Sutter Health announced plans on Monday for a new flagship medical center in Santa Clara, part of a multibillion-dollar investment to expand healthcare access in Silicon Valley. The centerpiece of the $2.8 billion dual-campus plan is an eight-story medical center to be built on a 13.63-acre site near Levi's Stadium. Sutter Health President and CEO Warner Thomas called the facility the 'digital hospital of the future.'
Planned service cuts and layoffs at Pottstown Hospital have nurses and staff members concerned that it's the precursor to something worse. Now, they're trying to rally support and stop the cutbacks. Tower Health, which purchased Pottstown Hospital in 2017, is closing the hospital's intensive care center, cancer center, and endoscopy outpatient center. It's also laying off more than 131 workers at the hospital.
Heights University Hospital, the struggling acute-care facility in Jersey City, said Nov. 14 it will close immediately after executives at hospital parent Hudson Regional Hospital said they were turned down by the state a day earlier to get $25 million to continue operating. Departments at the hospital including the neighborhood clinic, preoperative services, endoscopy, pre-admission, ambulatory surgery, the operating room and the dialysis unit will be reduced or eliminated and what remains will operate as a standalone emergency department. About 120 jobs will be cut at the former Christ Hospital, which was founded in 1872.
Five South Florida hospitals and the Leapfrog Group are separately asking a Palm Beach County judge to resolve a legal dispute over the nonprofit's hospital safety grades without a trial. Over the past three weeks, each side has filed motions for summary judgment, presenting arguments to convince the court to rule in its favor.
Regional Medical Center of Central Alabama in Greenville has announced it is transitioning to a rural emergency hospital. The center is expected to lay off about 90 employees across various departments as a result of the move. A rural emergency hospital is a Medicare provider designation established by Congress in 2021. REHs maintain access to outpatient medical services in areas that may not be able to sustain a full-service hospital. On Thursday, the hospital announced it will file an application with the State Health Planning and Development Agency to begin the process. In an announcement, RMCCA said the decision 'represents the hospital's best opportunity to achieve financial stability and continue serving the healthcare needs of the Greenville community.'
The owners of a 153-year-old hospital in Jersey City said in a statement Thursday night that they plan to close the facility due to lack of funding. "Unfortunately, despite best efforts by the leadership at Hudson Regional," said Nizar Kifaieh, the CEO of Hudson Regional Health, "it was informed this afternoon that the State will not be providing the critical funding needed to sustain the operations of Heights University Hospital." He said Heights University Hospital has filed a Certificate of Need for Closure with the state's Department of Health.