Southwest Atlanta Hospital, citing the credit crunch, has announced that it would close, the third time it has shut down in the past four years. Southwest Atlanta Hospital had already shuttered its emergency room and had been operating only an urgent-care center since the fall. The hospital's current owner, Georgia Medical Provider Financial Corp., said in a statement that it was unable to obtain funding to revive the facility. Southwest was seeking to become a hospital specializing in surgical services.
A showdown between Tufts Medical Center and Massachusetts' largest healthcare insurer ended when the hospital and Blue Cross reached an agreement that allowed both sides to claim success. Tufts and its affiliated doctors said they will join Blue Cross's "alternative quality contract," which the insurer has been pushing as a way to slow the spiraling cost of healthcare while improving treatment. Under the deal, Tufts and its doctors will get a raise with the potential to earn even more money if they reduce the costs of treatment and reach quality goals.
To alleviate the vast numbers of young adults between the ages of 19 and 29 with no health insurance, New York Gov. David A. Paterson is preparing a plan that will allow many more young adults to be claimed as dependents on their parents' health insurance plans. The plan was praised by some healthcare experts as a major step forward, but early evidence from the roughly two dozen other states that have adopted similar programs suggests that their effectiveness in shrinking the ranks of the uninsured has been modest at best.
Columbia St. Mary's is slowing construction on its hospital in Milwaukee to conserve cash during the economic crisis. The new hospital, which had been set to open next January, is now scheduled to open in the fall of 2010. The $417 million hospital will consolidate Columbia St. Mary's two hospitals on Milwaukee's east side.
Peggy Troy's first job out of college was working as a pediatric nurse at what was then Milwaukee Children's Hospital. Now, more than 30 years later, Troy has again gone to work for the hospital—this time as the chief executive.
South Carolina-based Palmetto Health is appealing a judge's decision that would jeopardize its plans for a hospital in Irmo, SC. Palmetto Health planned to transfer its certificate of need license for 76 beds to its Parkridge campus from its Palmetto Health Baptist location, a move that had been approved by the state Department of Health and Environmental Control. But earlier this month, Administrative Law Judge Marvin Kittrell overturned DHEC's decision to allow the transfer. The deal had been challenged by Lexington Medical Center and Newberry Memorial Hospital. Now Palmetto Health and DHEC have each sent a letter to Kittrell, asking him to reconsider his decision.