Excela Health is now the owner of Jeanette, PA-based Mercy Jeannette Hospital, making it the fourth hospital in Westmoreland County, PA, owned by Excela. The medical institution has been renamed Excela Health Westmoreland Hospital at Jeannette. The 148-bed hospital was expected to lose about $6.5 million last year.
The Court of Appeal in London has ruled the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence must reveal how it calculated that certain Alzheimer's drugs weren't cost-effective for some patients. The court said the institute had acted unfairly by not fully disclosing how it evaluated the drugs, and the move highlights a rising tension between cash-strapped entities that pay for healthcare against patients and drug companies.
Remote monitoring can improve the condition of mobile heart failure patients and may reduce hospital readmissions, according to a pilot study. The study examined 150 patients admitted to Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. The patients, average age 70, were randomly selected to receive usual care for heart failure or remote monitoring. Hospital discharges for the heart failue increased from 400,000 in 1979 to 1.08 million in 2005, an increase of 171%.
The increasing number of federal employees serving in Iraq and Afghanistan may not receive the best medical care or the most appropriate benefits, according to a report released by the House Armed Services Committee. The report examined the incentives and medical coverage being provided to civil service employees. Federal employees also may not have access to the latest medical advances for treating combat wounds, said one lawmaker.
Registered nurses who became unionized in August 2007 have ratified a contract with Scranton, PA-based Community Medical Center. Under the contract, licensed registered nurses at the hospital will make $21 to $29 an hour under the contract, which can range from $43,680 to $60,320 a year. Nurses will pay a slightly reduced percentage of their healthcare premiums as well.
Nashville-based Vanderbilt University has filed a request for a $7.39 million, 8,179-square-foot stand-alone radiation therapy center with equipment to deliver radiation treatment for cancer patients. HCA's TriStar Health System has also filed plans for a $7.5 million radiation therapy department with similar equipment at its proposed Spring Hill, TN, Hospital, asking that its application be reviewed simultaneously with Vanderbilt's. The Tennessee Health Services and Development Agency will now decide whether both, one of the two, or neither is needed in the community that straddles Williamson and Maury counties.