Diverse organization such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and the Service Employees International Union are among the members of Better Health Care Together, a coalition formed to build support for significant, structural reform of the healthcare system. Members of the coalition, which also includes such corporations as Intel and General Mills, agree on some broad principles: Americans should have access to affordable health insurance; people have a responsibility to maintain and protect their health; the healthcare system must become more efficient, and businesses, governments and individuals should contribute to the cost for a new system. The coalition recently held a discussion on these issues in Milwaukee.
The Certificate of Need section of the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services has denied the joint application of Raleigh-based Rex Healthcare and Franklin Regional Medical Center to move the hospital from Louisburg to Youngsville. The $103 million proposed hospital would have replaced an aging Louisburg facility. Critics of the move said the hospital relocation would move it away from the more rural and indigent parts of Franklin County, while advocates said the move would make it closer to the county's population center.
Atlanta-based Grady Memorial Hospital is engaged in a six-figure fight with a New York doctor who said the hospital hired him as a top administrator, moved him to the city and then killed the deal the day before he was to start work. William Bithoney, MD, said hospital officials misled him and then stranded him, personally and professionally, in Atlanta. Bithoney says Grady owes him $612,500 in severance pay, and a lawsuit seeking damages could drive that amount to more than $1 million.
Gregory Simone, MD, is a cardiologist but also a businessman with an MBA and chief executive officer of the Georgia-based WellStar Health System and its many satellite facilities. WellStar has 280 doctors in its physicians group, and a total of 1,100 who have medical staff privileges. The system has 1,311 beds and more than 11,000 employees—making it one of the largest healthcare providers in Georgia. Simone took over as the big boss of the system in 2007, six months after the death of his best friend, Robert Lipson, MD.
The Williamson Medical Center board of trustees has decided to appeal the Tennessee Health Services Development Agency's approval of an application by HCA/TriStar to build a 56-bed hospital in Spring Hill. Williamson representatives say HCA/TriStar's proposal would unnecessarily duplicate services and that there is not enough demand for another hospital.
After just 15 months as president and chief executive of Illinois-based Loyola University Health System, Paul Whelton, MD, is moving to re-energize its major teaching hospital complex. Whelton next step is $1 billion strategic plan to bolster Loyola's teaching, research and clinical programs. The 10-year plan includes money to convert the main hospital to all private rooms as well as additional resources to bolster its network of suburban outpatient medical-care sites and $100 million for a research facility to retain and attract top-notch medical researchers.