Daniel D. Ricciardi, MD, a board member of New York City's Health and Hospitals Corporation, has resigned after the agency began an inquiry into his role in securing a 10-year, $100 million contract for a Caribbean medical school where he has long had a paid position. Ricciardi was criticized by officials of New York-based medical schools for his role in securing the contract for the city's 11 public hospitals to provide clinical training to students from St. George's University School of Medicine in Grenada.
Community Health Network, an Indianapolis-based hospital system, wants to bring the same sort of computerized convenience of an ATM to healthcare through its new myCommunity program. The service offers a variety of free tech tools to patients who sign up to receive a credit-card-sized "myCommunity" card. It will also feature express check-in kiosks to be installed at one hospital first, then throughout the system eventually. Patients will swipe their myCommunity cards and use touch screens to complete the inpatient and outpatient check-in process. MyCommunity also allows patients to keep track of their conditions and medications.
In spring 2007, hospital company Pacific Health Corp. agreed to purchase the nonprofit, 223-bed Anaheim (CA) Memorial Medical Center for $57.1 million. But the sale of a nonprofit hospital to a for-profit company must be approved by the state attorney general, and the purchase has run into opposition. At a public hearing, opponents of Pacific Health's purchase of Memorial contended that Pacific Health should not be expanding at a time when its current hospitals have been hit with so much criticism from regulators over the last year. Pacific Health's problems grew this week, as it was named in a civil lawsuit filed by Los Angeles City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo. He contended that the company was part of a scheme "to defraud the Medi-Cal and Medicare programs."
A Harris County (TX) Hospital District administrator probably violated the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act when she downloaded medical and financial records for 1,200 patients with HIV, AIDS, and other medical conditions onto a flash drive that later was lost or stolen. The hospital district has released little information about the situation, but issued a brief statement saying patients affected by the breach would receive a letter in the mail and would be allowed to enroll in a credit protection program at the district's expense. The district has strengthened its policies and procedures regarding the use of transportable media devices, according to the statement.
Raleigh, NC-based Rex Healthcare has received permission from state regulators to build a new, three-story outpatient care center across from its main campus. The center will have almost 130,000 square feet of space for outpatient services, and a separate building will have 85,000 square feet for medical offices. Rex officials told state regulators that the building was needed to reduce congestion on the main campus. Among the services Rex will move are: eight existing operating rooms and four existing procedure rooms, most of its diagnostic imaging facilities and one MRI scanner, and rehab services, including physical, occupational and speech therapy.
Florida is facing an explosion in its number of elderly Hispanic residents, raising concerns about the strain on a healthcare system that is not prepared to handle their unique needs. In 1995, U.S. census officials said Florida would face a 102% increase in Hispanics age 65 and older by 2010. By 2007, the Hispanic elderly population had already increased by 124% to 530,000 people, or 12.5% of the senior population. Nurses and doctors who speak Spanish are sorely needed, but the language barrier isn't the only concern. Sometimes there are cultural differences that can affect a patient's care, experts say.