Pennsylvania-based Butler Health System expects to have an easier time paying off its construction debt for its modernization project because of a $13.4 million grant from the state. The health system will receive aid worth $670,000 each year for the next 20 years, and the money is contingent on the health system's creation of 500 new jobs.
Frustrated with seeing as many as 40 patients a day for just a few minutes at a time, seven doctors will be the first in Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky to join a national network of specialized medical practices. The Florida-based MDVIP network is trying to join with more practices around the country. Patients who sign up for MDVIP get regular physicals, a Web-based listing of all their medical records, and a fee pays for the preventive care that is not covered by Medicare or private insurance policies.
After two violent escapes by prison inmates, a healthcare group that oversees Laurel (MD) Regional Hospital has told the state that it will no longer admit inmates as patients in non-emergency situations until new policies are put into place. The group called the escapes 'unacceptable.'
In response to increased admissions, Memorial Hospital Miramar (FL) recently opened a 10-bed neonatal intensive care unit and a 12-bed pediatric inpatient unit, while adding 40 beds for adult patients. In the past year, admissions at the 178-bed hospital climbed by 20 percent, and the number of births and emergency-room visits has increased dramatically.
Kaiser Permanente has launched a two-year, $600,000 analysis of 175,000 patient records to spot what doctors do right--or wrong--in preventing cardiovascular disease, the nation's leading cause of death and disability. The project is funded by a federal agency and harnesses the HMO's massive database of electronic patient records, aims to ease the burden of the disease on individuals, as well as on the nation's coffers.
An ongoing pattern of medical errors and neglectful care contributed to as many as 21 deaths this year in Georgia's state psychiatric hospitals. These deaths occurred amid intense scrutiny of the hospitals' performance. The seven state-run facilities remain overcrowded and understaffed, and patients are dying under circumstances similar to those that led to more than 100 other questionable deaths in the previous five years, including overmedication and misdiagnosed bowel obstruction.