After the lab at Rockville Centre, NY-based Mercy Medical mixed up one patient's test with another woman's, the women had a double mastectomy and died due to complications from the surgery. In October 2007, the state Health Department concluded that the hospital had taken proper "corrective action" after the mix-up in the mastectomy case. But it is now investigating the hospital over the deaths of three other patients.
Officials have announced that two Newark, NJ, hospitals would be shut down before summer 2008, and their services would be consolidated with St. Michael's Medical Center. The three hospitals, owned by Cathedral Healthcare System, were losing $6 million a month, according to the company taking them over. But angry residents and elected officials say the closings will leave parts of Newark without vital services for a community with many immigrants and poor people.
The Loudoun County (VA) Board of Supervisors last week approved Inova Health System's request to build a medical campus in the southern part of the county. But construction will depend on the outcome of court hearings set to begin on a project by Hospital Corporation of America. HCA is seeking to build a medical campus less than half a mile away from Inova's site.
Greensboro, NC-based Moses Cone Health System has formed an alliance with Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem. The two will form a nonprofit company so they can share information and buy supplies in bulk, among other functions. The goal of the alliance is to improve health-care quality and reduce costs, say representatives from the two providers.
President Bush's proposed cuts in federal spending to train pediatricians could spell disaster for education programs at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center and make a national shortage of pediatricians even worse, said hospital officials. Bush's federal budget request would cut all funding for a program that trains 4,700 pediatricians and pediatric specialists a year. If Children's loses the federal money for training physicians, administrators say they will have to choose between training fewer physicians or taking money away from patient care to maintain the program.
A new director is about to start work at Carolinas Medical Center's ALS center, even as longtime patients continue to complain about the abrupt firing of Jeffrey Rosenfeld, MD, the center's founding director. In 2007, Rosenfeld took the unusual step of suing his former employer, claiming breach of contract and defamation of character. Charlotte, NC-based Carolinas Medical Center has denied the allegations. Since Rosenfeld's firing, some patients have criticized the hospital for removing the doctor, whose reputation drew patients from around the country.