Month: June 2012

The San Francisco-based service, called Good Medicine Consult & Advocacy, is the brainchild of Dr. Jennifer Brokaw, 46, who was an emergency room physician for 14 years and saw firsthand that the needs and wishes of most patients were not being met by the doctors who cared for them in crisis situations….Sara C. Stephens, a nurse, and Dr. Lael Conway Duncan, an internist, joined her in the project. Ms. Stephens flew to La Crosse, Wis., to be trained in health care advocacy at Gundersen Lutheran Health System. Through its trainees, tens of thousands of nurses, social workers and chaplains have been taught how to help patients plan for future care decisions. (NY TIMES, 6/19)

The world changed spectacularly for Assurant Health in March 2010 when Congress passed the Affordable Care Act. For the past two years, the Milwaukee health insurer, a company with $1.8 billion in revenue last year, has been reacting to the changes and preparing for changes yet to come. (JOURNAL SENTINEL, 6/18)

Not long after Michigan State University started a medical school in 1964, officials realized they needed more hospitals or clinics where students could get hands-on experience. So the university, based in East Lansing, Mich., branched out with satellite campuses that not only expanded opportunities for students, but also beefed up hospital staffing and improved health care in the chosen communities. The network of seven campuses now is serving as a model for the Medical College of Wisconsin, as the suburban Milwaukee-based institution considers a similar statewide expansion that could begin in Green Bay. (GANNETT, 6/18)

Nearly 17 years after the birth of Andean Health and Development, the organization is expanding to train Ecuadorean physicians and work toward opening a hospital in Santo Domingo, Ecuador, just west of the capital, Quito. The Milwaukee native behind the nonprofit organization, physician David Gaus, along with the Rev. Theodore Hesburgh, started a hospital in 2000 in Pedro Vicente Maldonado, a small rural district in the Pichincha province. (JOURNAL SENTINEL, 6/15)

If the nation’s high court upholds the health care reform law, Gov. Scott Walker’s administration would wait until the presidential and Senate elections in November in hope of evading the law’s mandates. (APPLETON POST CRESCENT, 6/15)

Seven Aurora Health Care primary care doctors based in Racine will begin phasing out Wheaton Franciscan Healthcare’s All Saints’ hospital in Racine as a place where they admit patients. (MILWAUKEE BUSINESS JOURNAL, 6/14)

Should the Supreme Court overturn President Obama's health care law this month, there's "no doubt it would provide greater stability for employers," Wisconsin's Republican Gov. Scott Walker said in Washington Wednesday. (CBS NEWS, 6/14)

Imagine, for a moment, a hospital that is able to provide its own energy through new renewable energy projects like biofuels and solar power and improved energy efficiency efforts. In other words, the hospital will never have to pay another energy bill again. Sounds a little far-fetched, right? Well, it's not far-fetched at all. In fact, officials at Gundersen Lutheran Health System in La Crosse, Wis., are trying to make their health system 100 percent energy independent — meaning they will be completely self-sufficient on all their energy needs — by 2014. (BECKER’S HOSPITAL REVIEW, 6/13)