The Florida Agency for Health Care Administration has fined Central Florida Regional Hospital $10,000. It concluded the security system in the maternity ward at the hospital was too lax, and allowed a baby to be abducted in March.
The Nemours Foundation has released the master site plan for its children's hospital in Lake Nona, FL, and announced it had enlisted more than 150 healthcare business experts, clinicians, architects and individuals to help design the project. Nemours' site, which will include a hospital, outpatient clinic, ambulatory surgery center, and other supporting facilities on a 60-acre parcel, will not only be child-friendly but environmentally sensitive, according to Nemours representatives.
Boca Raton (FL) Community Hospital has indefinitely shelved its plans to build a teaching hospital in partnership with two universities after another tough financial year that saw $40 million in operating losses. The announcement coincided with the end of the hospital's fiscal year. Hospital officials said they were forced to write down about $50 million in expenses related to the development of the teaching hospital, but they hope to recover a large chunk of that by selling an 80-acre property bought in anticipation of the project.
South Florida medical schools and institutions marked the beginning of a new residency program, bringing 50 doctors to the area. The new doctors are the first residency candidates from a partnership between the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine at Florida Atlantic University, JFK Medical Center, and the West Palm Beach VA Medical Center. Medical officials hope many of them stay at the facilities and help boost South Florida's shortening supply of doctors.
Maryland's expansion of its Medicaid program is one of several measures enacted in the past eight months that state officials say will eventually take more than 100,000 residents off the uninsured rolls. The patchwork of healthcare measures not only brings more children and families into Medicaid, but also will help small businesses provide employees with coverage and seniors to buy prescription drugs. Other bills aim to regulate pharmacy benefit managers in an effort to lower drug costs. With little federal action to establish universal healthcare, states such as Maryland have taken the lead in efforts to expand coverage in recent years.
Video from a surveillance camera at a Brooklyn, NY, hospital shows a woman dying on the floor of a psychiatric emergency room while being ignored by other patients and hospital staff. The video was released by lawyers suing Kings County Hospital alleging neglect and abuse of mental health patients. The video shows the 49-year-old woman keeling over and falling out of her chair and lying facedown on the floor, then thrashing before going still. About an hour passed before someone tried to help.
Tom Campbell, Director of Marketing and Public Relations at Deborah Heart and Lung Center in Browns Mills, NJ, discusses how the hospital's partnership with a nationally-known celebrity chef helps attract baby boomers.
Baptist Health System has sold its 35% stake in Birmingham, AL-based Trinity Medical Center. Franklin, TN-based Community Health Systems now owns 100% of the 560-bed hospital. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
A new Medicare program intended to stop fraud and lower equipment prices is scheduled to launch in 10 areas nationwide on July 1. The federal program is designed so that only 325 suppliers throughout the nation will be allowed to provide 10 key pieces of durable medical equipment to Medicare recipients.
Providence Health & Services has agreed to buy Tarzana (CA) Regional Medical Center from Tenet Healthcare Corp. for an undisclosed price. In 2004, Tenet disclosed that it intended to sell the medical center, but the chain had difficulty getting the real estate investment trust that owns the Tarzana building and campus to agree on the terms of a sale. Some doctors and medical staff have complained that Tenet failed to invest adequately in the hospital as it tried to sell the facility.
