Primary Care News
Bank of America commits $40 million to expand access to primary health care
To increase access to health care services in medically underserved communities, Bank of America has committed $40 million in low-cost, long-term capital to finance the development and expansion of community health care centers and other primary care facilities across the United States. Bank of America will partner with non-profit community development financial institutions (CDFIs) to distribute the funding. In addition, Bank of America will provide $100,000 in philanthropic grants to help with CDFI operational costs and help spark the creation of new health centers.
Bank of America will provide low-cost capital to several CDFI partners, including Primary Care Development Corporation (PCDC). To date, PCDC has financed more than $1.34 billion in primary care projects through direct investment and leverage. Such investments support facility acquisition and renovation, program and practice transformation, operating support, service line growth, and technology acquisition. PCDC strengthens service delivery through training and technical assistance and advocates for meaningful policy change to improve primary care financing, reimbursement, service delivery, and workforce training and pipeline development. Over the last 30 years, through a combination of financing and technical assistance, the organization has created and preserved more than 18,000 jobs while impacting millions of people.
MGMA data shows that physician compensation increased in 2021
According to a new report from MGMA, data shows that despite the continued pandemic-related disruptions in 2021, medical practices managed to restore a sense of normalcy in productivity and compensation. The 2022 MGMA Provider Compensation and Production report, which reflects data from over 192,000 providers across 7,7000 organizations, found that compensation for most physician specialties reached or exceeded pre-pandemic levels in 2021. Here are some of the key takeaways:
- Physician compensation is on the rise
- Primary care, surgical specialist and nonsurgical specialist physician compensation as well as advanced practice provider compensation rose between 2% to nearly 4% over the last year.
- Additionally, providers coming out of residency and newly hired to a practice in 2021, report earning 7 – 10% more in guaranteed compensation than their counterparts in 2020.
- Productivity levels trend upwards
- Physician-owned practices report higher levels of productivity in collections and work RVUs, however, experiencing a fewer number of encounters compared to their hospital-owned counterparts.
- Positive signs for things to come
The most recent MGMA Stat poll hints at a good sign for the rest of the year – currently reporting that a majority of practices are at or above 2021 visit volumes.
Industry News
Midmark collaborates with state, STEM-oriented groups to garner enthusiasm for local manufacturing in a tight labor market
Midmark Corp., announced a joint effort with the West Central Ohio Manufacturing Partnership (WCOMP) and Ohio STEM to advance STEM and bolster interest in manufacturing. Recently, Midmark hosted 10 educators from seven school districts to learn about STEM careers, immersing K-12 teachers in STEM education to foster curiosity and build a solid STEM foundation among their students.
“It’s critical we proactively prepare our local youth to meet future talent needs,” said Dr. Tom Schwieterman, vice president of clinical affairs and chief medical officer at Midmark Corporation, as well as chairman of the Ohio Department of Education STEM Committee. “As Midmark continues to be on the forefront of creating the digital ecosystem in ambulatory care, our need for local STEM talent will only intensify.”
During the event, educators toured Midmark’s facilities, learned about the skills needed to pursue STEM careers, specifically engineering and manufacturing, and received resources to better expose students to math, science and technology throughout their education careers, inspiring youth to pursue STEM opportunities in their local communities. Areas of focus included digital design and 3-D computing/modeling as well as electrical and software. Educators were also able to see a product in its early stages of fabrication to final assembly and understand the day-in-the-life of engineering and manufacturing teammates at Midmark. Today, most Midmark Teammates employ STEM within their daily jobs, no matter their role.
In addition to this event, through Midmark’s workforce development program, the company partners with several local high schools in Darke County. Midmark also offers a four-year college scholarship for a local student pursuing a degree in a technical field, which includes co-op experience as well as a full-time job opportunity after graduation. The company hires several co-ops each term in electrical, computer, mechanical and biomedical disciplines.
Midmark, which manufactures most of its equipment in Ohio, has also just recently completed the building of a technology center at its Versailles campus. Midmark solutions employ many of the STEM technologies which include clinical standards, advanced engineering within its solutions, mathematical modeling for quality monitoring and science-based techniques for optimizing manufacturing.
McKesson, HCA Healthcare form oncology research joint venture
McKesson and HCA Healthcare announced an agreement to form a joint venture combining McKesson’s US Oncology Research (USOR) and HCA Healthcare’s Sarah Cannon Research Institute (SCRI). USOR is the research arm of McKesson’s The US Oncology Network and draws from a network of experienced investigators and dedicated clinical staff who specialize in oncology clinical trials. SCRI, which is the research arm of Sarah Cannon, HCA Healthcare’s Cancer Institute, offers end-to-end clinical trial site support services with a deep expertise in early-phase oncology research and drug development as well as a specialized contract research organization (CRO).
Together, USOR and SCRI will create a fully integrated oncology research organization aimed at expanding clinical research, accelerating drug development and increasing availability and access to clinical trials for community oncology providers and patients, including those in underserved communities. The joint venture plans to offer an expanded clinical research network, a broader portfolio of clinical trials, and enhanced data and analytics capabilities to better match patients with clinical trials.
BD collaborates with Mayo Clinic Platform
BD announced a collaboration with Mayo Clinic Platform to access de-identified patient data from Mayo Clinic Platform_Discover to perform detailed post-market surveillance on its products to fuel innovation and unlock a faster, more efficient path to market, with the ultimate goal of improving patient care.
Mayo Clinic Platform_Discover, an enabling product of Mayo Clinic Platform, represents one of the most robust de-identified data sets available from 10 million patients, including both structured and unstructured data, images, 1.2 billion lab test results, 3 million echocardiograms and more than 640 million clinical notes. Using data mining, next generation artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning tools, BD will analyze the real-world data – which provides information outside what is typically gathered in a clinical trial – to generate deeper insight into the patient experience that will help the company accelerate and enhance innovation around both existing products and unmet needs.
“For years, randomized control trials have been considered the gold-standard in evaluating safety and efficacy for medical devices, but experts from industry and academia who are examining the tight parameters around clinical trials are seeing added value in leveraging insights from real-world data to truly understand whether we are meeting patients’ needs,” said Lisa Boyle, vice president of global clinical affairs and medical affairs strategy for BD. “We need to be leveraging real-world evidence, using datasets like those from Mayo Clinic Platform, to understand the many parameters that we wouldn’t normally capture in a clinical trial and understand patients’ care pathways and address the needs of diverse patients in order to establish better solutions for better outcomes and experiences.”