West Penn Allegheny Health System released quarterly results showing operating losses of $9.1 million and a net loss of $5.6 million for the quarter ending Dec. 31. Despite a 2% increase in acute patient admissions across the system in the second half of 2008, "we're starting to see quite a bit of softening in volume," president and CEO Christopher Olivia told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. "That's in concert with what a lot of other health systems are recognizing."
The board of directors for Towson, MD-based St. Joseph Medical Center has appointed an outside executive to run the Towson hospital during a federal investigation of its financial dealings with an affiliated doctors group. Beth O'Brien, senior vice president for operations at the Denver-based Catholic Health Initiative, which owns St. Joseph and 71 other hospitals, was named to the post. Three unnamed hospital executives have stepped down from their jobs to avoid a conflict of interest during the inquiry.
The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center said in court papers that a lawsuit filed against it by the son of a woman who died after wandering away from her hospital room was full of "scandalous" and "irrelevant" claims. Rose Lee Diggs, 89, was found on the roof of UPMC Montefiore in December, hours after she had wandered away from her 12th-floor room. The lawsuit, filed by her son in the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas, alleges negligence by hospital staff and includes claims that hospital workers attempted a cover-up by replacing a broken lock that led to the roof of the hospital where the woman was found.
Kansas City hospitals have not yet succumbed to a flurry of layoffs, but administrators say they are in the middle of choppy waters trying to avoid them. Income is faltering because investments are down, government aid is dropping, and patient volume has dipped. Now hospitals are struggling with having to care for a growing number of patients who cannot pay their bills.
Seattle Children's plan to more than double the number of beds and building sizes on its Laurelhurst campus between now and 2030 is either a needed expansion sensitively balanced with community concerns or an unnecessarily massive proposal whose effects cannot be mitigated. Those were the two views presented at the opening of a Seattle hearing examiner hearing on the proposal.
A lawmaker has filed a bill seeking to limit Florida's authority to operate a Medicaid privatization experiment even as state officials have begun to take a stand against the troubled pilot program. The proposal seeks to revoke the Agency for Health Care Administration's power to get money from the federal agency which helps fund the pilot program. Rep. Elaine Schwartz, D-Hollywood, filed the proposal and said her office is flooded with residents who can't get doctor's appointments and medicine.