WSTB

Things are pretty dire on Hawthorne Hill.

http://www.journalnow.com/business/busi ... 0f31a.html

Times seem to be reallyyyy hard @ WFUBMC. It would appear that a perfect storm has struck the medical center with the simultaneous implementation of this Epic electronic medical billing system (which it would appear that they tried to accomplish in way to short a time frame) and the unfortunate ruling that ended their income stream in the WoundVac system that ended 3-4 years sooner than they anticipated. A quick glance of the numbers seem to indicate that the $40-45 million the system had been receiving from the WoundVac pretty much coincides with the deficit they are currently experiencing. Which I frankly don't get. When you establish a contract that shares revenues from a discovery such as this, it would appear that the number of years that an entity will benefit from the royalties of the product would be unambiguous. Not sure how the Med Ctr. got caught unawares.

On a more positive note!!

http://www.journalnow.com/news/local/ar ... f6878.html

Brenner Children's Hospital in Winston-Salem was recently ranked among the top 50 hospitals in three specialties by U.S. News & World Report, receiving recognition for neonatology, orthopedics and urology. The publication surveyed 179 pediatric centers around the country and highlighted the top 50 in 10 specialties, with 87 children's hospitals ranking in the top 50 in at least one specialty.

Brenner Children's Hospital, part of Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, ranked 36th in neonatology, 44th in orthopedics and 33rd in urology and led other North Carolina hospitals in the urology rankings. The rankings focused primarily on analysis of patient outcomes and data about the resources a hospital has for pediatric care. The rankings also took into account the reputation of the hospital using a survey of 1,500 physicians.

This is the first year Brenner has been named to the list, which has been compiled since 2007.

Winston-Salem has become an elite community when it comes to treating stroke patients, with both local hospitals having earned certification as an advanced comprehensive stroke center by The Joint Commission. Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center announced its status Monday. The commission’s website lists Wake Forest Baptist’s effective date as May 24. Forsyth Medical Center earned the designation Feb. 5.

Congratulations to both our medical centers for this achievement.

http://www.journalnow.com/business/busi ... f6878.html

The nurse anesthesia program at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center has become the first program in the United States, and the second in the world, to be accredited by the International Federation of Nurse Anesthetists, the program announced on Tuesday.

Accreditation means the master’s degree program at Wake Forest Baptist complies with the group’s standards for educating nurse anesthetists, which have been endorsed by its member organizations in 36 countries. The status, which is valid for five years, was awarded following submission of a self-study by Wake Forest Baptist and an onsite visit by group representatives. The Wake Forest Baptist program was founded in 1942, making it the oldest in North Carolina and one of the oldest in the nation. The program provides international learning opportunities for students.

The international group, founded in 1989, is dedicated to the advancement of educational standards and practices that advance the art and science of anesthesiology. Its program-approval process has three levels: registration, recognition and accreditation.


http://www.journalnow.com/news/local/ar ... f6878.html

New high level hire at WFUBMC as reported by WSJ:

Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center has named Terry G. Williams its executive vice president of strategy and network development.

This is a newly created position. Williams will be responsible for overall strategy and leadership for affiliations, business intelligence, partnerships, joint ventures and management agreements. “Even in these difficult financial times, we need to make investments in people, systems and processes that are required to succeed in the coming world of value-based health care reimbursement,” said Dr. John D. McConnell, the chief executive at Wake Forest Baptist. “The integration of strategy, clinical business development and informatics will be essential to being both effective and efficient in new models of care where we will be rewarded for decreasing health care utilization.”

Over his 20-plus year career, Williams has worked with more than 200 health care organizations. For the past three years, he was chief strategy and growth officer at a 12-hospital, $2.7-billion health system in the mid-west. Williams earned his MBA from Emory University and a graduate diploma in economics from the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England, where he was a Rotary Scholar.

TBJ REPORTS:

Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center has named Dr. Boris Pasche director of its newly expanded Comprehensive Cancer Center on its main Winston-Salem campus. Pasche follows Dr. Frank Torti in the position, who left the cancer center in 2012 to become dean of the University of Connecticut School of Medicine. Pasche begins his new role March 1. "Following an extensive national search, we have recruited an internationally known and truly outstanding physician scientist to lead the Comprehensive Cancer Center," said Wake Forest Baptist CEO Dr. John McConnell.

A native of Switzerland, Pasche comes to Winston-Salem from the University of Alabama at Birmingham, where he is now director of the division of hematology and oncology. He's a second UAB researcher and official to join the top ranks at Wake Forest Baptist. Dr. Edward Abraham, now dean of the Wake Forest School of Medicine, came to Winston-Salem from UAB, where he had served as chair of the department of medicine and of medical science leadership.

Another year of a lower operating cost leads WFBMC to cut several hundred more jobs.

http://www.journalnow.com/news/local/mo ... 4c1f5.html

Having spent a lot of time in and around WFUBMC over the past several months, I can report a general deterioration of the physical plant. Peeling paint, rusted metal and scuffed, scruffy walls and floors. The place has a decayed feel to it, certainly not the ambience one expects from a 'world-class' medical center.

All this is just to say that they clearly have chosen to prioritize something other than staff or maintenance. Hmm. Executive compensation?

And then people will want to know if Forsyth has the services they need close to home in Winston-Salem and they lose customers, as Novant requests them to stay in THEIR network. I agree that Davie's hospital should've been replaced by a modern building in the center of their county to serve them. I remember posting on this at the time this project was proposed, saying it belonged in Mocksville.

I've had the displeasure of using WFUBMC's facilities a lot lately and can report that they're increasingly decrepit. This move to decentralize also makes it increasingly inconvenient for people with multiple issues to get care. Just an odd and dismaying dismantling of what was a signature institution.

Anyone else heard rumors that WFBMC might be sold? Hearing Carolina Healthcare Systems (i think) is interested in acquiring Baptist, primarily because of the academic affiliation.

I can't claim to know much of anything about the hospital -- I've never even been; only driven past it a billion times -- but from what I've been reading on this board, a change in management might not be a bad thing.

Huh, separating the Medical Center from Wake Forest the only real development engine in W-S.

I haven't heard about it. I didn't think a university would sell its hospital? I thought because a major private university owned it, this would never become an issue. Also, what happens if there is a future conflict between the university and the owners of the hospital? I do know these two healthcare systems have worked together in the past and those projects always benefited Winston-Salem with jobs.

The university research side of the hospital is the economic driver of the city at present. I'm guessing Wake Forest is looking into selling the now unprofitable hospital, but if they keep it, they can turn it around. Due to the certificate of need program, I don't think CMC would take anything from Winston-Salem. If they want a bigger partnership, where Wake's medical school is involved in the entire Carolinas System, they could offer a revenue stream to the medical school. This could change whatever plans they have downtown and could explain the delay in building the medical school downtown? Everyone from the TBJ to Dr. Eric Tomlinson to people working on projects at WFIQ spoke as if it was to be under construction in February, but sometime in December or January, things changed. I have been concerned that project could be cancelled, but it also could be expanded? There are many questions: If they sell the hospital, would they have to move all of their operations from Hawthorne Hill to downtown, linking it with the streetcar, where it becomes an operations central for CMC Winston-Salem or maybe several hospitals? Do they lose all say over the hospital? That would be bad for the medical school. The real down side would be the cost savings from selling the hospital, which could lead to thousands of layoffs in Winston-Salem. If it's Carolinas wanting to make their entire system a Wake Forest University Hospital System, hopefully, Wake Forest will realize they have the upper hand to ask for a dual headquarters in a situation like that, instead of sending everything an hour down the road. That would give Wake Forest a say in all of the hospitals and remove some of the risk from an argument between the two that could negatively impact Wake Forest's medical school. It could be nothing more than just selling all or part of the hospital though, resulting in few changes, other than more administrative layoffs. If it is sold, hopefully, they will use the money to relocate all of their educational & research facilities to downtown. That would help them reach their goal for the IQ District and have a major positive transformative impact on the city that would replace all of the lost jobs in the deal and generate many more. Of course this could also be the university just outsourcing some operations to CMC, like Cone did, and people are hearing of these talks and thinking the hospital is for sale? I've never heard of a university selling their hospital, but have seen many of these outsourcing deals. Of course Wake has started Winston-Salem based companies in the past with CMC and could be doing this again to save money for both hospital systems, while creating jobs in Winston-Salem?