A Golden Gate Estates man entered a hospital patient's room in Naples, FL and fatally shot his estranged wife before shooting and wounding himself early Tuesday evening, Collier County sheriff's officials said. Christine Ann Moretz, 53, was killed while visiting a patient at Physician's Regional-Pine Ridge about 5:40 p.m., Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Michelle Batten said. The shooter was identified as 54-year-old Jeffrey L. Moretz, of the 6000 block of English Oaks Lane, Batten said. After turning the gun on himself, Jeffrey Moretz was secured by hospital staff and transported by helicopter to another hospital. The hospital was shut down for about two hours following the shooting. It was unclear which hospital Jeffrey Moretz was flown to. He was in intensive care Tuesday night, Batten said.
Nearly two years after it failed to sell its hospital in southwest Houston, the Memorial Hermann Hospital System is rebuilding it with a focus on patients and doctors both. For the large and growing Asian community served by Memorial Hermann Southwest, there is Vietnamese television, translation services and plans for a Buddhist pagoda. For the aging patient population, there's a separate emergency room that is less hectic. For the doctors, the 457-bed hospital has created a physicians' council to air grievances and chime in on day-to-day operations. The efforts are paying off, hospital officials say. Earnings before taxes and other expenses increased 72%, or $2.2 million, through the first 11 months of the current fiscal year. Officials declined to disclose net earnings figures. "We're not where we once were or where we want to be, but we've definitely turned a corner," said George Gaston, who became CEO of the hospital shortly after the sale was called off. "We think we've hit bottom and are definitely moving in the right direction."
University Hospitals in Cleveland, like health systems nationwide, is searching for ways to prevent patients -- especially those who have been hospitalized because of heart failure, pneumonia or a heart attack -- from being readmitted into their full-time care. University Hospitals and other area health systems are providing follow-up visits, as well as phone calls and other services to patients just released from their care, in an effort to keep former patients healthy and prevent them from returning to hospital's bricks and mortar facilities. If hospitals don't stop patients from being readmitted, they will pay: Starting in October 2012, Medicare will begin withholding payments to those that have higher-than-expected 30-day readmission rates for patients suffering from pneumonia, heart attack or heart failure.
A new policy at the Michigan Secretary of State's office could shorten the wait for nearly 3,000 other Michigan residents for organ and tissue donations. About 2.2 million of the state's 10 million residents have indicated they would donate organs upon their death. The changes already spurred a 20% growth in donors in one month since being implemented in May. The policy change comes after years of lobbying by activists and follows the lead of other states. It directs staff at the Secretary of State to ask customers if they want to join the Michigan Organ Donor Registry. Other changes also are under way to bolster the rolls. Currently, Michigan's participation rate is among the nation's lowest. Compared with last year, 5,300 people added their names to the donor registry in May.
Outside of heart attacks, doctors are often too quick to use a common $20,000 procedure to treat patients suffering from coronary artery disease, a new study suggests. About 600,000 angioplasty procedures, which almost always involve placement of a stent, are done in the U.S. each year. Roughly 70% of these procedures are performed on patients suffering symptoms of a heart attack and aren't medically controversial. But the remainder are done on stable patients who are suffering mild symptoms or no symptoms at all. Of those, 50% are deemed appropriate, 38% uncertain and 12% inappropriate, the report says. The results, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association Tuesday, come amid rising concern about the overuse of big ticket medical technology. Such concerns are rising not only in cardiology, but in other major specialties as state and federal governments and health insurers seek to contain healthcare costs.
California's stem cell research agency says it needs billions more taxpayer dollars to deliver on promised cures to major diseases. Yet at a time when other departments are cutting back spending, the agency recently agreed to pay its new boss one of the highest salaries in state government. The 50-person grant-making body will pay a Los Angeles investment banker $400,000 to serve as its new part-time board chairman, pushing the combined salaries of its two top officials to nearly $1 million per year. Santa Monica-based Saybrook Capital founder Jonathan Thomas — chosen over a former cardiologist who was willing to take the job for less than half the salary — said his pay is "reasonable" because he has the background to help the agency raise the money it needs to survive. "Without funding, everything else suffers," Thomas said.