WVU Hospitals Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

$50 million In State Surplus Awarded to WVU Cancer Institute

Alongside health officials from West Virginia University, Gov. Jim Justice announced Thursday that $50 million of the state’s surplus funding will support investment to attain National Cancer Institute designation for the WVU Cancer Institute.

“I am thrilled to deliver this $50 million check to the West Virginia University Cancer Institute in their pursuit of an official cancer center designation by the National Cancer Institute,”. Justice said. “I want to express my deep gratitude to the West Virginia Legislature for allocating these crucial funds, and to WVU Medicine for pursuing this incredible goal, because we all recognize the importance and significance of obtaining this recognition from the NCI, as it is only bestowed upon the nation’s top cancer centers. This funding will serve as a catalyst to jumpstart our progress towards that goal, and I couldn’t be more proud.”

The funding was included in House Bill 2024 as part of the Fiscal Year 2024 budget passed by the West Virginia Legislature.

According to a press release, the money will be used for comprehensive research programs, faculty and facilities that will directly lead to innovative approaches in cancer prevention, diagnosis and treatment.

“Our goal is to place the WVU Cancer Institute in the top 2 percent of cancer centers nationwide, which will improve the health and wellness of the people in our state, particularly in southern West Virginia, by reducing cancer occurrence rates and increasing cancer survival,” WVU President Gordon Gee said.

The National Cancer Institute leads cancer research across the country and recognizes cancer centers with an official NCI designation, the highest federal rating a cancer center can achieve.

Justice made the announcement at WVU Medicine Princeton Community Hospital with Gee, WVU Health System President and Chief Executive Officer Albert L. Wright, Jr., WVU Health Sciences Chancellor and Executive Dean Dr. Clay Marsh and WVU Cancer Institute Director Dr. Hannah Hazard-Jenkins.

Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting with support from Charleston Area Medical Center and Marshall Health.

Wheeling Hospital To Stop Accepting PEIA Patients July 1

From July 1, WVU-Wheeling Hospital said it will deny future PEIA patients because of “inadequate" PEIA reimbursements.

WVU-Wheeling Hospital said it will no longer accept patients with West Virginia Public Employees Insurance (PEIA) due to a financial deficit in its budget.

PEIA provides health insurance for state employees like those in public schools and the West Virginia Department of Corrections among others.

Jim Kaufman, president and CEO of the West Virginia Hospital Association, said PEIA is paying much more in reimbursements to out-of-state hospitals than to in-state facilities like Wheeling Hospital.

“Wheeling Hospital has been struggling financially for several years, having multi-million dollar losses,” he said. “One of the things they’ve looked at is various cost cutting efforts and PEIA is paying them significantly below the cost of care.”

Kaufman said PEIA is paying hospitals in West Virginia 50 percent of the Medicare rate but four to five times more for the exact same service at out-of-state hospitals.

“In West Virginia PEIA dictates the rate they pay providers whereas out of state they actually have to negotiate,” he said. “And they negotiate using United Healthcare which is the nation’s largest insurance plan, and it just shows you the disparity between what out-of-state providers are able to negotiate versus what PEIA dictates in the state.”

Kaufman says Wheeling Hospital wants to avoid disrupting continuity of care and will continue to treat PEIA patients in an emergency situation as well as work with PEIA beneficiaries until they transition out of the network.

Kaufman said he is hopeful the legislature and policy makers can address the issue of reimbursements before it gets to that point.

Gov. Jim Justice’s office released the following statement:

“The governor’s office is discouraged by WVU Medicine’s position to stop accepting patients with PEIA at Wheeling Hospital. The Justice Administration has been extremely supportive of WVU Medicine’s acquisition of Wheeling Hospital. The West Virginia Hospital Association’s announcement today was a surprise to us, as we are engaged in good faith negotiations – and prior to this announcement today – had anticipated a resolution during the upcoming legislative session.”

Kaufman said Wheeling Hospital’s July 1st deadline offers the governor and legislature a chance to fix a serious problem that impacts health care workers as well as patients.

“One of the biggest reasons nurses haven’t recertified in-state is compensation,” he said. “If you think about it, we’re taking West Virginia dollars and shipping them out of state. That puts hospitals in West Virginia at a severe disadvantage in being able to recruit and provide care to treat all West Virginians.”

WVU Health System Expected to Bring More Access in Southern W.Va. to Specialists and Clinical Trials

In southern West Virginia, access to health care specialists or clinical trials can mean hours of travel to places like Charleston or Morgantown. In 2018, research showed that the six counties in West Virginia with highest rates of poor health were in the southern part of the state.

The latest WVU Health System takeover is in the works in Mercer County at Princeton Community Hospital. Hospital officials hope the move will improve the health and statistics of the region. Karen Bowling, a Wyoming County native and recently named president and CEO of Princeton Community Hospital, helped with two other transitions with WVU Health at Braxton County Memorial and Summersville Regional Hospital.

Bowling says as part of the WVU Health System, there will be opportunities for clinical trials in cancer research.

“We became associated with the Cancer Institute in Morgantown, and there’s the ability to potentially access those same clinical trials in Princeton, West Virginia. By virtue of telemedicine, we can actually have active access to their intensivist in Ruby (Memorial Hospital), should we have a question,” Bowling said. “Those are things that could never happen in the independent hospital, (because) independent hospitals don’t have the resources to do that.

“Princeton Community Hospital has some great programs,” Bowling added. “We already have some really good basic things here. What WVU Medicine will do is build on those things, and add services. We don’t want to take services out of Princeton. We want to bring services into Princeton.”

Dr. Phil Branson is performing total hip replacement at Princeton Community Hospital.

Counties in southern West Virginia have some of the worst health benchmarks in the country. According to the state Department of Health and Human Resources website, in 2018 counties with the highest rates of poor health included Boone, Fayette, Lincoln, Logan, McDowell, and Wyoming.

Bowling is optimistic that the additional resources will help the region and the people who live there.

“We have transportation issues in our state. We have economic challenges where financially, it’s very difficult for people to even have the gas money to travel far enough to get (to specialists),” Bowling said. “These people have diabetes, they have renal disease, they have neurological problems and without access, these things just get worse and there’s an inability for them to continue to have a productive lifestyle.”

Karen Bowling is the President and CEO at Princeton Community Hospital.

Bowling points to WVU Health System’s work at Braxton County Memorial and Summersville Regional Hospital where both have enhanced telemedicine opportunities for patients to see specialists.

“We really work to find avenues to ensure that we’re being very holistic in the care of the patient,” Bowling said. “Hopefully that improves their health and at the same time hopefully improves the health statistics in West Virginia.

“What we do is we put it all on the same medical records. That is, we believe, the key to our success,” Bowling added. “It’s such a big advantage, especially when we know we have significant health issues in Southern parts of the state.

Some of the biggest health challenges can be a result from poor health choices such as kidney disease, heart disease, diabetes, and COPD. Bowling hopes community outreach programs can help that as well.

“We very much are all about education, and outreach,” Bowling said. “COVID has made (outreach) challenging. We’re happy to get back to something more normal where we can do more outreach into these communities. And I think that’s key.”

The paperwork and government approvals for the project are expected to take more than a year. Bowling hopes the new relationship will create educational opportunities such as doctor residencies.

WVU Hospital Locked Down For Hours After Computer System Failure

Information technology specialists at Ruby Memorial Hospital are individually checking more than 14,000 computers on the hospital’s campus after malware or a virus sent the hospital into a lockdown this morning.

The hospital reportedly began experiencing issues with both its clinical and security operating systems just after midnight Tuesday, and around 4 a.m. lost the use of its video monitoring system. That sent the hospital into lockdown for nearly four hours.

West Virginia University Hospitals Director of Public Affairs Amy Johns says even with the loss of the systems, at no point was patient care or security put at risk. During a phone interview, Johns maintained there is also no reason to believe the glitch was the result of an attack on the hospital.

“We have no evidence that patients’ private information or medical records were accessed. This does not appear to be an effort to hack into the system or steal patient—or employee—information,” Johns said.

Johns said security guards were stationed at each entrance during the lockdown to check IDs and doctors and nurses continue to perform their duties the old fashioned way—using paper.

Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting, with support from the Benedum Foundation.

CDC Approves WVU Hospitals to Treat Ebola

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention just took another step in helping the state cope with the threat of Ebola.

The CDC designated WVU Hospitals as one of forty-nine Ebola Treatment Centers in the U.S.

WVU Hospitals says in a news release that theirs is the only medical center in West Virginia to earn the designation. The nearest centers until now were in Washington D.C. and Cleveland.

The CDC also approved the Department of Health and Human Resources’ Office of Laboratory Services for Ebola testing.

That designation allows the lab to report and send samples to the CDC that are presumed to be positive for Ebola. The CDC would ultimately confirm positive results. The lab can also confirm that samples are negative for Ebola, without further testing. The release says results should typically be available within four to six hours.

To date, no Ebola cases have been reported in West Virginia.

Annual marrow donor registry drive seeks ethnic diversity

WVU Healthcare and the Mary Babb Randolph Cancer Center will host their annual marrow donor registry drive Friday, October 4th, from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. at Morgantown Mall in Monongalia County. Organizers say there’s an especially urgent need for African Americans to register.

Londia Goff is a bone marrow transplant coordinator and nurse clinician for the Osborn Hematopoietic Malignancy and Transplantation Program at the Cancer Center. She says this annual marrow drive where people register as potential marrow donors is critically important because patients with 73 different diseases, including leukemia and lymphoma, are dying for lack of matching donors.

Goff explains that a registry of willing donors was established in the 1980s and now contains some 14 million people. She says the likelihood of finding a match depends largely on ethnicity; those with European ancestry have an 80 percent chance, but that number drops dramatically for those with other backgrounds.

“It’s about a 7 percent chance for Hispanics; it drops down to a 3 percent chance for African Americans. So we desperately need people of ethnic backgrounds to join the registry,” Goff says.

Joining the registry requires 18-44 years of age, a health screening, a couple mouth swabs, and maintaining up-to-date contact information. Goff says she hopes to register at least 200 people during the drive.