12-month period that ended Sept. 30. It blamed the losses on a surge of new members and covering an expensive new hepatitis C drug.
The losses were a drag on the earnings of Neighborhood’s parent, Partners HealthCare, the state’s largest health system....
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Related: Partners No More
Also see: State signs $41b Medicaid agreement with feds
Looks good, right?
Well, "Massachusetts is getting less money in the waiver than state officials initially requested — they didn’t say how much — but Health and Human Services Secretary John Polanowicz said the agreement is significant because it is the first time the state has negotiated a five-year agreement, giving the budget more stability."
We will see if the new Republican Congre$$ clears that all away.
NEXT DAY UPDATE:
"Partners pays a price after bid for South Shore Hospital" by Robert Weisman and Scott Allen | Globe Staff November 09, 2014
Executives at other hospitals had grumbled for years about Partners HealthCare, privately calling the owner of Massachusetts General and Brigham & Women’s hospitals an “800-pound gorilla” that always seemed to get its way, often at their expense.
But it wasn’t until Partners struck a deal with Attorney General Martha Coakley in May to acquire three more hospitals that rivals finally took a public stand. Within days, leaders from four health care systems met for dinner at Tufts Medical Center, each agreeing to potentially pour hundreds of thousands of dollars into lawyers and consultants to fight the expansion.
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The hospital uprising — which included Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, breaking rank with its fellow Harvard-affiliated teaching hospitals — helped transform a deal that once seemed almost a foregone conclusion into one of the most contentious and closely watched hospital expansion pushes in the country....
Time to put it down.
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