St. Charles Parish Hospital's plan to borrow $11.5 million is designed to give Luling, LA, residents speedier service in its emergency room and allow it eventually to lower property taxes by stretching out debt. The Parish Council has agreed to place the measure on the parish's April 4 ballot, giving voters the final say on the idea. If approved, the measure will let the hospital shift $6.3 million in a seven-year debt to a 20-year payback, plus provide $5.2 million for capital improvements such as building a new emergency room, buying five new ambulances, and buying the property that the hospital leases for its ambulance station.
The Fort Lauderdale-based Lillian S. Wells Foundation has given Broward General Medical Center a $4.5 million gift that should dramatically expand breast cancer prevention and detection services the hospital offers the women of Broward County, FL. The donation is the largest single gift ever to tax-assisted Broward Health, which owns the hospital. The money will pay for construction of a new women's center and the medical equipment for it.
Birmingham, AL-based Brookwood Medical Center has significantly scaled back its plans for a new women's center because of changes in the city's healthcare market and the downturn in the economy, hospital officials have announced. Brookwood will build a new women's center that's about half the size of the project announced a year ago, create parking for 150 cars instead of 750 and scrap plans to build an adjoining structure for doctors' offices.
Cleveland Clinic Chief Executive Toby Cosgrove, MD, has announced to employees that the hospital system has instituted a hiring and salary freeze. The freeze does not affect employees needed for direct patient care, said hospital spokeswoman Eileen Sheil. Sheil said the health system, which employs 33,000 people, is also working to preserve jobs.
Emory University has eliminated $20 million of the debt owed by Grady Memorial Hospital in a gesture to help the struggling Atlanta hospital survive. Grady officials met this week with the leaders of several metro Atlanta hospitals to request that they contribute a total of $30 million to help the safety-net facility over the next four to five years. Grady hospital continues to provide the bulk of trauma and indigent care to the region, two services that cost the hospital millions more than it recoups. Grady officials say they believe the other hospitals should help shoulder that burden, because, without Grady, these hospitals would be flooded with indigent clients and have to provide their own trauma care. "This is a community issue," Grady Chief Executive Michael Young said.
Temple University Health System has announced that it was studying how it could make its Northeastern Hospital more "cost effective," but a nurses' union believes the system is planning to "virtually close" the community hospital. Bill Cruice, executive director of the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals, said the hospital's chief executive officer told managers that the health system planned major cuts, including the elimination of maternity care and other services. One scenario was that the hospital would be reduced to just an emergency department and outpatient surgery. Rebecca Harmon, a spokeswoman for Temple University Health System, denied that Northeastern's CEO told managers about planned service reductions.
A growing number of Baltimore residents are being treated in hospitals for illnesses that could be prevented with routine medical care, according to a study. The city's health commissioner says the data show "a fundamental failure" of Baltimore's health system. City residents are being hospitalized or treated in emergency rooms for such conditions as asthma and high blood pressure at rates that are roughly twice those in surrounding counties and statewide, according to the Rand Corp. study. Baltimore's health commissioner says the problem is the inevitable result of clinics that are stretched to capacity and a shortage of primary care doctors to serve the poor.
The Congressional Budget Office has announced that many of the healthcare proposals championed by President-elect Barack Obama and other Democrats would carry a high price tag and would generate only modest savings. The budget office analyzed 115 options, including proposals to expand coverage and slow the growth of health spending. One bright spot was the estimate of potential savings from a requirement for doctors and hospitals to use health information technology as a condition of participating in Medicare. Such a requirement could save the federal government $7 billion in the first five years and a total of $34 billion over 10 years, by reducing medical errors and avoiding unnecessary tests and procedures, the budget office said.
The Bush administration has granted sweeping new protections to health workers who refuse to provide care that violates their personal beliefs, setting off a battle over opponents' plans to try to repeal the measure. The regulation cuts off federal funding for any state or local government, hospital, health plan, clinic, or other entity that does not accommodate doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and other employees who refuse to participate in care they find ethically, morally or religiously objectionable.
Success Healthcare LLC of Boca Raton, FL, has purchased Forest Park and St. Alexius hospitals of St. Louis, hospital officials announced. Success Healthcare took over operations at the struggling hospitals on Dec. 10. The company owns one other hospital with two campuses in Southern California. This marks the most recent ownership turnover for the St. Louis hospitals.
