Five years ago, hospitals waged intense bidding wars to fill nursing vacancies, luring nurses with huge signing bonuses, vehicles and vacations. Such efforts often only exacerbated turnover, spurring nurses to remain in jobs just long enough to claim the prizes before moving to other hospitals with better incentives. Instead, many nurses want better working conditions more than they do extra money. Hospitals now are responding by introducing technology to dramatically reduce paperwork, offering more flexible hours, reducing caseloads, paying for advanced training and giving them more authority.
The University of California is set to move forward with a new $1.6 billion hospital complex in San Francisco that is being touted as the greenest medical center ever built in California. The university's governing Board of Regents is expected to give final approval for the six-story, 289-bed complex of hospitals. The facility will allow the UCSF Medical Center to expand and modernize its facilities for children, cancer patients and women and will enable practicing doctors and medical researchers to work more closely together in advancing cures and treatments.
The Quantum Group Inc. in Wellington, FL, is donating $1.2 million in software and other equipment over the next five years to Boynton Beach's Caridad Center. Officials with Quantum Group say the donation will help bring the free clinic, which offers medical and dental services to low-income citizens, to a more technologically advanced level.
A new plan that makes greater use of helicopters to distribute the seriously injured to hospitals across Los Angeles County got high marks from trauma surgeons. The goal is to ensure that the injured get the proper level of care and to "spread patients out instead of having one hospital inundated" near a disaster scene, said Cathy Chidester, director of the county's Emergency Medical Services.
The St. Bernard Parish Council is now considering replacing two members of its public Hospital Service District board, as a long-standing conflict of interest dispute continues in a proposal to build a new hospital. The two members in question are both physicians the Franciscan Mission of Our Lady Health System, which is one of several healthcare organizations in the running for the construction contract.
Adventist Health is selling its South Coast Medical Center in Laguna Beach, CA, citing poor financial performance. The 18-hospital system has owned the facility for 10 years, but officials say it can no longer afford to fund its operation.
The newest facility to be added to Columbia St. Mary's health system roster remains within budget despite rising construction and fuel costs, and is expected to be completed by next year—officials expect to move in by January 2010. The new hospital being built in Milwaukee is said to be the state's largest hospital construction project.
A Pennyslvania plan that would reward hospitals that reduce deadly infections could be delayed because criteria is still being developed. As a result, the state Legislature has not set aside payment money. The program is designed to reduce the more than 2,500 deaths annually attributed hospital germs, and a payment plan intended to take effect Jan. 1 would pay hospitals that cut infections by at least 10%.
Nashville-based Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt will nearly double bed space at the hospital. About 200 new beds will be added to the current 205-bed, 616,785-square-foot facility. These include about 90 new pediatric beds, 65 obstetrical beds, and 40 neonatal intensive care beds.
An Illinois law designed to regulate hospital building and other health facility expansions undercuts consumer choice and weakens "markets' ability to contain healthcare costs," the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission said in a statement. In the joint statement to an Illinois task force evaluating the merits of the state's so-called certificate-of-need law, the federal antitrust agencies weighed in with their opinions in advance of a hearing. In Illinois, the regulations are carried out by the Health Facilities Planning Board, but state lawmakers are evaluating whether the board and its rules are necessary.
