Altogether, there are easily $50 million in health-related federal earmarks from Ohio legislators that could fund projects from the James Cancer Hospital at Ohio State University to a Youngstown company whose device is ideal for victims of battlefield trauma. Votes in Senate and House committees are expected this month to determine whether the institutions would get some, all or any of their requests.

Sisters of Charity Health System has named Vanguard Health System executive Orlando L. Alvarez Jr. to its new position of senior vice president of physician strategy and business development. He will focus primarily on “physician collaboration strategies” and work on the big-picture effort to connect the health system’s five hospitals.

St. Vincent Charity Hospital has spent the last year on a focused, narrow experiment to foster the concept of a medical home. Early results show the promise, but the project also highlights the challenges of making a medical home. Medical residents are considered a detriment, and much of the up-front effort required to create a medical home are expensive — so much so that St. Vincent’s may simply take the best parts of its experiment and give up on receiving accreditation as a full medical home.

A recent media report shows Cleveland Clinic, University Hospitals and Sisters of Charity Health System spent just over 2 percent of their revenue on the provision of charity care in 2007. Dr. Jeffery Parks says that “in this era of federal bailouts and car company executives being fired by our president,” shouldn’t non-profit hospitals spend more than 2 percent toward charity care?

Major Cleveland hospitals use about 2 percent of their revenue to provide free patient care and about 8 percent on total “community benefit” items such as grant-giving and research, according to an analysis in today’s Plain Dealer.

Leaders from six Ohio hospitals told state House subcommittee members earlier this week that significant job, income tax and medical service cuts are likely to result from Gov. Ted Strickland’s two-year budget proposal. A new franchise tax could cost the hospitals $598 million over the two-year budget period.

Akron General Medical Center will lay off 145, St. Vincent Charity Hospital is cutting 50 jobs and St. John West Shore shed 10. In addition, the Health Alliance of Greater Cincinnati said it would layoff about 50 employees at two of its hospitals. “We are facing unprecedented challenges in our economy,” said one hospital spokeswoman.

University Hospitals will take over management duties at St. John West Shore Hospital in Westlake — giving it a stronger foothold in the increasingly competitive and lucrative western suburbs of Cleveland. Sisters of Charity takes full control of Cleveland’s St. Vincent Charity Hospital and Canton’s Mercy Medical Center.

“We have a growing population with no primary care doctor,” said Patrick McMahon, who started this week as the new chief financial officer at Sisters of Charity Health System. “We need to deal with that issue. I’m not talking about Sisters of Charity, in particular. I just started here. But across all hospitals, it’s an issue.”