CONCORD, N.H. — A traveling hospital technician accused of infecting dozens of patients with hepatitis C through needles tainted with his own blood reached an agreement with prosecutors that would give him a sentence of as little as 30 years instead of the nearly 100 he could have faced if convicted in a trial. The agreement, filed Monday, also contained new revelations that he was fired from two Michigan hospitals and resigned from two others before beginning his traveling temp career. David Kwiatkowski, who has been jailed since his arrest in July 2012, is accused of stealing painkiller syringes from Exeter Hospital's cardiac catheterization lab in New Hampshire and replacing them with blood-tainted saline.
Eight Maine hospitals have sued U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius over the government's handling of millions of dollars in payments for some low-income and elderly patients. In the suit filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Portland, the hospitals argue that Sebelius arbitrarily and improperly ruled against them in a dispute over the payments. The eight hospitals are Maine Medical Center in Portland, Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston, Mid Coast Hospital in Brunswick, Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor, Mercy Hospital in Portland, Northern Maine Medical Center in Fort Kent, Southern Maine Medical Center in Biddeford and MaineGeneral Medical Center in Augusta.
Medical entrepreneurs are remaking the emergency room experience. They're pulling the emergency room out of the hospital and planting it in the strip mall. It's called a "free-standing ER," and some 400 of them have opened across the country in the past four years. The trend is hot around Houston, where there are already 41 free-standing ERs and 10 more in the works. "I think these emergency medical centers are springing up like Texas wildflowers in the springtime," says Vivian Ho, a health economist at Rice University in Houston. "It's really amazing."
SAN FRANCISCO — California schools may give students insulin injections and other medications without having to call in licensed nurses, the state's highest court ruled Monday. "California law expressly permits trained, unlicensed school personnel to administer prescription medications such as insulin in accordance with the written statements of a student's treating physician and parents," Justice Kathryn Mickle Werdegar wrote for the California Supreme Court. The unanimous decision was a defeat for the powerful California Nurses Assn., which had argued that only licensed healthcare workers could administer medicine under a state law that bars the unauthorized practice of nursing.
A premature baby born at high altitude faces challenges uncommon among newborns in Denver that often can't be treated by rural physicians. But expanded technology is helping beam the expertise of neonatal specialists in the city into critical-care situations at 33 remote hospitals in Colorado, Kansas and Wyoming. Rural physicians have been called the heroes of medicine — they're jacks of all trades, sometimes work at high altitudes and are constantly under pressure. Still, there are times they can only do so much.
Tufts Medical Center, its doctors' group and Vanguard Health System are launching their new health plan, called Minuteman Health. The joint venture, announced last August, was funded by an $88.5 million loan from the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and will be governed by its members. Federal grants were set aside for up to 50 health insurance co-ops that would focus on greater transparency and lower costs for members. The plan will be run by some heavy-hitters in the local health care industry. The CEO of Minuteman Health, Tom Policelli, previously ran a division of United Health Group called iPlan, which was the consumer-directed part of the business