More than 700 residents and hospital employees crowded into a Newark, NJ, church to protest the recently announced plans to close the 107-year-old Saint James Hospital. The rally was the second since officials of the Cathedral Healthcare System approved an agreement that calls for closing Saint James and Columbus Hospital, both of which have been struggling financially.
Although Lakeview Hospital in Stillwater, MN, has long been a community facility, the 73-bed hospital is positioning itself to become a regional health center due to growth internally and externally. To prepare for a major expansion, hospital officials want a change from their current residential zoning status so they can more easily make changes to the building.
Bacteria that was once tamed by antibiotics is now evolving rapidly into forms that practically no drug can treat. Among the most alarming of these is MRSA, but even more drug-resistant strains are emerging and top infectious disease doctors are saying that lawmakers and the public do not realize the grave implications of this trend.
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's $14 billion healthcare expansion bill is set to movet to the state Senate, where it will face an extended hearing and the likelihood of a close vote in the Health Committee. The legislation would require employers to spend a certain percentage of their payrolls on health coverage for their workers.
Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards all agree that Americans of all ages should have the choice of buying a government-run plan modeled on Medicare. The idea is one of the most far-reaching and controversial proposals for making health insurance more affordable and more widely available to U.S. residents.
Five Massachusetts municipalities have taken advantage of a state law adopted in July 2007 that allows public groups to join the state's employee healthcare system as a way to save money. The five communities all met a first-year deadline in October to enroll in the Group Insurance Commission, the agency that administers the state's health insurance plan.
From 2003 through 2006, more than one million patients suffering from clogged arteries and veins received stents in their torsos and legs that had undergone scant testing for such uses, according to a device safety specialist at Harvard Medical School. Reports to the Food and Drug Administration of problems with the devices suggest that their off-label use in arteries is injuring hundreds and perhaps thousands of patients, the specialist says.
In a preview to the rest of 2008, Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt says the Bush administration will work to limit the government's role in the delivery of healthcare. The goal is a sharp contrast with Democratic proposals such as giving the health chief the power to negotiate drug prices and greatly increasing enrollment in federally sponsored health insurance for children.
Children's Hospital in Birmingham, AL expects to start using a helicopter dedicated solely to the transportation of its patients. Until recently, Children's shared a helicopter used to pick up trauma patients around the Birmingham area, but the increasing volume has made it essential for the organization to have one of its own. Last year, Children's transported about 300 children by helicopter out of its 1,000 critical care transportation patients and could have carried many more by chopper if one had been available.
The Cleveland Clinic will decide within three months whether to build a 200-bed hospital in Shanghai, China. The cost of building the hospital, which would specialize in cardiac care, would be $80 million to $100 million, with Chinese and other private investors involved. Physicians from the United States and China would staff the hospital.
