North Carolina has approved the construction of a medical center on a 34-acre site in Clayton. The facility will include an emergency room, a diagnostic lab and operating rooms. It is expected to open by July 2009. In addition, Johnston Memorial Hospital recently asked the state for permission to include 27 inpatient beds at the center to accommodate longer stays and a greater number of medical procedures. The state is expected to decide on the issue by September.
Investigators have found Health Central hospital in Ocoee, FL, deficient for its failure to notify the state when one of its nurses was accused of sexually assaulting one patient and inappropriately touching another. Florida law requires hospitals to report every allegation of sexual misconduct to the Department of Health, but the hospital had no policy at the time to do so, according to a report. The Florida Agency for Health Care Administration investigated Health Central earlier this year and identified the reporting deficiency.
Hospitals in Johnson County, KS, are working to keep up with the needs of residents by establishing new construction projects. Some hospitals are building or acquiring new campus locations, while others are increasing square footage devoted to specialized services. The University of Kansas Hospital, for example, could see an addition called the KU Clinical Research Center. Also, Shawnee Mission Medical Center is teaming up with Kansas City Cancer Center to create an outpatient cancer center scheduled to open the third quarter of 2009.
A lawsuit by a neonatologist William Topper against Kansas City-based HCA Midwest is headed to court. Topper is the former director of neonatal intensive care at Research Medical Center and Centerpoint Medical Center, which are both owned by HCA Midwest. Topper sued in July 2007 over his firing, alleging that HCA prematurely terminated his contract without cause because it wanted to replace him with neonatologist Kathleen Weatherstone. Weatherstone, who oversaw neonatal intensive care at HCA's Overland Park Regional Medical Center, was appointed the new director of the Research neonatal intensive-care unit.
Rural Tioga County sprawls across more than 1,100 square miles along the New York border in the north-central section of Pennsylvania. It suffers from high unemployment, low income and high rates of chronic disease. It also has far fewer employers than do most urban sections of the state, and most businesses are too small to offer health insurance to their employees. As a result Tioga has a higher percentage of uninsured (35.6%) residents than any other county in the state.
In Bucks County, PA, there is emergency department construction and renovation. New outpatient facilities are opening, and there are expanded clinics, and renovated laboratories. A new hospital building is also in the planning stages. The boom is being fueled by demographic shifts, technological advances, competition, and an evolution of care that makes changes necessary.