June 2007

Canadian cash cow

Canadian operation www.mdBriefCase.com.au is now targeting Australian doctors, medical students and nurse practitioners with free CME activities. As elsewhere, ‘free’ means financed by the pharmaceutical industry while the RACGP and ACCRM are paid to accredit. Heavy promotion is through regular email broadcasts and prizes offered to survey participants, with results used to fine tune content and provide feedback to sponsors. Its all about creating awareness around a product or service within a clinical area – educational grants generate particular content, usually from specialists, paid by mdBriefCase to write independently with “AMA standards for scientific validity, objectivity and completeness” whatever that is.

Research: WA’s bottomless goldmine

Research megalomania? How to get the Federal Government to cough up $100m for “two state-of-the-art medical research hubs” for WA: form an alliance. The Western Australian Institutes for Health, to be exact – 24 research organisations doing 95% of medical research in WA viz. WA Institute for Medical Research, Lions Eye Institute, Telethon Institute for Child Health Research, UWA and smaller researching hospital groups. Apparently, we can now compete on a global scale.

Clinic appointment sickies

While attendances at public hospital outpatient clinics are going up (664,000 metro general plus 430,000 in mental health), more interesting is the no shows – 180,000 people did not attend their appointment, a whopping 14.1% of all appointments, when waits are long. Not many private practices could survive on this wasted time. But given current shoddy hospital appointment scheduling and followup at some clinics, it is no surprise.

Spare parts tycoons

Benchmark pricing for prostheses is a dirty word for manufacturers. It could spell the end of skiing trips and exotic conferences for proceduralists who have made purchase decisions in the past. This means some higher priced prosthetic joints could attract a gap payment of >$2,000 and some defibrillators could reach $5,000. Spending on prostheses has jumped 500% in 10 years. A 2005 report by the Productivity Commission suggested it was hard to tell whether more expensive devices were better. A price signal was needed to encourage people to consider cost benefit.

Safety or dumb luck?

Despite adverse publicity, our public hospitals may be quite safe places. The report of the Advanced Incident Management System showed just two people died in WA public hospitals as a result of medication errors in 2005-2006. Given the potential for stuff ups and the sheer volume of medications given, only 14% of medication errors resulted in any harm. The report is buried very deep in the Health Dept website, with front page marked “not for general circulation”, which the Director of Safety and Quality for the Health Dept said was an administrative… error. Maybe we should be looking at deaths from administrative errors?

Joondalup sprouts beds

Ramsay Health Care and the state government are injecting $276m into a massive upgrade of Joondalup Health Campus. The new private hospital will have 165 beds (currently 70) and the public facility an extra 237 beds (along with 10 new theatres, and bigger diagnostics and ED). Ramsay is spending $145m with the rest from the public purse. Ramsay Managing Director Pat Grier said Joondalup is operating at full capacity.

Symbion turkeyshoot

Healthscope in partnership with private equity has proposed to Symbion Health to buy and then carve up the firm. The bid for Symbion shares is valued at around $4.30 (in a mix of Healthscope shares and cash). No affirmative deal has yet been put forward but the groups will be working on a mutual due diligence. Looks like full steam ahead. Earlier this year, Symbion rebuffed a move by Primary Health Care. If the bid succeeds the new Healthscope will bear a resemblance to the old Mayne Health Group (with hospitals, diagnostics and medical centres), although the pharmacies are likely to go to the private equity partners. The more things change …

No more wet sheets

Silver Chain has received a wad of cash from the Health Dept and Disability Services Commission to run the Continence Management and Advice Service. It’s an unglamorous job but someone has to do it: nurses will head out into the community (metro and rural) to help folks with chronic incontinence issues. No referral is necessary and patients get an assessment, follow ups, and can score up to $470/year in product subsidies.

Medical Products Group dramas

The wind-up of Medical Products Group (MPG) under a Deed of Company Arrangement has taken another bitter twist for creditors. Pharmanet Group Ltd (ASX: PNO), with Dr Chris Quirk as a director, lodged a claim of debt for $2.73m in October 06. Administrators McGrath Nicol said no but PNO said they were taking it to the Supreme Court. Catch 22. Defend the claim and lawyers soak up available funds for creditors, or settle. The undisclosed settlement will bite further – of the $0.9m available to creditors in December 2005, $246,000 has already gone to the administrators (paying $130/hr for a secretary), not to mention $66,000 to lawyers. The administrators want another $63,000, leaving just $33,596 for distribution to ordinary creditors on a debt of $1.8m – a return of just 1.86 cents in the dollar! Meanwhile, ex-MPG boss Lynn Bradshaw is behind new medical products company Medevco.