A Boston hospital has agreed to settle a gender bias lawsuit by paying its former head of anesthesiology $7 million, lawyers said. The settlement between Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Dr. Carol Warfield includes some non-financial items. Warfield, now 61, charged that Dr. Josef Fischer, who was then head of surgery, systematically sabotaged her and tried to have her removed after she became head of anesthesiology in 2000. She complained to Paul Levy, then the hospital's chief executive, and said he allied with Fischer to force her out of her position.
Shoddy practices and unsanitary conditions at three large-scale specialty pharmacies have been tied to deaths and illnesses over the past decade, revealing that the serious safety lapses at a Massachusetts pharmacy linked to last fall's deadly meningitis outbreak were not an isolated occurrence, records and interviews show. The series of safety failures happened long before national attention focused on the New England Compounding Center, whose contaminated steroid shots were linked to 45 deaths and 651 illnesses.
Seniors have saved about $5.7 billion on prescription drugs since January 2011 because of provisions in the 2010 health care law meant to close the Medicare "doughnut hole," the government plans to announce today. "This discount has led more people to be able to afford their medication, which keeps them healthier and can help bring down costs in the long run," said Jon Blum, director of the Center for Medicare, part of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).
Ken Ulman knows the value of health insurance: His brother Doug, the chief executive officer of the Livestrong Foundation, beat cancer three times because he had coverage, Ulman says. That's a big reason Ulman's tried to expand access to medical care as county executive of Maryland's Howard County, just south of Baltimore. It's required some innovation.
The board that oversees the State University of New York system is meeting Friday morning to decide the fate of the Long Island College Hospital, commonly known as LICH. SUNY acquired the financially troubled hospital in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, in 2010, hoping it would be a beneficial partner to SUNY's Downstate teaching hospital in East Flatbush. But on Thursday, Dr. John Williams, the president of the SUNY Downstate hospital system, formally recommended to the university board that LICH be closed. He said both hospitals have continued to lose money, especially LICH.
Mayo Clinic's quest for more than $500 million in public funding to support its $6 billion expansion plan took its first legislative steps on Thursday in what will likely be a long, winding journey. Sen. Dave Senjem, R-Rochester, and Assistant Majority Leader Kim Norton, DFL-Rochester, both introduced bills to advance the clinic's Destination Medical Center initiative.