Here are some of the top stories at MedCity News this week:
— For Twin Cities nurses who were poised to strike against local hospitals a week ago, the debate had descended into the familiar roles of hardworking, resourceful nurses versus financially besieged hospitals, with both groups claiming the role of patient advocate. But one crucial voice had been noticeably silent — the doctors. On the top issue dividing the Minnesota Nurses Association and six metro hospital chains — the nurses’ demand for set staffing ratios — the union representing local physicians was mum… By the way, the looming threat of a nursing strike in Minnesota disappeared Thursday after the state’s nurses association gave in on the critical issue of staffing ratios.
— By Tuesday when nurses and Twin Cities hospitals resumed contract negotiations, Moody’s Investor Service had lobbed a potentially explosive issue into the the labor debate. The rating agency had warned that an open-ended strike by 12,000 nurses belonging to the Minnesota Nurses Association could damage the hospitals’ credit rating, making it harder and more expensive for hospitals to borrow money. Given a tight credit market, a ratings cut could be potentially devastating to the cash-strapped hospitals that rely on lenders to finance everything from building new facilities to paying everyday bills.
— Cardinal Health (NYSE: CAH) is partnering with academia and industry to push the boundaries of nuclear medicine — and have first dibs on commercializing the industry’s innovations. The Dublin, Ohio, company that distributes drugs including radiopharmaceuticals used in patient imaging studies, is using its industrial know-how to enable researchers to develop new products. In this way, Cardinal can be the company that is the first to make or distribute medicines developed by these collaborations.
— Neoprobe Corp. (OTCBB: NEOP) is closing in on that transformative moment when a company launches its first game-changing product. The Dubin, Ohio, company last week won a $1 million Ohio Third Frontier grant to speed additional development of its first commercial radiopharmaceutical — Lymphoseek, which is a tracing agent that identifies cancerous lymph nodes in patients with breast cancer and melanoma — to locate head and neck cancers, and eventually, prostate, colon, gynecologic and gastrointestinal cancers. Neoprobe hopes to launch the drug in mid-2011 after filing a new drug application with the Food and Drug Administration this summer.
— More on the Minnesota nurses’ strike… Second only to nurses claiming they would strike solely to save patients’ lives, the most repeated talking point in the Twin Cities was: Hospitals are besieged institutions at the mercy of a poor economy and uncertain healthcare reform laws. Well… not exactly. A weak economy means patients who can pay are deferring treatment while patients who cannot pay are crowding emergency rooms. Throw in lower Medicare payments, and hospitals have a good deal to worry about. But the hospitals are hardly blameless. Just a few years ago when the economy was healthy, hospitals borrowed hundreds of millions of dollars at cheap interest rates to fund ambitious capital projects. They also enjoyed healthy returns from investment portfolios that made big bets on stocks and real estate.
