Health Imaging & IT - October 2007 - (Page 12) n e W s u p d At e whistleblower suit filed against Iasis Healthcare services provider Iasis Healthcare of Franklin, Tenn., is facing a whistleblower lawsuit that alleges it illegally compensated doctors to refer patients to Iasis hospitals and performed unnecessary medical services, including interventional cardiology procedures, to boost its profits. The suit, which was brought under the False Claims Act, has been under seal in federal district court in Phoenix for more than two years, according to Iasis. Jerre Frazier, a former vice president for ethics and compliance for Iasis Healthcare, filed the lawsuit on behalf of the U.S. government. Frazier also served as Iasis chief compliance officer and as chairman of its corporate compliance committee. A federal judge unsealed the lawsuit against Iasis Healthcare after the government filed a notice that it was unable to meet a court-imposed deadline for a decision on whether it would intervene in the case. The government said it is investigating the allegations and would decide whether to intervene once its investigation was completed. Iasis said it intends to vigorously defend itself against its former employee’s allegations. BUSINESS BUZZ Royal Philips Electronics will split into three discrete firms, focused on lighting, consumer lifestyle and healthcare, which the IT giant believes will simplify its structure. Philips will combine its Home Healthcare Solutions with Philips Medical Systems, and rename them Philips Healthcare. Steve Rusckowski, the current CEO of Philips Medical Systems, will become CEO of Philips Healthcare on Jan. 1, 2008. Agfa HealthCare has signed a second, five-year agreement to provide Enterprise PACS technology for the Florida Division of Adventist Health System in Orlando. The new $35 million agreement covers all 17 Adventist Health hospitals in the Florida Division. Diagnostic imaging center operator RadNet entered into an agreement to manage 20 imaging centers formerly owned and operated by Nydic Open MRI of America. The operations of the Montvale, N.J.-based Nydic were recently foreclosed upon by its primary lender. RadNet reached an agreement with that lender to manage the former Nydic facilities through its wholly-owned subsidiary, RadNet Managed Imaging Services (RMIS). The Nydic chain of MRI centers operates in 11 states and produces annual net revenue of approximately $30 million. The European Commission publicized its inquiry deadline for Siemens AG’s proposed $7 billion acquisition of Dade Behring Holdings, a diagnostic products developer of Deerfield, Ill. The deadline is set for Oct. 25. On July 25, Siemens initiated an agreement to acquire all of the outstanding shares of Dade Behring for $77 per share in cash. Microsoft released a health common user interface (CUI) providing platformindependent guidance for designing clinical interfaces that can be implemented on any software technology, as well as a reference implementation on its platform and its .NET framework. The CUI design guide proposes a standard for the display of critical medical details. CTA POST BYPASS REVEALS SIGNIFICANT FINDINGS performing cardiac computed tomography angiography (CTa) after coronary artery bypass surgery (CaBG) can reveal unsuspected and potentially significant findings beyond the heart, according to a study published in the American Journal of Roentgenology. The study, conducted by researchers at the University of Maryland school of Medicine in Baltimore, included 259 patients who had a cardiac CTa examination postoperatively. Of these 259 patients, 51 had at least one unsuspected, potentially significant finding. Of these, 24 had a cardiac finding such as intracardiac thrombus, and 34 patients had a non-cardiac finding such as pulmonary embolism, lung cancer, or pneumonia, according to the authors. senior author Charles white, Md, said that a fairly high rate of abnormalities are found incidentally outside the coronary arteries and bypass grafts. Boston hospitals duel over cancer treatment facility Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Massachusetts General Hospital are feuding over a $13 million cancer treatment facility currently being built at Newton-Wellesley Hospital. Mass General proposed the facility in 2006. In February of this year, officials at Beth Israel filed a 10 Taxpayer Group petition opposing the project, because they already operate a similar facility less than 5 miles away. Massachusetts regulators control the number of hospitals allowed to use linear accelerators. 12 O C T O B E R 2 0 07 | Health Imaging & IT Pricewaterhouse rates healthcare’s P4P incomplete PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) released a report on the nation’s commercial health insurers pay for performance (P4P) programs, which stated that P4P has only served to temporarily conceal a fundamentally flawed payment system. PwC said that P4P would currently receive an incomplete report card because the research firm found conflicting definitions of quality or cooperation on standards, resulting in an inflating number of diverse measures, and insufficient financial incentives to change physician behavior. STAY CONNECTED: For daily news, log onto HealthImaging.com HealthImaging.com http://HealthImaging.com http://HealthImaging.com
For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.