BioDistrict New Orleans: Louisiana's #1 Employment Center prepares to get even bigger!

To accommodate the demand for the workforce needs of the future hospitals and research facilities, the BioDistrict has partnered with a variety of service deliverers and educational institutions.

Bonita Robertson (BioDistrict New Orleans) with Angel Bermudez (NFWS Site Director) and Carla Major (New Orleans Works Site Director) at NFWS conference in Cincinnati

Ms. Bonita Robertson, special counsel to the president along with representatives from the Greater New Orleans Foundation and the City of New Orleans recently attended the second annual meeting of the National Fund for Workforce Solutions (NFWS) in Cincinnati, OH. As you may recall the Greater New Orleans Foundation along with several funding partners, including the BioDistrict, received a $600,000 grant from NFWS to start New Orleans Works. New Orleans Works is a collaborative formed to encourage better alignment of incumbent worker training funding with the emerging needs of employers in the bioscience and healthcare sectors. At this conference, NFWS sites across the nation came together to exchange ideas on how to promote system change, share lessons learned and discuss how to better measure the impact of the investments being made across the country. The BioDistrict is proud to be a partner of New Orleans Works, helping to improve career advancement opportunities for New Orleanians. 

Dr. Richardson compared the jobs in healthcare, hospitality, the port and oil & gas. We believe investments should be made in all sectors, but establishing a baseline to determine the impact of investments directed to each of the sectors will enable future leaders to make informed decisions:

Let's be Smart about the allocation of resources and make in our future! Healthcare\Biotech is the fastest growing industry in the United States and will continue to outpace all other industries.

For more information on New Orleans Works click here.  

For more information on National Fund for Workforce Solutions click here. 

President Obama and Vice President Biden react to the Supreme Court upholding the ACA

Last week, the US Supreme Court in a 5-4 vote ruled to uphold President Obama's Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA). While most Americans were focused on the controversial individual mandate requiring uninsured people to buy health insurance or pay penalties, organizations like the BioDistrict we were focused on the provisions that will effect the biopharmaceutical industry. Issues like medical education, bioscience research, development and commercialization are all part of the law. In addition to getting more paying customers for new treatments and drug therapies, here's a quick review of the most important provisions:

• We joined with BIO in advocating for approaches that ensure patient safety, expand patient access and competition, and provide necessary and fair incentives that will help spur continued biomedical breakthroughs. A big part of the ACA was the extension of the exclusivity period for new drugs, on average expected to double in time. The establishment of abbreviated Food and Drug Administration's regulations and guidance for "biosimilar" drugs will help today's patients while enabling the investment in new research looking for discoveries that will provide cures to diseases we will in time all face.

• Provides for authorization of the  Cures Acceleration Network at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). This is an effort to speed high-needs cures from lab to bedside. The network is a flagship component of the agency's new National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences. While authorized to receive up to $500 million annually, in 2012 Congress appropriated just $10 million for the network. The Biodistrict identified this as one of our key focus areas of development especially as it is related to BioDefense and Infectious Diseases.

• The establishment and funding of the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) for conducting comparative effectiveness research. PCORI issued its first grants, worth a total of $30 million, earlier this month. The private institute compares interventions on the basis of their clinical risks and benefits, economic considerations, and the insights they might offer into medical care. An example of this is the assessment and rating approach that might work in the presentation of findings that weigh cardiac bypass versus angioplasty as alternatives for the treatment of coronary disease in which multiple coronary arteries require intervention.  

• The launch of  the Physician Payment Sunshine Act requires drug and device companies publicly post all payments to physicians of $10 or more in cash or kind. 

• While preserving the estimated $153 billion in Medicare and Medicaid payment cuts to teaching hospitals for over ten years ending in 2021, ACA says that there will be more insured patients getting treatment. Academic medical centers like the Rev. Avery C. Alexander Research Hospital (ARH) provide a disproportionate amount of care to the uninsured, lawmakers reasoned that, with an insurance mandate in place, they will begin to be paid for that care, allowing the government to recoup the $153 billion. Uninsured treated today by Interim LSU Hospital would become eligible for Medicaid which covers services not always allowable from Disproportion Share Hospital (DSH - the part of Medicaid that pays for uncompensated care and therefore paid by the state) such as the physician's services, nurse anesthetists, pharmacy, this could be big savings for the state as the federal government will pay 100 percent of the costs for these Medicaid. Today's 65/45 percent match rate for DSH and Medicaid -- that will help the economics of all local hospitals and in particular the new ARH which is being built to attract more patients covered by health insurance. Groups like the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) will be monitoring the outcomes to see if the cuts are offset by increased clinical income from the newly insured -- only time will tell.

The Affordable Care Act is a positive for the BioDistrict. It helps to know there will be more patients with purchasing power seeking new therapies.

All Jazzed Up!

For the complete story

Dr. Larry Hollier, Chancellor LSUHSC and BioDistrict Pres. James McNamara