A legal debate has begun in Philadelphia, with the city and Fox Chase Cancer Center arguing the merits of surrendering a quarter of Burholme Park to keep the hospital and research facility in the city. The expansion requires 19 acres of the 69-acre park, and would encompass most of the land that makes up the privately run Burholme Park Golf Center. A lawyer representing a group of neighbors argued that leasing active parkland is unprecedented and that it goes against the will of Robert Waln Ryerss, whose 1895 bequest of his mansion and surrounding property created the park. Fox Chase has looked at other options, including moving to Delaware, if it’s not allowed to expand into Burholme Park.
Leaders of Akron General Medical Center are coming out publicly against plans for a for-profit, physician-owned hospital in northern Summit County, OH. A group of Akron General department chairs recently launched a campaign against a 100-bed, for-profit hospital that physician investors want to build in partnership with General's cross-town rival, Summa Health System. The Akron General doctors argue that the physician-owned hospital will attract affluent, well-insured patients with less-complicated cases, leaving Akron's nonprofit hospitals stuck caring for uninsured patients and those with costly, complex problems.
In a response to an attempted suicide in Columbia, SC-based Palmetto Health Richland's emergency room, the state prison agency is reviewing its procedures and equipment while the hospital decided to open a separate waiting room for inmates. After the incident, questions were raised about how easily a woman patient was able to pull a gun from a prison officer's holster and shoot herself in the head at the hospital. Neither the hospital nor police would discuss the circumstances of the shooting that put other emergency room patients and hospital staff at risk.
An Illinois state appeals court has reversed a lower court's decision that had allowed Urbana-based Provena Covenant Medical Center to keep its tax-exempt status in accordance with state laws. The case is part of the ongoing saga over whether Provena Covenant is a non-profit charitable institution. It has also been a case followed nationally, with state and federal lawmakers attacking non-profit hospital tax exemptions and questioning whether such health facilities are providing enough charity care.
The number of people dying who were suffering from C difficile has risen by 28% in England and Wales, according to new figures from The Office for National Statistics. The figures show 8,324 death certificates mentioned the infection in 2007, compared with 6,480 the previous year. The number of reported deaths involving the infection has more than doubled in England in Wales since 2005, when there were 3,757 mentions on death certificates.
In a pilot study at Massachusetts General Hospital, 30 patients who had come to see their primary care physician for routine follow-up or acute care agreed to first have a visit via a computer equipped with a Web camera. Their physician sat in another room to conduct the visit. After patients and the doctor completed questionnaires about the virtual visit, they met face to face and went through a second visit with a hands-on physical examination. While the
patients liked the face-to-face doctors' appointments better, the videoconference visits were almost as popular.