Computer training helps fill staffing gap
A hospital, a union-backed fund and the City University of New York are joining together in an attempt to boost the city's pool of workers trained in computer sciences.
The need for technology workers in health care is particularly acute, which motivated Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn, the Hospital League/1199 Training and Upgrade Fund, and CUNY to create the pilot program. Unemployed laboratory technicians and employees whose jobs are at risk because labs are being automated will be taught the skills they need to become clinical systems analysts and programmers.
Future pilot programs will involve radiology and nursing staffers. The Hospital League/1199 fund will pay for the project.
A similar project is being developed by the training fund, the Bronx's Montefiore Medical Center and Lehman College, based on a radiology system that is widely used by hospitals to get reimbursement from insurers.
MEDSCAPE MARKETING
Medscape, a Manhattan health care Web company that went public two weeks ago, may be one avenue for local hospitals to get on the Internet.
The company co-brands a certain number of sites in a geographic region. Under such arrangements, there are free home pages for a hospital's doctors, co-branded under Medscape and the medical facility.
Doctors may also submit research papers for publication on its peer-reviewed Web site, says editor in chief Dr. George D. Lundberg. The peer-review process leads to a 20% acceptance rate for submissions.
While Medscape does not pay for these research papers, it does pay doctors to provide content to the site. If material is accepted after peer review, the information is attributed to the physicians and co-branded with their hospital.
Finally, Medscape invites "name-recognizable" experts to write up medical conferences for posting on the Web the following day. Medscape pays expenses and an unspecified "decent" honorarium, says Dr. Lundberg.
DOCS SUE AETNA
A group of New Jersey doctors filed a class-action lawsuit against Aetna U.S. Healthcare, alleging that the health maintenance organization owes them money because it has made late payments for several years. The case was filed in Camden County Superior Court.
NEW PRESIDENT
Dr. Allan Gibofsky took over last week as president and chief executive of Long Island College Hospital, a Brooklyn member of Continuum Health Partners. Peter Kelly had been acting president since Donald Snell stepped down after LICH joined Continuum last year.
Dr. Gibofsky, who also is an attorney, is a professor of medicine and public health at Weill Medical College, an attending rheumatologist at the Hospital for Special Surgery and an adjunct professor of law at Fordham University.
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