News in brief - May 16, 2011

Pennsylvania hospitals financially healthier, but providing more uncompensated care

Stock market gains have improved the balance sheets of Pennsylvania hospitals, but increased need for uncompensated care remains a financial strain, according to data released May 6 by the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council.

The report, "Financial Analysis 2010, Volume One," is available online (www.phc4.org/reports/fin/10).

After two years of declines, the average total margin for hospitals in Pennsylvania grew from 2% in fiscal year 2009 to 5.3% in fiscal year 2010. Most of the gains were driven by nonoperating income, primarily from stocks, bonds and other investment vehicles. They grew from a loss of $535 million to a profit of $348 million.

However, uncompensated care continued to challenge hospital finances. The Hospital & Healthsystem Assn. of Pennsylvania used that fact to argue against proposed Medicaid cuts. The amount of uncompensated care provided by hospitals grew 8%, from $825 million in fiscal year 2009 to $891 million in fiscal year 2010.

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Inflation in health care sector slows slightly

The amount of money paid for health care grew faster than inflation for the economy as a whole, but more slowly than in the past, according to data released May 3.

The Thomson Reuters Healthcare Spending Index for Private Insurance, which tracks the medical expenses of people covered by self-funded employer-sponsored health plans, increased 5.8% in 2010. The expenses went up 6.6% in 2009.

The amount of money paid for hospital care grew the fastest, at 7.9%. Costs related to care by physicians increased by 4.9%, and drug costs escalated by 1%.

Analysis suggested that diagnoses associated with behavioral risk factors such as obesity, inactivity and tobacco use accounted for 24% of annual spending. Researchers suggest targeting the issues may help employers reduce medical expenditures.

"Costs continue to increase, but the slower rate of health care inflation is notable in a year when overall inflation grew at a rate of 2.7%," said Gary Pickens, PhD, chief research officer at the Thomson Reuters Center for Healthcare Analytics. "As we investigate the individual drivers of health care cost increases, it becomes clear that there's an opportunity for employers to intervene with programs designed to address unhealthy behaviors."

More information about the index is available online (healthcarescience.thomsonreuters.com/Indexes/spending_index/).

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Social network users donate personal health data for research

Researchers from Children's Hospital Boston found health-focused social networks a viable resource for chronic disease surveillance.

Kenneth Mandl, MD, MPH, and Elissa Weitzman of the Children's Hospital Informatics Program combined a disease-specific social network with Facebook-like tools that have personally controlled health records to gauge patients' willingness to share personal health data for public health research.

Members of TuDiabetes.org, a social network community geared toward diabetic patients, were invited to participate in a "data donation drive." Participants could submit personal health information about their hemoglobin A1c status anonymously or publicly on an application called TuAnalyze. The data were aggregated and displayed on state and county maps in real time.

Within three months, 17% of active TuDiabetes members and 21% of active members in the U.S. had signed on to TuAnalyze. Among all TuAnalyze users, 81.4% share their data in aggregate, and 34.1% also displayed personal A1c data on their TuDiabetes profile page.

Researchers said the A1c data reported by TuAnalyze users were comparable to those reported in the most recent National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Their findings were published April 27 in PloS ONE, an online peer-reviewed, open-access journal (www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0019256).

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