Here’s what’s happening in health in Rhode Island, Nov. 29:
MEDICAID: Rhode Island has been awarded about $130 million dollars from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid to continue overhauling its Medicaid program.
The money matches dollars Rhode Island is already spending to help health care providers provide better, more coordinated care and to train more health care workers. State officials say the goal is to pay for the quality of care Medicaid patients receive, to pay for keeping people healthy, rather than pay for quantity, or fee-for-service. The system is moving in that direction but work remains to be done. This new matching grant of $130M over five years will allow Medicaid to give health care providers some money up front to make the adjustments to deliver this kind of care – to help them pay for things like electronic medical record software or hiring nurse case managers. Some of the money will go to state institutions of higher education to help train more local health care workers. To get even deeper into the wonky health care policy weeds, the money will flow through what Rhode Island calls “accountable entities,” or networks of health care providers like hospitals and doctors’ offices that have joined forces to manage the health of their patient populations (by meeting certain quality targets) and, in turn, be paid for that kind of work. Questions were raised at the press conference announcing this new grant about whether the money is locked in, or a new presidential administration could rescind the award. State officials were non-committal with an answer, but expressed confidence the money would continue to flow because of the state’s innovative approaches to Medicaid “reform.”
WOMEN & INFANTS RENOVATION: Women & Infants Hospital filed a letter of intent with the Rhode Island Department of Health for a proposed renovation of its labor and delivery unit. It’s the first step before filing something called a “certificate of need,” which must be approved before the hospital can begin work. The hospital said in a statement that the current labor and delivery space was designed in 1986, but that there have been big changes in the hospital’s population, methods of health care delivery, and the introduction of new technology since then. Hospital officials say the project would renovate all 20 labor rooms and enlarge the room size from 220 square feet to the current guidelines of 400 square feet with a private bathroom and shower in each room. The renovation will cost just under $20 million dollars, officials said, and should be completed by fall of 2018.
LEUKEMIA: Memorial Hospital is currently recruiting patients for studies of new drugs to combat leukemia. For more information, call (401) 226-0605.
