At a time of dire need of healthcare in New Orleans, the interim LSU Public Hospital has opened a community health clinic. With an emphasis on prevention, the clinic will provide services such as comprehensive routine examinations, sports physicals, hearing and vision screenings, immunizations, and evidence-based chronic disease management. Its staff will include a doctor, a family nurse practitioner and a licensed practical nurse.
After an initial denial, North Carolina officials have now approved Carolinas HealthCare System's request to build a new Lincoln County hospital. The $85 million facility will replace the current Carolinas Medical Center--Lincoln. Construction will likely begin in spring 2008, and the hospital could be open by late 2010. Regulators had initially denied the request for the new facility, saying Carolinas had overestimated population growth in Lincoln County and didn't demonstrate adequate need for the hospital's services.
A Fulton County, GA, commission has postponed its vote on whether to provide consent allowing Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta to be taken over by a nonprofit group. Several commissioners said Grady officials only recently alerted them that their approval is needed, and that they are moving quickly. Georgia Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle said he wants the issue resolved by the end of February.
Starting in April 2008, Blue Cross of Tennessee plans to give members with private insurance secured online access to data showing how much individual doctors charge for various procedures. Doctors will also be rated based on whether patients got the right treatments or tests required for certain conditions. Ratings such as these have become popular, but skeptics say the ratings could be used to steer patients to cheaper doctors who aren't necessarily the most qualified, and some doctors question the accuracy or completeness of the information culled from insurance claims.
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. will open its first in-store medical clinics under its own brand name after leasing space in dozens of stores to outside companies that operate the convenience-care clinics. Wal-Mart will open "The Clinic at Wal-Mart" as a joint venture with local hospital systems in Atlanta, Dallas and Little Rock, Ark., beginning in April 2008.
Florida International University College of Medicine announced today that it has received preliminary accreditation from the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME), which allows the school to accept the first class of future doctors in the fall of 2009. The FIU College of Medicine is a response to the growing physician shortage crisis. While the College itself will ultimately graduate 120 doctors a year, it will be further leveraged to create new residency programs in South Florida. It is estimated that as many as 80 percent of doctors who do their residencies in Florida, practice in Florida.