Displaying items tagged: healthcare

KALAMAZOO — Stryker Corp. acquired Dania Beach, Fla.-based OrthoSensor Inc., a producer of sensor technology for musculoskeletal care and total joint replacement.

GRAND RAPIDS — Spectrum Health has purchased the Brass Works Building on Monroe Avenue north of downtown and is scaling back plans for the construction of a new office building on adjacent land, MiBiz has learned.

Spectrum Health entered 2020 with a goal of having half of eligible primary care patient visits with its doctors occur virtually by the end of 2022.

As COVID-19 emerged last spring and closed physician offices for non-essential care — forcing connections with patients via telehealth platforms — health insurers began to pay doctors the same for virtual visits as they do for in-person care.

Praveen Thadani starts as Priority Health’s new president this month, moving from Humana Inc. in Chicago, where he’s worked for more than seven years. He started at Humana as Illinois market president then led strategic planning across several business lines as senior vice president of strategy, product and innovation. A veteran health insurance executive with 25 years of industry experience, Thadani succeeds Joan Budden, who retired at the end of 2020 after 12 years with Priority Health, including the last five as CEO. Thadani is expected to take on the new role in early January.

In September, Dr. James Grant became chief medical director at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, making the transition during the COVID-19 pandemic that has elevated telehealth to the forefront in the industry. While a COVID-19 vaccine became available a week ago, starting with frontline health care workers and long-term care facilities, the pandemic will drive much of what happens in the health care industry in 2021, according to Grant.

A lifelong interest in diversity, equity and inclusion led Vanessa Greene to the Grand Rapids African American Health Institute, which works to address racial and ethnic disparities in health care. Greene joined GRAAHI as CEO in October, moving from Hope College where she held leadership positions in diversity and inclusion for nearly 17 years. She took over GRAAHI leadership as the COVID-19 pandemic disproportionately affected African Americans and brought greater attention to long-existing racial disparities in health care. As GRAAHI Board Chairman Paul Doyle said upon Greene’s hiring: “Now, more than ever, it is important to continue to highlight the systemic inequities and racial health disparities in our community.”

Joan Budden retires Dec. 31 as CEO of Priority Health, Michigan’s second-largest health plan with more than 1 million people statewide enrolled in policies. As she prepares to depart after 12 years with the Grand Rapids-based Priority Health, the last five as CEO, Budden expects COVID-19 pandemic will continue to cause disruptions. That includes within Priority Health, which had to adjust its operations because of state-ordered restrictions, as well as with the broader trend toward increased use of telehealth services, Budden told MiBiz. 

More Michigan hospitals are now vaccinating health care workers as doses of the Pfizer Inc. vaccine arrive.

GRAND HAVEN — Spectrum Health plans to buy out Holland Hospital’s interest in Health Pointe, an outpatient medical campus developed in Grand Haven through a joint venture, MiBiz has learned.

GRAND RAPIDS — Perrigo Co. plc is seeking a 12-year incentive agreement estimated at $4.1 million in total property tax savings for its plans to relocate its North American headquarters to downtown.

GRAND RAPIDS — Spectrum Health vaccinated its first medical staff today hours after receiving the first doses from Pfizer Inc., ushering in what President and CEO Tina Freese Decker called the “next chapter in our fight against COVID-19.”

Five hospitals in West Michigan were among 32 statewide to earn an “A” in a fall report card on patient safety.

LANSING — State officials expect Michigan to receive nearly 260,000 initial doses of COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer Inc. and Moderna Inc., based on federal estimates.

GRAND RAPIDS -- Convergint Technologies LLC in Schaumburg, Ill., has acquired Grand Rapids-based Innovative Medical Systems Inc., a reseller of acute care and technical products for hospitals.

Hospitals want Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to extend restrictions that are set to expire tomorrow night extended through the holiday season.

GRAND RAPIDS — Mary Free Bed Rehabilitation Hospital has temporarily added beds to ease pressure on other hospitals in the region that are stressed with a surge in COVID-19 patients.

Professional burnout was a big problem in health care well before COVID-19.

As they manage the ongoing surge of COVID-19 patients, hospitals are preparing to receive and distribute vaccines that could ease and eventually bring an end to the pandemic.

Michigan has made progress since the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic to address racial disparities and reduce the death and infection rates among African Americans, state officials say.

Priority Health plans to give large employers a rebate early next year on their employee health coverage, a result of lower medical claims from the COVID-19 pandemic.

CALEDONIA — Aspen Surgical Products Inc. completed its third acquisition in less than a year after buying Protek Medical Products Inc. in Coralville, Iowa.

As reports continue to rank Michigan as one of the least competitive markets in the nation, the statewide trade group representing HMOs wants to ensure that insurance carriers are able to pursue business when employers bid out employee health coverage.

Roughly three-quarters of West Michigan business executives and other professionals support a statewide mask mandate for indoor gatherings as well as another round of federal stimulus funding, according to a survey last week of nearly 400 MiBiz readers.

Bronson Methodist Hospital and Ascension Borgess in Kalamazoo were named among the top 50 heart hospitals in the U.S. by Fortune and IBM Watson Health.

GRAND RAPIDS — The number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients that Spectrum Health is treating could surge far higher by early December if present infection rates continue unabated.

MUSKEGON — Mercy Health Muskegon plans to open a care unit Thursday at the Hackley campus to handle a surge in COVID-19 patients.

LANSING — With hospital bed capacity and staffing increasingly stretched thin, exponential growth in positive cases statewide and limited contact tracing ability, the Whitmer administration is urging Michigan residents to help stop the spread of COVID-19.

After hospitalizations statewide doubled in just two weeks, health care executives across Michigan are emphasizing the need for people to follow public health guidelines to get the spread of the coronavirus back under control.

As the COVID-19 pandemic surges, hospitals have the ability to add the beds needed to handle the influx of patients.