The Clayton County (GA) Commission will soon decide the future of thousands of patients who rely on Southern Regional, Clayton's only hospital, when it votes on whether to back a $40 million bond for the hospital. Hospital board chairman Ron Dodson has said Southern Regional likely will close without the county's help. Hospital spokesman William Applegate said Southern Regional's finances are troubled, but there may be other options besides the county's help. Dodson said the hospital has until the end of December to refinance $40 million in bad debt or default on a loan. That default, coupled with an annual $40 million loss for indigent patients, would mean financial death for the 331-bed hospital.
Sunrise, FL-based Pediatrix Medical Group has acquired Florida Perinatal Associates, a maternal-fetal medicine group practice based in Tampa. The seven-physician business has completed acquisitions of 13 physician group practices in 2008.
A hypothermia treatment is part of a groundbreaking infant-care unit that recently opened at University of California-San Francisco's Children's Hospital. The nation's first neuro-intensive care nursery, it offers specialized treatment for infants who show indications of brain damage at birth. The unit represents a new concept: to identify brain issues in newborns at a time when their medical conditions might still be reversed.
Dennis Quaid and his wife Kimberly reached a settlement with Cedars-Sinai Medical Center for $750,000 over a medication error that nearly killed the couple's twin infants, according to papers filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court. Nurses at the hospital mistakenly gave twins Thomas Boone and Zoe Grace 1,000 times the recommended dose of the blood thinner heparin. Hospital officials have cited at least three separate safety lapses that led to the overdoses. Cedars-Sinai Medical Center was not sued, although the hospital was described in a court filing as a "potential defendant."
Starting in January, doctors who e-prescribe can get bonus pay from Medicare, but persuading U.S. doctors to ditch their prescription pads for electronic prescribing so far has been an uphill battle. Only about 10% of doctors are taking the plunge. But the movement is gaining steam as Medicare warns that its bonus payments are for a short time only: Holdouts still sticking to paper in 2012 will find their Medicare payments cut.
The number of patients who've tried out retail clinics turns out to be modest, say the authors of a study from the Center for Studying Health System Change. Only 3.4 million American families, or 2.3%, had used a retail clinic as of 2007, according to survey results. The study's authors noted that retail clinics have turned out to be more complex and costly to operate than expected, and some physician practices are responding by extending their own office hours and doing more same-day scheduling.
Singapore is now touting its medical services, including joint-replacement surgery, to patients around the world. Health systems elsewhere in Southeast Asia aren't always up to the challenge of some modern procedures, so expatriates living in the region may find Singapore a good option, said Jason Yap, a doctor who heads international healthcare marketing for Singapore. And some uninsured Americans have been attracted by the deals, Yap added.
Unlike the high-maintenance incubators found in neonatal intensive care units in the United States, a new incubator is easily repaired, because all of its operational parts come from cars. And while incubators can cost $40,000 or more, this one can be built for less than $1,000. The creators of the car parts incubator—a project being promoted by the Global Health Initiative at the Center for Integration of Medicine and Innovative Technology, a nonprofit consortium of Boston teaching hospitals and engineering schools—say it could prevent millions of newborn deaths in the developing world.
An $8 million center in California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco is using lifelike robots and other cutting-edge technology to help doctors learn and perfect surgical procedures. Medical schools and their affiliated teaching hospitals have been using simulators for two decades, but the center in San Francisco offers a new focus: California Pacific Medical Center is targeting veteran doctors who want to learn a new technique or refine an old one. The Medical Center opened the surgical simulation center in October and has since done skills training courses for more than 150 doctors.
As hospitals have lost insurance on their bonds, investors are insisting that hospitals' debt be insured by their performance, says Thomas Royer, MD, president and CEO of Christus Health. +
