Case Western, Cleveland VA partner to fight antibiotic resistance, and other Midwest news

Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and the Cleveland VA Medical Center have teamed up open a new center dedicated to finding solutions to antibiotic resistance.

Dr. Robert Bonomo will be the director of the new Case VA CARES (CWRU-Cleveland VAMC Center for Antimicrobial Resistance and Epidemiology), which will include work ranging from basic science to drug discovery to new treatment approaches.

Increasingly, bacteria and other microorganisms are developing resistance to the antibiotics used to kill them, both imperiling health and adding to healthcare costs as doctors try different medicines, according to a news release. Studies show antibiotic resistance adds as much as $20 billion per year in excess direct healthcare costs.

Every year, at least 2 million people in the U.S. are infected with antibiotic-resistant bacteria and at least 23,000 die as a result, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

—Lydia Coutre, Crain's Cleveland Business

Health Care Service Corp., the parent of the largest insurer in Illinois, returned to profitability after two years of annual losses.

But last year's rebound came at the expense of its individual customers. To reduce its costs, the Blue Cross and Blue Shield parent hiked premiums and limited which doctors and hospitals patients could see at discounted prices, known as in-network providers.

HCSC is the fourth-largest insurer in the nation by revenue and membership and is the market leader where it operates. In the company's new annual financial statement, which details the majority of HCSC's business, including employers and individual consumers who buy plans on and off the exchanges, net income totaled $106.3 million in 2016. That follows a $65.9 million loss in 2015 and a $281.9 million loss in 2014.

Still, the 2016 profit is just a tenth of the company's $1.01 billion net income in 2012, financial records show.

—Kristen Schorsch, Crain's Chicago Business

Indiana University Health, a 14-hospital system based in Indianapolis, pruned its hospital portfolio as it prepares for a $1 billion construction project at one of its downtown health campuses.

IU Health divested Goshen (Ind.) Health in December and an 80% interest in its hospital in LaPorte and Starke Hospital in Knox, Ind., last March. Goshen paid IU Health $20 million to divorce. But IU Health took a $295 million non-operating impairment charge against the loss of those assets for 2016, the system reported last week in its audited 2016 financial filing.

In the earlier deal, investor-owned Community Health Systems paid $96.5 million for 80% of the LaPorte and Starke hospitals—money that went into a foundation rather than IU Health. IU Health took a non-operating charge of $156.8 million in 2016 related to the transaction.

In a statement, IU Health said the three divested hospitals are in northern Indiana, where they often sent patients needing quaternary care to hospitals in Chicago and Michigan.

IU Health also focused its capital and growth strategy further downstate rather than spend money to build clinics and ambulatory sites to offer lower-cost care settings for patients, CEO Dennis Murphy said.

—Dave Barkholz