Boston-based Caritas Christi Health Care is set to disclose that it is selling a laboratory business to Quest Diagnostics Inc. for an undisclosed price and will use the company's technology to help manage medical records at Caritas hospitals. The deal is part of a larger effort by Caritas to cut costs and boost efficiency at its six Eastern Massachusetts hospitals.
Longer days, lower pay, less prestige, and more administrative headaches have turned doctors away in droves from family medicine.
The number of U.S. medical school students going into primary care has dropped 51.8% since 1997, according to the American Academy of Family Physicians. And if Congress passes health care legislation that extends insurance coverage to a significant part of the 47 million Americans who lack insurance, the need for more doctors is going to escalate.
Developers of a North Dallas medical complex have lined up the sales of two more tracts for new buildings. The Westmount Health Campus already has a new hospital, and other construction is planned. Westmount Realty Capital sold an almost 7-acre tract on the east side of North Central to Forest Park Realty Partners III, a group of physicians and investors. The same buyers also optioned 3.8 acres of adjoining land.
Despite the governor's pledge to better discipline errant health professionals in California there are signs that it will be difficult to enact sweeping changes as quickly or easily as the administration has suggested. At meetings in Sacramento, regulators and state attorneys generally spoke of the need for reform but could not agree on potential solutions presented to them. They also offered no concrete time frames for having a workable system in place.
Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago plans to add nearly 90 hospital beds to its main outpatient tower. Northwestern submitted its $73-million proposal to state regulators, and aims to ease a capacity crunch for intensive-care and medical/surgical beds. The project requires the okay of the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board, which is scheduled to consider the application in January.
The White House shut down an email account set up to collect tips from Americans on "fishy" claims about President Barack Obama's healthcare plan. The move came as congressional Republicans and bloggers continued to raise questions about why Obama officials were collecting negative statements made by ordinary Americans about the president's healthcare plan and what the administration was planning to do with the information it gathered.