Uninsured residents in San Bernardino County now have more
options for health care. As of Jan. 1, ArrowCare, the county’s
new health care program, is available to individuals who don’t
qualify for Medi-Cal or Medicaid. Medi-Cal is the health program
run by California for people who are low-income, disabled,
pregnant or over the age of 65.
Providence Health & Services, with more than 3,500 nurses in its
Los Angeles-area hospitals and other healthcare centers, is
creating a Nursing Institute to advance quality patient care
through professional development, education, technology and
research.
A federal judge in Los Angeles has blocked a state plan for a 10
percent cut in Medi-Cal reimbursement rates for hospitals and
other healthcare providers.
Joint Commission Resources (JCR) is one of 26 leading health care
organizations that will work with hospitals to make health care
safer and less costly by targeting and reducing the millions of
preventable injuries and complications from health
care-associated conditions.
As physicians and hospitals move toward a performance-based
reimbursement model — and as patients demand more information,
more choices and better services — health care leaders will need
to embrace the same operations management principles that have
yielded a competitive edge in many other sectors of American
industry.
Hospital officials say patient services at Long Beach Memorial
Medical Center and Miller Children’s Hospital will remain
unaffected during the nurses’ strike Thursday.
Nurses are poised to hold a one-day strike at California’s second
largest private hospital and one of its most profitable corporate
hospital chains Thursday, December 22 over patient care
protections and corporate hospital demands for sweeping
concessions. The nurses are members of California Nurses
Association/National Nurses United.
The link between health care worker fatigue and adverse events is
well documented, prompting The Joint Commission to issue a new
Sentinel Event Alert: Health care worker fatigue and patient
safety. The Alert urges greater attention to preventing fatigue
among health care workers and suggests specific actions for
health care organizations to mitigate the risks.
The Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality of Johns
Hopkins Medicine is collaborating with the Lockheed Martin Corp.,
a global security and technology company, to create a safer and
more efficient hospital intensive care unit model. The two
organizations will work to streamline complex and fragmented
clinical systems and processes to reduce medical errors and
improve the quality of care for critically ill patients.
James Lott was named chairman of Charles R. Drew University of
Medicine and Science, one of several changes announced at this
month’s Board of Trustees meeting.
Applications are being accepted for the 2012-2013 AHA-NPSF
Comprehensive Patient Safety Leadership Fellowship, co-sponsored
by the AHA and National Patient Safety Foundation.
State health officials, backed by federal approval to reduce
Medi-Cal rates by 10 percent, have launched an effort to put
the pay cut in effect — and to recoup money paid out while the
policy was contested.
A contract dispute between one of California’s largest health
insurers and UCLA could force thousands of patients at the
university’s medical centers to seek treatment elsewhere if the
disagreement is not resolved by the end of December.
The House Republican bill to hold down payroll taxes and extend
unemployment benefits, coming up for a vote on Tuesday, offers a
special dispensation to doctors who invest in hospitals.
At the acute end of the mental health care spectrum in
California, contraction and reorganization are changing the way
public and private hospitals care for patients.
Federal authorities no longer plan to withhold funding from
Ventura County Medical Center now that the public hospital has
been cleared in a state inspection.
Riverside Community Hospital has increased its options for
patients online, offering pre-registration for surgery,
diagnostic imaging and other procedures.
The government announced Monday that Medicare will finally allow
its extensive claims database to be used by employers, insurance
companies and consumer groups to produce report cards on local
doctors and hospitals.
Lauren Mills’ counselor in college pushed her to consider
nursing. She heeded the advice, graduated from Cal State Long
Beach in 2007 and now works with cardiac patients at an Orange
County hospital. It’s proved a challenging and gratifying choice,
said Mills, now 27.
HIMSS Analytics in February will be honoring Prime Healthcare
hospitals for their accomplishments in implementing technology
solutions that have the ability to improve patient safety and
quality of care.
Highlighting the importance of flu vaccinations in reducing the
risks of illness and infections among patients, state public
health officials have joined with a group of statewide health
care providers to urge all health care workers to get their
annual flu shots.
Dr. Ron Chapman, director of the California Department of Public
Health (CDPH) and state public health officer, today urged
Californians to get immunized against influenza as part of
National Influenza Vaccination Week, Dec. 4 to 10. Each year in
the United States more than 200,000 people are hospitalized, and
as many as 49,000 people die after contracting influenza.
As the number of residents showing up at public flu-vaccine
clinics across greater Sacramento dropped over the past few
years, some health officials worried. Were people getting
complacent about the flu?
Barbara Elwell wanted a midlife career switch from medical
billing to nursing. Since graduating in May, the Marin County
resident has applied as far away as Georgia and interviewed as
far away as Texas.
On the Cal Hospital Compare website, conscientious consumers in
California can look up scorecards for their local hospitals. How
well does the hospital control infections? How often do patients
die from complications that can be treated? How satisfied are
most patients with their experience?
The CEO of Southwest Healthcare System on Wednesday praised his
staff, regulators and local officials for helping the embattled
company overcome problems that threatened to close southwest
Riverside County’s main hospital provider.
The chances that local construction workers can get jobs in a
$250 million upgrade of Ventura County Medical Center look good
despite a dispute, officials said Monday.
The California Hospital Association last week petitioned a
federal district court to grant a preliminary injunction against
California’s Medicaid program, called Medi-Cal, to prevent it
from making 10 percent reimbursement cuts primarily affecting
hospital-based skilled nursing facilities.
Safety-net hospitals in the Los Angeles area are working to set
up integrated systems of care in an effort to cut costs and
improve management for low-income patients, the Los Angeles Times
reports.
As administrator of Medicare and Medicaid, Donald Berwick has
been in charge of paying for the health care of nearly one in
three Americans. He has also had an important role in
implementing last year’s health reform law, which uses the
Medicare system as a big lever to change how doctors and
hospitals do business, in hopes of containing costs.
For years, expecting fathers at Santa Monica-UCLA Medical Center
& Orthopaedic Hospital have been forced to chomp on cigars made
of bubble gum or chocolate instead of lighting up those made with
tobacco.
Some 16 months after it was launched to provide care for the most
severely injured patients, a Ventura County trauma center has
received a national stamp of approval.
As the nation continues its historic effort to overhaul health
care under the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act,
nurses have been working quietly for the last decade to implement
their own brand of reform. Nurses have been redefining and
expanding their roles, championing quality of care improvements,
spearheading research innovation, advocating for patient rights,
and challenging the status quo.
The HHS Office for the National Coordinator for Health
Information Technology announced today that more than 100,000
primary care providers are adopting certified Electronic Health
Records (EHRs) to help improve their quality of care and
ultimately lower health care costs.
Mission Hospital has named Kenneth McFarland as president and
chief executive officer after a national search, the hospital
announced Tuesday.
McFarland, 50, has worked as the interim CEO since May after the
resignation of Peter Bastone. Bastone is currently interim CEO at
Doctors Medical Center in Modesto.
The Obama administration will announce today as much as $1
billion in funding to hire, train and deploy health care workers,
part of the White House’s broader “We Can’t Wait” agenda to
bolster the economy after President Obama’s jobs bill stalled in
Congress.
The Hospital Association of Southern California (HASC) and
iVantage Health Analytics today announced a partnership to supply
hospitals with Lodestone Data Connect®, an advanced database that
allows facilities to compare their clinical and operational data
with other hospitals in their region. iVantage will provide the
technical platform, business integration analytics and data
warehousing for the database’s operations.
The Electronic Health Records (EHR) Association and the iHealth
Alliance (iHA) announced today that they will work
collaboratively to support efforts to develop practical,
effective, and optimized reporting tools to collect information
on medical incidents that may be related to the use of health
information technology (IT).
The trade group for California’s hospitals has sued state and
federal officials to block a 10% cut in government reimbursements
for healthcare providers who treat low-income patients.
Officials at County Harbor-UCLA Medical Center have assembled a
team to implement changes in response to a federal survey showing
lapses in sanitary conditions that could lead to hospital
infections.
New data posted to the Department of Health & Human Services’
(HHS) Hospital Compare website has sparked criticism from
hospitals and health systems across the nation. While some
hospitals complained the website features outdated information,
hospitals in California are contesting its accuracy.
Despite the near certainty of a major earthquake at some point in
California’s future – and the risk of collapsing hospital
buildings – lawmakers have not made a broad-based attempt to
secure public financing to help hospitals meet stringent seismic
safety requirements for a decade.
The good news about this year’s flu season is that the vaccine
seems to be perfectly formulated for the strains of flu–the
pandemic influenza A [H1N1], seasonal [H3N2] and influenza
B–that have been most commonly seen in the Southern
Hemisphere.
Cutting Medicaid by 5 percent would cost U.S. states $14 billion
and trigger job losses in the tens of thousands by depressing
spending by states, hospitals, nursing homes, drug companies and
others, a study said on Wednesday.
The California Medical Association is asking federal Medicaid
authorities to review whether the state pays enough to guarantee
adequate access to care for patients who rely on the Medi-Cal
program.
In the midst of bleak economic times, the business of hospital
construction has been a rare boon to local and regional workers.
Nearly every hospital in the South Bay has a major construction
project in progress or set to begin shortly, including a new
seven-story inpatient tower at Torrance Memorial Medical Center -
described as one of the largest projects ever in Torrance – and
new buildings at Kaiser Permanente South Bay Medical Center in
Harbor City and County Harbor-UCLA Medical Center near Torrance.
The wait is almost over for the city’s first full-service
hospital in several years.
On Nov. 1, Kaiser Permanente will open the doors to its
386,000-square-foot hospital in the south part of town.
The Riverside County Board of Supervisors is to discuss Tuesday
whether to approve an agreement to participate in a new computer
program that will allow doctors, clinics, public health
departments and hospitals to share patient information.
What if a new medication for severely ill patients had no role in
curing them but made them feel much better despite being sick?
Let’s say this elixir were found to decrease the pain and nausea
of cancer patients, improve the sleep and energy of heart failure
patients, prolong the lives of people with kidney failure, drive
down healthcare expenditures and ease the burdens of caregivers?
Working to salvage a much-touted initiative in the new healthcare
law aimed at controlling costs, the Obama administration issued
revised regulations Thursday to encourage doctors, clinics and
hospitals to take greater responsibility for improving patients’
care.
Growing demand from clients waiting to access vital services in a
healthcare sector under economic constraint, coupled with the
pressure for ongoing improvement within a multi-faceted
organization, can have a significant impact on the front-line
staff, who are essential to the successful implementation of any
quality improvement initiative. The Lean methodology is a
management system for continuous improvement based on the Toyota
Production System.
About 40 health care workers held signs reading “Medicare not
Millionaires” during a demonstration in Orange Tuesday against
potential federal cuts to health spending.
The Obama administration moved Tuesday to roll back numerous
rules that apply to hospitals and other health care providers
after concluding that the standards were obsolete or overly
burdensome to the industry.
Every year, more than 50,000 sick or premature babies are
delivered in California’s community hospitals. Typically,
these vulnerable infants have immature immune systems and are at
risk for acquiring infections. To address this problem,
Riverside County Regional Medical Center in 2009 implemented a
new program to eliminate infections in its neonatal unit.
As a result, the hospital has reduced its annual infection rate
to zero and saved the lives of countless newborns.
Los Angeles County leaders voted to cut the rate they pay to
physicians who provide care to indigent patients Tuesday, blaming
declining revenue from the state.
Eighteen teams of healthcare providers will share $20 million in
grants from Blue Shield of California to form new partnerships
aimed at delivering medical care more efficiently, company
officials said. The recipients that will receive their
grants by Dec. 1 include St. John’s Health Center in Santa
Monica, Children’s Hospital Los Angeles and Huntington Memorial
Hospital in Pasadena.
Despite the near certainty of a major earthquake at some point in
California’s future — and the risk of collapsing hospital
buildings — lawmakers have not made a broad-based attempt to
secure public financing to help hospitals meet stringent seismic
safety requirements for a decade.
Hospitals and health systems are adapting to the changing
healthcare climate in “curves,” or waves of strategic priorities,
with one foot on the dock and the other on the boat, according to
a recently released report from the American Hospital Association
Committee on Performance Improvement.
On Thursday, House Democrats from 16 committees sent their
deficit-reduction recommendations to the debt panel, saying it
should avoid cuts to Medicare and Medicaid and allow
implementation of the federal health reform law to continue,
Politico reports (Kim/DoBias, Politico, 10/13).
Hospitals and health systems are organizing the industry’s vast
purchasing power to push manufacturers of medical products to
make them with safer chemicals and to be more environmentally
friendly.
California has taken one large step forward in its goal to make
electronic health records a ubiquitous part of health care
provider practices in the state.
Just over one year ago, the transformation of the Martin Luther
King Jr. Medical Center into a state-of-the-art hospital was
little more than a set of plans on a drawing board. But those
plans moved a large step closer to reality last week when the
first phase of the $400 million initiative opened to the public.
Eisenhower Medical Center has received its accreditation to
become a full-fledged teaching hospital and expects to begin
training doctors in 2013 to help fill the Coachella Valley’s
longstanding primary care shortages.
The American Hospital Association is calling for “shared
sacrifice” from the greater society – even if it means higher
taxes or raising the Medicare eligibility age – if that would
help the nation’s hospitals avoid further reimbursement cuts over
the next decade.
Access to safe, high quality care for all patients is the mission
of California’s community hospitals. Through focused
hospital-based initiatives and regional and statewide patient
safety collaboratives, hospitals are leading the way into a new
era in patient safety. To showcase these efforts, the California
Hospital Association (CHA) today launched a statewide patient
safety awareness campaign.
After criticizing a controversial restructuring plan for
CalOptima, the county’s $1.3-billion managed health care agency,
county supervisors want to know just what the agency does.
One of Southern California’s largest hospital systems is teaming
up with hundreds of doctors in a new alliance designed to better
manage patient care, improve medical outcomes and reduce costs.
Reporting from Atlanta— The cardiac intensive care unit at
Egleston Children’s Hospital in Atlanta gleams and hums with a
dazzling array of scientific wonders that breathe for tiny lungs
and monitor every beat of an infant heart.
THE CASE: Douglas v. Independent Living Center of Southern
California: Do health care providers have the right to sue states
for cutting Medicaid reimbursement rates?
Governor Jerry Brown is now considering which bills to sign, and
which to veto, of the hundreds that were passed earlier this
month by the California Legislature in their final week of the
2011 session.
The county Health Department is seeking to cut back on its
reimbursements to doctors who treat the poorest patients, and for
now has stopped paying them altogether because it is running out
of funds.
Hospitals and health systems that hope to
survive in the era of healthcare reform will have to learn to
live with lower Medicare reimbursements, says healthcare
consultant and futurist Ian Morrison.
The California Legislature ended their session Friday after
passing a handful of health consumer protection measures among
hundreds of others bills. If signed by the Governor, these health
bills will implement and improve some provisions of federal
health care reform law, preparing California for a health system
of the future.
Contract negotiations have broken down between nurses and
management at St. Francis Medical Center in Lynwood. The nurses
now plan to walk off the job for three days.
California hospitals would face additional rules in providing
translation for patients who speak a language other than English
under a bill sent to the governor on Tuesday.
Preventable infections have been dramatically reduced at
hospitals around the state and in the South Bay as more attention
is focused on patient safety.
Congress may be shuttered for the summer, but Washington, D.C.,
is still shaking. Well, metaphorically — an HHS staffer assured
California Healthline that the Hubert H. Humphrey building was
untouched by Tuesday’s earthquake, just hours after CMS’ latest
plan sent shockwaves through the health policy world.
Scores of California hospitals, under pressure to reduce
infections that kill an estimated 12,000 patients every year, say
they have managed to cut costs and save lives through an
initiative that has nurses and doctors redoubling efforts to
prevent deadly germs from taking root.
The California Legislature, which reconvenes on Monday, is
expected to consider a bill (AB 1136), by Assembly member Sandre
Swanson (D-Alameda), that would require hospitals to provide
equipment or establish a special support team to help nurses
avoid back strains or injuries when lifting or moving patients.
In California and across the U.S., violence against nurses and
other hospital workers is common, according to a Los Angeles
Times analysis of surveys, interviews and state records, the Los
Angeles Times reports.
The American Hospital Association (AHA) has elected eight new
members to its Board of Trustees for terms beginning January 1,
2012. The Board of Trustees is the policy-making body of
the AHA and has ultimate authority for the governance and
management of its direction and finances.
St. Vincent Medical Center, affiliated with world-renowned House
Clinic, has earned national ranking for its Ear, Nose & Throat
(ENT) service, coming in among the top 2 percent of ENT programs
nationwide, according to U.S. News & World Report.
In an effort to reduce emergency department crowding, nine
associations representing ED healthcare providers have signed a
consensus statement that proposes standardized definitions for
six common ED metrics.
A study recently published in the Journal of the American Medical
Association found that about one-third of U.S. emergency
departments closed during a 20-year period ending in 2009.
Hospitals across California absorb roughly $1.25 billion a year
in care for illegal immigrants, including about $26 million in
Ventura County, according to a state hospital association
supporting a national push for more federal funding for
uncompensated care.
“The state attorney general’s office filed legal documents this
week arguing that hospitals are required to file monthly reports
on infections related to 29 types of surgeries,” reports
Christina Jewett, who adds hospital-acquired infections are
estimated to kill 1,000 Californians every month.
Imagine having to report information on all surgical site
infections acquired by patients undergoing a wide range of
procedures, as well as over a dozen additional data points for
all surgery patients, on a monthly basis to both state and
federal health authorities. That’s what a new disclosure rule in
California would require, much to the chagrin of the state’s 350
hospitals.
More than 1,200 hospitals have signed up to participate in HHS’s
$1 billion infection prevention program in the three weeks since
it was launched, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said late
Wednesday.
The priorities and concerns of 1,500 of your colleagues in
healthcare leadership are revealed in this comprehensive
multi-part survey. The overall report contains answers to all the
common questions asked of every respondent.
America’s hospitals and health systems are focusing more on
renovation or expansion than new construction, according to a new
survey conducted by Health Facilities Management magazine and the
American Society for Healthcare Engineering (ASHE).
Negotiations between Riverside Community Hospital’s managers and
the union that represents its registered nurses are expected to
resume next week after almost two months without direct contact.
Eight Southern California hospitals have signed up for a system
called InQuickER that lets patients pay a fee of $14.99 to $24.99
to set up an appointment online for emergency care. If they’re
not seen within 15 minutes, they get their money back.
A groundbreaking study released in the Feb. 1 issue of the Annals
of Internal Medicine challenges the notion that increased
healthcare spending does not result in improved patient outcomes.
The man holding a cigarette behind his hip and standing next to
the parking structure at Los Robles Hospital & Medical Center in
Thousand Oaks didn’t give his name.
HHS released a report that says the Patient Protection and
Affordable Care Act already is limiting insurance premiums and
offering more health insurance choices for families and
businesses.
The congressional battle over health care entered a new, more
sharply partisan phase this week, as Republicans began building a
case for dismantling the law while Democrats and President Barack
Obama fought back hard.
Total compensation costs – wages, salaries, and benefits – for
hospital employees rose 2.1% in 2010, just above the 2% rise in
total compensation costs for all workers in the larger economy,
the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Employment Cost Index shows.
U.S. District Court Judge Roger Vinson in Pensacola, Fla., on
Monday declared the entire Patient Protection and Affordable Care
Act void because its key provision–the individual mandate to buy
health insurance–is unconstitutional.
Blue Shield of California, Catholic Healthcare West and San
Ramon, Calif.-based Hill Physicians launched an accountable care
organization to coordinate care for more than 40,000 members of
the California Public Employees’ Retirement System.
HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, in a speech before state and
local government executives, blasted the Monday ruling against
the controversial healthcare reform law by a federal judge in
Florida as “judicial overreach.” She also questioned the legal
standing of a high-profile Medicaid waiver request from Arizona.
Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center has been certified as a
stroke center, filling a gap in a wide service area of eastern
Los Angeles County and western San Bernardino County. “In stroke
care `time is brain’,” said Richard E. Yochum, president and CEO
of PVHMC.
Blue Shield of California today announced a 60-day reprieve for
the unconscionable rate hike of up to 59 percent it intends to
foist on individuals and families.
Last month, the state lost an opportunity to receive tens of
millions of dollars in federal funding to provide healthcare to
uninsured kids. Why? It didn’t enroll enough eligible children
into its government health plans.
Last month, the state lost an opportunity to receive tens of
millions of dollars in federal funding to provide healthcare to
uninsured kids. Why? It didn’t enroll enough eligible children
into its government health plans.
As state lawmakers continue to weigh Governor Jerry Brown’s
proposed budget aimed at closing a $25.4 billion financial hole,
health care providers say $1.7 billion in cuts to Medi-Cal will
harm some of the state’s sickest residents and ultimately fail to
save money.
When a San Diego police sergeant shot a man he said pulled a fake
gun on him in a dark parking lot, Scripps Memorial Hospital La
Jolla ended up paying for all of the suspect’s medical care.
Los Angeles County is working to improve its massive health
system so that patients opt to stay in the county system when
federal reform gives them a choice about where to get care.
Los Angeles County is working to improve its massive health
system so that patients opt to stay in the county system when
federal reform gives them a choice about where to get care.
Amidst all the rhetoric of the health care discussions taking
place in Washington, nonprofit hospitals around the country
continue to provide care and enhance community health with
unrelenting passion. In fact, it is precisely in this atmosphere
of partisan debate and financial challenges that the nonprofit
mission becomes even more important as people turn to their local
hospital as a safe harbor – one they have trusted and relied on
for decades and hope to do so for generations to come.
Hospitals, clinics, and chronic disease programs, as well as
disease researchers and the public health infrastructure will
receive $750 million in federal funds for disease prevention this
year, the Department of Health and Human Services has announced.
Californians are more likely to support President Obama’s
healthcare overhaul than the rest of the country and fear the
impact of state budget cuts on health services, according to a
poll released late Wednesday by the nonprofit Public Policy
Institute of California.
Providers and healthcare consumers both feel that the electronic
health records will produce better healthcare outcomes. There’s
still some disagreement, though, about how each party feels about
the security of such tools.
A recent report that compares hospitalizations throughout that
state confirms what many local health care providers and experts
have said for years — the Inland area ranks poorly in almost all
measurable medical categories.
Hospital executives are planning for budget increases during the
next five years and are prioritizing strategic initiatives that
had previously been on hold due to economic constraints.
Healthcare insurance reform is also causing hospital management
to reevaluate how they select and purchase medical devices
(MedTech) and other services, according to the L.E.K. Consulting
Strategic Hospital Priorities Study. L.E.K.’s second annual study
of nearly 200 senior hospital decision makers tracks changes in
hospital strategies and purchasing trends.
The major trade groups for healthcare providers offered a
decidedly mixed reaction to President Barack Obama’s Fiscal 2012
budget proposal released Monday, with doctors praising the plan
and hospitals panning it.
California’s hospitals face a looming shortage of allied
healthcare professionals in the next few years due to upcoming
retirements and a lack of well-educated replacements, reports AHA
News Now.
Wholesale prices for acute-care hospital services increased 0.2%
in January following the prior month’s 0.5% gain, according to
preliminary figures released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor
Statistics. In January 2010, the agency’s Producer Price Index
recorded a one-month rise of 0.5%. Wholesale acute-care hospital
prices for the 12-month period ended in January climbed 1.8%,
compared with a 3.6% increase a year before.
A new emergency-room expansion at Rancho Springs Medical Center
will open for patients at 5 a.m. today, the hospital’s owner
stated in a news released on Wednesday.
Up to two-thirds of California’s 7 million uninsured residents
will become eligible for health insurance coverage when health
care reform is implemented in 2014, according to a new policy
brief from the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research.
The Center for Technology and Aging has awarded a total of
$500,000 to California, Indiana, Rhode Island, Texas and
Washington to help each state evaluate the benefits of
technologies, such as personal health records and EHRs, for
improving patients’ transitions from hospitals to their homes or
other settings.
California, the nation’s epicenter of biotech and healthcare
academia and industry, has become the latest to show it will face
a massive shortage in clinical lab techs in as little as three
years.
It will be many months before construction of a new emergency
department and intensive care unit at San Gorgonio Memorial
Hospital are completed, but employees and the public soon will be
able to see what the patient rooms will look like.
St. Joseph Health System (SJHS), a $4.6 billion Catholic
healthcare organization, and AT&T* today announced an
agreement with plans to implement a new telehealth pilot project
that will allow patients and physicians in disparate locations to
meet and consult via immersive video utilizing AT&T
Telepresence Solution®.
The nation’s hospital groups have sent letters to the CMS urging
the agency to maintain its current policy on applying the
Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, or EMTALA, to
hospital inpatients.
Community Memorial Hospital on Thursday will celebrate the new
Coastal Communities Cancer Center, which opened in November as
the Ventura hospital upgrades and expands.
Legislation introduced late last week by State Sen. Leland Yee
and sponsored by the California Nurses Association/National
Nurses United would strengthen California’s landmark safe
hospital staffing law by stepping up enforcement to enhance
patient protection.
It’s no secret that healthcare facilities produce huge amounts of
trash, specifically 6,600 tons per day, much of which ends up in
landfills or in expensive incineration or autoclaving processes.
About 70% of that comes from operating rooms and obstetric
procedures.
U.S. District Judge Frank C. Damrell Jr. said Friday he will rule
next week on the California Hospital Association’s motion for a
preliminary injunction that would block a freeze of reimbursement
rates to hospitals for inpatient care of Medi-Cal beneficiaries.
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