Healthcare Roundup: Retail Clinics Limp Along, Healthcare Begs for Stimulus, California Telehealth, and More

(MoneyWatch)  Wal-Mart, Walgreens retail-clinic use "modest" -- Retail clinics staffed by physician assistants and located in stores such as Wal-Mart, Walgreens and CVS aren't drawing big crowds, a study from the Center for Studying Health System Change found. Only 2.3 percent of Americans had visited a retail clinic as of 2007, although the young and those who have been denied care or run into delays seeking treatment are much more likely to patronize the clinics. [Source: WSJ Health Blog]
Healthcare industry lines up for stimulus bucks -- Healthcare IT firms want funds for expansion of electronic medical records, biotechs want funding now in exchange for promising to forego R&D tax credits in the future, and state governors want help with Medicaid funding and hospital renovation. [Source: Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report]

California establishes "telehealth" center -- The state's new Center for Connected Health, a nonprofit organization, will promote the use of telemedicine services for patients in rural and remote areas. The California Health Care Foundation is providing $5.5 million in initial funding for an effort to improve patient access to specialists. [Source: Sacramento Business Journal]

Survey: Hospitals to cut IT budgets, staff -- Nearly half of hospital CIOs and finance officers surveyed by the National Alliance for Health Information Technology expect capital-budget cuts for heathcare IT in the coming year, and 63 percent believe software and applications will be hardest hit. Such pessimism seems to be on the rise despite an expected push by the incoming Obama administration to expand IT use in healthcare. [Source: Modern Healthcare, NAHIT]

Former LA hospital exec pleads guilty to defrauding Medicare -- Rudra Sabaratnam, former CEO of LA's City of Angels Medical Center, pleaded guilty to defrauding Medicare and Medicaid. The scheme involved paying homeless people to fake illness at the hospital, which then would charge the federal programs for "treating" them. [Source: FierceHealthcare]

Health Wonk Review is up at the e-CareManagement blog -- The biweekly review of the blogosophere's best healthcare-related commentary and analysis, Health Wonk Review, is up at the e-CareManagement blog, ably compiled by Vince Kuraitis. [Source: e-CareManagement blog]