FOCUS TOPIC: PUBLIC HEALTH JANUARY 2015 / $5
SERVING AN 18 COUNTY AREA, INCLUDING BIRMINGHAM, HUNTSVILLE, MONTGOMERY & TUSCALOOSA
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What a Baptist-Brookwood Merger Means By SteVe SPenCer
Mission Work at Home OB/GYN Finds Satisfaction in Volunteering Before he retired from delivering babies a few years ago, obstetrician/ gynecologist Ronald W. Orso, MD estimates that he delivered some 5,000 during his career. But one of them in particular is commemorated with a photo on his office wall ... page 3
Using Bacteria to Cure Pancreatic Cancer The communication system used by bacteria may soon prove to be the most innovative and harmless treatment for fighting cancer. Senthil Kumar, an assistant research professor and assistant director of the Comparative Oncology and Epigenetics Laboratory ... page 7
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Big news hit Birmingham on December 15th when Baptist Health System announced that it had signed a non-binding Letter of Intent with a subsidiary of Tenet Healthcare Corporation, the parent of Brookwood Medical Center, to form a new, jointlyowned company that will include all Baptist Health System hospitals, Brookwood Medical Center, and their related businesses. The parties are now in a due diligence period, which is intended to result in a definitive agreement. If this merger goes through, the combined entity will be huge. Brookwood has 3000 employees while Baptist employs 4300. The two organizations would combine for over 60,000 annual admissions with 1650 credentialed physicians. According to Bill Cockrell of Cockrell, Egeland and Associates, the proposed combination holds several opportunities for the hospitals and their patients. “In the current environment, it’s difficult to increase revenue,” Cockrell says. “So it’s important to control costs.
The biggest cost saving opportunity is to increase efficiency by eliminating redundant services. For example, maybe you consolidate the cardiology programs at one hospital. That’s going to be difficult to do because most hospitals don’t want to give up a service line. “So the most likely cost savings will come through the purchasing departments. This alliance gives Baptist access to Tenet’s buying power which should reduce their expenses. That’s a big deal.” And while increasing revenue is difficult, Cockrell explains that the combined, larger entity might grow volume because, with more physician-patient experiences to study, the organization (CONTINUED ON PAGE 6)
PUBLIC HEALTH FOCUS
E-cigarettes Reveal New Danger to Children By Jane ehrhardt
A search for electronic cigarette stores in Birmingham quickly generates 30 listings on the Yellow Pages site. “If e-cigarettes could totally replace combustible products, it would appear—for a large volume of adults now smoking—that it would have some benefits from a public health perspective,” says Donna Arnett, PhD, professor and chair of the UAB Department of Epidemiology. But research has shown that, instead, most smokers are dual product users. “They’re using e-cigarettes when they can’t smoke,” Arnett says, continuing the conundrum over the benefits and hazards of e-cigarettes. The positive of e-cigarettes comes from producing a vapor (CONTINUED ON PAGE 6)
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