Akron (OH) Children's Hospital is expanding into the Youngstown, OH, area to fill a void left after Tod Children's Hospital closed in 2007. A $10 million renovation is under way at the former Forum Health campus in Boardman to create a new 32-bed children's hospital, with a full-time emergency department, full-service laboratory, and inpatient and outpatient rehabilitation services. The facility will be called Akron Children's Hospital Mahoning Valley.
In a new twist on medical tourism, U.S. employers are encouraging workers to travel for medical care, but domestically. Some employers are looking to take advantage of geographical variations in the quality and cost of healthcare within the United States. But others are leveraging deals they've struck with foreign hospitals in order to secure better rates with U.S. hospitals that are eager to keep American patients here. Most of the activity is focused on surgical procedures.
Bakersfield, CA-based San Joaquin Community Hospital is moving ahead with plans to open the only burn center between Fresno and Los Angeles. Hospital officials are recruiting doctors and other healthcare professionals and plan to affiliate with an existing burn center. The five-bed intensive care unit will cost $1 million, officials said.
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors is considering instituting a permanent, independent investigator to keep watch over the county's troubled hospital and clinic system. The proposal came a day after new disclosures about the level of incompetence among employees at Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital. The investigator job was proposed by Supervisor Gloria Molina, who said trouble at the Los Angeles hospital developed in part because officials with the county Department of Health Services kept problems secret from the board.
Days before he took office, new Grady Memorial Hospital CEO Michael Young decided to examine every check over $1,000 that the Atlanta facility had issued to vendors for one week in July. The massive hospital is a spending monster with hundreds of vendors, so there were more than 100 checks totaling upward of $1.7 million. Young hit upon checks that shocked him, such as the $100,000 one-week payment for temporary employees, including nurses and X-ray technicians. While it is not uncommon for a financial auditor to review spending this way, it is rare for a CEO to take on such a mundane, time-consuming task, experts say.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have launched
a national campaign to teach parents how to protect kids from skin infections caused by MRSA. The National MRSA Education Initiative highlights specific measures parents can take to protect themselves and their families from MRSA skin infections. The campaign will include Web sites, fact sheets, brochures, posters, radio and print public service announcements, mom blogging sites, Web banners, and mainstream media interviews.