Texas Health Resources - The Business of Healthcare

The Business of Health Care Report
Healthy Newborns Save Businesses Money - April 2004

Click to listen to this taped broadcast.

I'm Doug Hawthorne, President and CEO of Texas Health Resources, with "The Business of Health Care Report" on News Radio 1080 KRLD.

My subject this week is the most blessed of all health care experiences: the birth of a child.

Employers throughout North Texas know that one of their most significantly used benefits is childbirth. They also know that when, unfortunately, a baby is born prematurely, the ramifications are tremendous - not just at the birth but throughout the life of the child.

That's why Texas Health Resources is partnering with the March of Dimes in a five-year sponsorship of its Prematurity Campaign - with the goal of reducing pre-term births by 15 percent over the next five years. As an employer of almost 17,000 and a health care provider to more than one in five inpatients in North Texas, THR shares the March of Dimes' vision that every baby deserves to be a healthy, full-term baby.

Prematurity is the third most expensive condition treated in hospitals for people of any age. The rate of preterm birth has increased 27 percent over the past 20 years. And the rate in Texas - 13 percent of all births - is even higher than the national average.

When a baby is born prematurely, joy can quickly be replaced by anxiety. In nearly half of premature births, the cause is never known, but the lifelong disabilities can be severe, including mental retardation, cerebral palsy, vision and hearing problems and chronic lung disease.

The March of Dimes reports the cost of a premature baby at an average of $58,000, but our hospitals have experienced cases in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. A life is priceless regardless of cost, but if we can reduce premature births, we create an opportunity for longer-term health of citizens in our communities.

Join us in supporting the Prematurity Campaign and the causes of March of Dimes by participating in WalkAmericas across North Texas April 24. Check out walkamerica.org for dates, locations and times.

For Texas Health Resources and its family of hospitals - Harris Methodist Hospitals, Presbyterian Healthcare System and Arlington Memorial Hospital - I'm CEO Doug Hawthorne with "The Business of Health Care Report" on NewsRadio 1080 KRLD.

Sources:

Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003

The White House, Fact Sheet: Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/12/20031208-3.htm

Congressional Budget Office, Comparison of CBO and Administration estimates of the effect of H.R. 1 on direct spending, February 2004
http://www.cbo.gov/showdoc.cfm?index=4995&sequence=0

Executive Office of the President, Office of Management and Budget
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2005/hhs.html

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