Healthcare Roundup: Health CEOs Embrace Reform, Industry Crashes Reform Parties, Mass. Hospital Cutbacks, and More

(MoneyWatch)  Healthcare CEOs create reform advocacy group -- Chief executives of several large hospital chains, health-insurance providers and drug companies formed Health CEOs for Health Reform, a group that intends to push for changes that expand coverage and create a "sustainable" healthcare system. Founding members include executives of Catholic Healthcare West, Blue Shield of California and Merck. The group, "facilitated" by the New America Foundation, claims support measures that will "change their business models." [Sources: Modern Healthcare, HC4HR]

Insurers, drug companies aim to crash healthcare-reform house parties -- Supporters of president-elect Barack Obama plan more than 4,000 house parties to discuss healthcare reform, and health-insurance companies, drugmakers and other healthcare businesses are encouraging employees and satisfied customers to attend. Obama officials say they're welcome, calling the meetings "listening sessions." [Source: NYT]

Detroit hospital cuts heart-attack treatment times -- By establishing a dedicated angioplasty team, the Detroit Medical Center has cut waiting times for heart-attack patients roughly in half. But the approach, which involves paying specialists to sleep at the hospital, costs well over $1 million a year in overtime costs alone and increases the likelihood the team may be conducting unnecessary and expensive procedures. [Source: Detroit Free Press]

Massachusetts hospitals delay, scrap expansion projects -- The weak economy and the credit crunch have caused a major reduction in Massachusetts hospital projects. Partners Healthcare is cutting capital spending by $1 billion over the next five years, Children's Hospital Boston is cutting investment by a third, and Baystate Health is considering scaling back a $259 million "Hospital of the Future." [Source: Boston Globe]

Stiglitz: Deploy evidence-based medicine -- Writing in Health Affairs, Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz calls for establishing "value-based" drug payments based on the actual effectiveness of medications and for conducting head-to-head drug trials aimed at providing data to support those decisions. [Sources: Health Affairs, WSJ Health Blog]

Short takes:

• Insurers and banks rush to create health-savings accounts [Fierce HealthFinance]
• Pennsylvania's Commonwealth Medical Center closes [Modern Healthcare]
• Moody's accelerates nonprofit hospital-bond downgrades [HFMA News]
• HHS subpoenas DaVita documents in drug-administration probe [Modern Healthcare]
• Hospital Systems acquisition of St. Anthony halted [Modern Healthcare]
• New York governor calls for $4B in healthcare cuts [Modern Healthcare]
• High-tech CT angiography usefulness questioned [WSJ Health Blog]