Hospital leaders at Cleveland-based University Hospitals Case Medical Center have asked 40 current and former patients to serve on an advisory council to share their thoughts on shaping a future cancer hospital. UH announced plans for the hospital in 2006 as part of a $1 billion expansion.
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal's administration is asking state senators to restore millions of dollars in spending for healthcare and education programs. The administration warns that hospitals, nursing homes and home-care services for the disabled could be affected by budget cuts ordered by the House.
The Lousiana Legislature is nearing final passage on a package of bills designed to protect medical personnel from lawsuits that stem from healthcare delivered during emergencies. Two of the measures are inspired and backed by a New Orleans physician who was arrested but never indicted and still faces civil lawsuits related to patient deaths at Memorial Medical Center after Hurricane Katrina. The bills would provide lawsuit protections for paid medical professionals not covered under the Samaritan Act, which offers immunity from civil lawsuits for providers who voluntarily offer their care to an emergency victim in need.
Florida Gov. Charlie Crist has signed into law rules streamlining future state approval for hospitals around the state. Because of concerns that certificate of need laws are anti-competitive, Florida deregulated much of CON in the past decade, eliminating the need to go through the process to add beds or start open-heart-surgery units. But Florida's review process for new hospitals continued and took up to 10 years or more, because it allowed rival hospitals to mount seemingly endless legal roadblocks. Under the new rules, hospitals will have to state their opposition to a new facility at the start of the review process, and a hospital that challenges a regulatory decision in court and loses would have to pay the applicant hospital's legal fees, up to $1 million.
For decades, the tabloids have made a cottage industry of star ailments. But now, celebrity representatives say that a growing appetite for entertainment-related news, coupled with an increasing reliance on computerized record-keeping, has dramatically increased invasions of medical privacy.
Atlanta's Grady Memorial Hospital is getting its first cash infusion of $50 million as a new nonprofit board takes over responsibility for operations of the public hospital. The first installment will come from the Robert W. Woodruff Foundation, which has pledged $200 million to Grady over four years. Grady is struggling financially, and has reached a crisis point because of rising costs, dwindling aid, a lack of paying customers, and neglect.