Saint Vincent Catholic Medical Centers has named Arthur Y. Webb as COO of the Manhattan-based healthcare system. In his new position, Webb will have operational responsibility for the system's flagship St. Vincent's Hospital Manhattan, St. Vincent's Hospital Westchester, a behavioral health hospital in Westchester County, and continuing care services that include two skilled nursing facilities in Brooklyn, another on Staten Island, a hospice, and a home health agency serving the metropolitan New York area. Saint Vincent's behavioral health services also provide supportive housing programs for people with mental illness throughout the metropolitan area.
In Connecticut, the health sector added 4,100 new jobs in 2008, for a total of 240,000, according to a report released by the state Department of Labor. The picture is similar across the nation. While manufacturing and transportation industries shed more than 1.6 million jobs last year, and retailers slashed more than a half-million, the healthcare sector added 372,000 new jobs. The healthcare industry's expansion is being fueled by the nation's aging population, as the nation's 79 million baby boomers reach retirement age.
Cleveland Clinic has announced Andrew Fishleder, MD's appointment as chief executive officer of Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi. Fishleder will head up the Clinic's first overseas outpost as part of its plan to extend the Clinic's brand. The deal with the government-owned Mubadala Development Co. was announced in 2006. Mubadala will pay for construction costs, equipping the hospital and staff salaries. The Clinic has no capital risk, but instead will transfer its culture, its standards, and its model of healthcare.
Nine out of 10 companies have put cost-cutting strategies in place in hopes of weathering the recession gripping the U.S. economy, according to a survey from the Chicago-based job placement consultancy Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc. Companies say that because of creative tactics to save money they have been able to avoid making layoffs. Cost-cutting measures included cancelations of holiday parties, salary freezes, cuts in workers' hours, reductions in or the elimination of year-end bonuses and cutbacks in various perks.
A growing roster of doctors, nurses, and administrators from children's hospitals in Kansas City and southern China have been making transcontinental trips to experience life and healthcare half a world away. The exchange program started in 2003, after a Guangzhou hospital official approached a researcher at Children's Mercy Hospital with the idea to trade staff. Since then, 16 staff members from Children's Mercy and 13 from Guangzhou have made the trip. The two hospitals initially were interested in the exchange to promote research collaboration, but it evolved into a very broad exchange with clinical care, research and management, said Children's Mercy officials.
For more hospitals, finding general surgeons to treat emergency room patients has become a bigger challenge as experienced doctors opt out of late-night call rotations or more physicians choose specialty practices. The trend has sparked the use of more temporary surgeons by hospitals. Hospital administrators say hiring doctors for these short-term assignments helps compensate for the fact that comparatively fewer general surgeons are coming out of medical school and residencies.