Health PlaNET

Date: Sept. 8, 1999
Time: 10:08 am

Health Maintenance organizations (HMOs) in Massachusetts have been given until November to bring in sweeping consumer-friendly reforms or risk losing their nonprofit status.

Massachusetts Secretary of State William Galvin told the Boston Globe yesterday that he is taking on the HMOs to protect consumers from what he considers a major health care crisis that is spreading beyond the medical coverage of seniors to those insured by employers.

The Globe reports that a 6-month study of business practices concluded that the state's 3 biggest HMOs -- Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Inc., Fallon Community Health Plan and Tufts Associated Health Maintenance Organization -- are operating like profitable businesses even though they are losing money.

Galvin, whose office oversees nonprofit organizations, is also pressuring the state board that regulates pharmacies to require drug stores to disclose to consumers the wholesale prices of their prescriptions, along with the actual payment contributions from insurers.

-- Source: The Boston Globe, Sept. 7

Transplant fiasco

The Mainichi Daily News reported yesterday that Japanese guidelines on brain death were found wanting this week when doctors had to call off a procedure to harvest organs from a donor.

In preparation for harvesting the organs from the donor who had lapsed into coma following a traffic accident, doctors at Fujita Health University Hospital were following government guidelines that demand 5 specific tests be conducted twice before a patient can be legally considered brain dead. However, because one of the donor's eardrums had split, doctors could not conduct one of the required tests -- injecting ice water into the ear to check eye movement. The doctors had checked the other ear and thought that was sufficient under Japan's Organ Transplant Law, but

Health and Welfare Ministry (http://www.mhw.go.jp/english/index.html) officials disagreed and forced cancellation of the procedure. The guidelines provide no definite procedures on confirming brain death when one ear of a prospective donor is injured. The ministry plans to recommend an expert panel be formed to discuss the issue and avoid future problems.

-- Source: the Mainichi Daily News, Sept. 7

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