In an effort to cut costs, the University of Texas Medical Branch may stop offering cancer care to indigent and undocumented immigrants. Its Cancer Patients Acceptance Committee has been studying the issue, but implementing the policy, but it raises obvious ethical questions, says hospital representatives.
Thirteen hospitals in Palm Beach County, FL, support a regional call schedule designed to direct emergency patients to specialists quickly. The plan, however, could be blocked by doctors or a state regulator with final say.
Four months after returning to Minneapolis to head Fairview Health Services-Minnesota's third-largest health system-CEO Mark Eustis explains his big plans for the organization. Fairview owns seven hospitals, including the University of Minnesota Medical Center, and a chain of primary care clinics. A couple major projects that Eustis has inherited in this new role include building a new hospital and potentially buying a medical group.
The case against Medtronic that will be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court has wide-ranging implications for patients, doctors and device makers. Medtronic asserts that because the FDA has a rigorous approval process for medical devices, federal law "preempts" it from state claims relating to a device's safety and effectiveness. Lower courts have agreed.
Cash-strapped Mercy Jeannette Hospital in Jeannette, PA, is shutting down its obstetrics department and the adult inpatient rehabilitation and behavioral health units. The units will be moved to Excela Health System's Westmoreland hospital.
A Beaver County, PA, judge has cleared the way for the sale of Aliquippa Community Hospital. The hospital should now stay open until at least February 2008.