HHS looking for CEO, tech officer for HealthCare.gov and other briefs

• New HHS Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell plans to hire a CEO and chief technology officer for the HealthCare.gov insurance marketplace, the department announced Friday. Creation of these new positions comes after critics repeatedly decried the lack of clear lines of responsibility for the site's operations. The yet-to-be hired CEO will report directly to CMS Administrator Marilyn Tavenner and indirectly, with a dotted line in organizational terms, to Burwell herself. The new CTO will report directly to the CEO.

• ProMedica is asking the full 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to rehear its St. Luke's Hospital antitrust case, the next step toward the U.S. Supreme Court in the Ohio health system's battle to keep a suburban hospital it acquired nearly four years ago. In April, a three-judge panel sided with the Federal Trade Commission and ordered ProMedica to divest St. Luke's Hospital in Maumee, about 10 miles southwest of Toledo, where ProMedica is based. In the April opinion, the judges said the 2010 acquisition would reduce competition and lead to higher prices for health plans and patients.

• Charitable giving to healthcare organizations rose a healthy 6% last year, or 4.5% when adjusted for inflation, according to the Giving USA Foundation's annual philanthropy report, released last week. The spike in healthcare gifts was attributed to a large number of wealthy donors committing to big-ticket causes, the report said. Giving USA defines healthcare organizations as those that provide healthcare services, including not only hospitals and physicians' offices, but also organizations that conduct health-related research. Gifts made to further medical research within university systems were also included in the report. Among the most notable donors, Phil Knight, co-founder and chairman of Nike, and his wife, Penny, donated $500 million in September to kick-start a $1 billion cancer research initiative at Oregon Health & Science University.

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