Following layoffs and the shutdown of two neighborhood clinics earlier this year, Grady Memorial Hospital is cutting an additional 120 positions as it faces a $17 million budget shortfall in just the first four months of 2011. The cuts represent roughly 2% of Grady's workforce and will include some nurses, spokesman Matt Gove said. They are part of a spate of cost-saving measures, including cutting back on overtime, improving cash collections and reducing patients' length of stay. No services or programs will be reduced, he said. "We're at a point where decisions have to be made to ensure Grady's doors will stay open," said Thomas Dortch, a Grady corporate board member and chairman of the Fulton-DeKalb Hospital Authority board of trustees. The move follows other recent cutbacks as Grady has tried to bridge a $20 million cut in local and federal dollars to care for the poor and uninsured, among other financial hurdles. So far this year, the safety net hospital has upped prescription drug co-pays, closed two health clinics and cut 100 jobs.
A federal District Court judge has ordered the Lifespan hospital group to pay Tufts Medical Center $14.2 million for its misconduct a decade ago when Tufts was part of Lifespan. But the award is only a fraction of the $135 million Tufts had sought. According to a May 24 ruling by Judge Joseph N. Laplante, Providence-based Lifespan pushed the Boston hospital –– then known as the New England Medical Center — into a risky financial arrangement, without disclosing that its then-chief financial officer had a "close, longstanding personal relationship" with the Morgan Stanley broker who handled the transaction. The former Lifespan chief financial officer, David Lantto, and Jeff Seubel, the Morgan Stanley broker, had a professional relationship that "had developed into a friendship because of their mutual affinity for wine," the judge's ruling stated.
Prosecutors on Monday accused a Newport Beach physician and three others as defendants in a $17-million workers' compensation insurance fraud. The Orange County district attorney's office and the California Department of Insurance released a grand jury transcript and a 181-page indictment listing 884 charges against Dr. Sim Carlisle Hoffman, 59, a radiologist from Newport Beach, according to the Daily Pilot. Also charged were Dr. Thomas Michael Heric, 74, of Malibu; Louis Umberto Santillan, 44, of Chino Hills; and Beverly Jane Mitchell, 60, of Westlake Village.
Most countries, including the U.S., lack integrated online patient-record systems. Patients visiting new doctors need to fill out paper medical-history forms. What's more, over time, records can become spotty, incomplete, and difficult to access. This leads to both inefficiencies in the medical-record system, which cost money, and medical mistakes, which can cost lives. Researchers and entrepreneurs hope to change that by giving each patient a smart card containing his or her complete medical history. This approach may prove difficult to implement in the U.S., owing to security fears and compatibility issues, but the technology has the potential to transform health care in countries that have unified health systems, or where there's inadequate infrastructure for sharing records in other ways. Researchers in the U.K. have developed the MyCare card, which is roughly the size and shape of a credit card, with a fold-out USB plug. Another project, SmartCare, first implemented in Zambia, has recently expanded to Ethiopia and South Africa and demonstrates the potential for card-based systems in parts of the world with limited infrastructure.
The death of a Davie, FL mother who stopped breathing during liposuction three days ago is a tragedy that should prompt the state to make surgery offices safer, her family and attorney said Tuesday. Maria Shortall, 38, was a healthy domestic housekeeper who went to Alyne Medical Rejuvenation Institute in Weston to have fat removed from her midsection on Saturday, the family's attorney, Michael Freedland, said at a news conference. The family does not know what went wrong. The family is not now blaming Alyne. Freedland called on the state to toughen the rules to ensure that all cosmetic surgery offices can handle life-threatening emergencies. Shortall is the third cosmetic surgery patient whose death has come to light in Broward County since Christmas. An attorney for the surgery office and Shortall's surgeon, Alyne co-founder Dr. Alberto Sant Antonio, declined to comment on her death.
Trident Health System laid off 35 full-time workers, including clinical staff, to cope with Medicaid cuts the state announced a week ago, officials of the hospital owner said Monday. The cuts in Medicaid reimbursement rates are expected to lead to an annual loss of $2.1 million for Trident Health System, which operates Moncks Corner, Summerville and Trident medical centers, spokesman Bob Behanian said in a statement. The layoffs come from The Trident and Summerville facilities and reflect about 2% of the hospital system's 1,800 employee work force, Behanian said. No future layoffs are anticipated and no reductions in patient services have been announced, he said. The hospitals will continue "to fill positions in areas where employees are needed," he said. Todd Gallati, Trident's CEO, said in statement: "Reorganizations are always difficult, but the significance of the state's cuts to the Medicaid program caused us to act in the best interest of the overall health of the organization."