Cooper Health System took its complaints about its rival Virtua Health's multimedia ad campaign, which claims Virtua has "the most top docs," to court and persuaded a New Jersey Superior Court judge to order a halt to the ad campaign. Cooper contends that Virtua's ads touted the results of an "independent" study that was, in fact, commissioned by the health system and its ad agency, the Star Group. The injunction requires Virtua to stop "directly or indirectly" operating a Web site that explained the results of its findings without detailing methodology.
Los Angeles County officials said that they do not know how many of the 2,000 temporary workers serving patients at county hospitals and clinics each month are working without a criminal background check. The acknowledgment came as the county suspended the contract for one of its largest providers of temporary healthcare professionals, a move made because the agency placed a convicted rapist at a large East Los Angeles health clinic.
A bill has been introduced in the Alabama House of Representatives that would abolish the state's Certificate of Need program. The proposed legislation would do away with the regulatory review process that requires healthcare providers to get state approval before adding new health services. Rep. Mike Ball, R-Madison, introduced the bill for the second consecutive year, knowing it's not likely to gain much traction. But Ball is frustrated over the regulatory process, which allowed competition between two hospitals over who should be allowed to build a hospital in Madison to drag out for years.
The Jewish Foundation of Cincinnati, the owner of Jewish Hospital, will expand its circle of potential buyers of the facility beyond the Health Alliance of Greater Cincinnati. The Foundation has been talking to other hospital companies for more than a year and had focused on the alliance since mid-2008. In a message to hospital employees and community leaders, foundation President Gary Heiman said those talks would continue but the group would "expand our discussions to include other potential partners for the hospital."
Jacksonville-based children's health network Nemours recently moved into a new corporate headquarters in Deerwood, and is scheduled to break ground on a new pediatric campus in Orlando in two weeks. The 95-bed Nemours Children's Hospital in Orlando will include a hospital, clinic, emergency department, diagnostic and ambulatory programs, education and research centers in the 620,000-square-foot facility. It is scheduled to open in 2012.
To the government and fertility industry, large multiple births have begun to look like breakdowns in the system. The issue has taken on renewed scrutiny since a California woman, who already had six children conceived through in vitro procedures, gave birth to octuplets last month. Nearly a third of in vitro births involve twins or more. The government, along with professional associations, have been pushing fertility doctors to reduce that number, citing the disastrous health consequences that sometimes come with multiple births.