California Hospital News Roundup for the Week of January 10, 2014

Alta Bates Summit Medical Center

On Tuesday, Sutter Health affiliate Alta Bates Summit Medical Center announced plans to cut 359 full- and part-time positions by Friday, the Sacramento Business Journal reports. According to California's Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification website, Alta Bates will cut 195 positions at its Oakland campus, 133 at its Berkeley campus and 30 positions at its Herrick campus. The hospital will close its skilled nursing facility and an inpatient infusion center at the Oakland campus (Rauber, Sacramento Business Journal, 1/7).

Beverly Community Hospital Association, Montebello

Last week, the Beverly Community Hospital Association agreed to pay the city of Los Angeles $200,000 to settle allegations that it improperly dropped off a patient in Skid Row, AP/Modern Healthcare reports. According to the city attorney's office, Beverly Hospital failed to properly screen an adult dependent with an emergency medical condition, failed to properly stabilize and transfer the patient and then improperly discharged the patient on Skid Row without making arrangements for family or a shelter (AP/Modern Healthcare, 1/4).

As part of the settlement, the hospital will pay an additional $50,000 to cover the city's legal fees, train staff to avoid similar situations in the future and bolster its policies and procedures for discharging homeless patients (Roe, "KPCC News," KPCC, 1/3).

Children's Hospital Oakland

On Sunday, Children's Hospital Oakland released the body of a 13-year-old patient who last month was declared brain dead, the New York Times reports. The patient's family has transferred the body to a facility for continued care (Onishi, New York Times, 1/7). 

Jahi McMath was declared brain dead on Dec. 12, three days after she had tonsil surgery to help her with sleep apnea (California Healthline, 1/3). McMath's family members have said that the girl still is alive, citing religious beliefs. 

The hospital released custody of the body to the coroner's office, which transferred the body to the family under a state court agreement (New York Times, 1/7). The family has not disclosed where the body has been transferred (AP/Washington Post, 1/6).

Signature Healthcare Services

On Dec. 23, Signature Healthcare Services purchased a 6.8-acre plot of land in Sacramento for $1.5 million to start construction on its proposed psychiatric hospital, the Sacramento Business Journal reports (Robertson, Sacramento Business Journal, 1/7).

On Dec. 10, the Sacramento City council unanimously voted to approve development of the 120-bed hospital amid concerns filed by residents of the neighboring area regarding potential safety issues (California Healthline, 12/13/13).

According to the Journal, the hospital could open within two years (Sacramento Business Journal, 1/7).

Olympia Medical Center, Los Angeles

On Dec. 31, Alecto Healthcare Services acquired controlling ownership interest in the 204-bed, acute-care hospital Olympia Medical Center in Los Angeles, according to a press release from Alecto and Olympia. According to the press release, ownership interest was acquired through a merger between the two organizations that will maintain physician ownership in the hospital (Alecto release, 1/2). 

UC-San Diego Distributed Health Labs

As of Monday, UC-San Diego's Distributed Health Labs had garnered less than 10% of its goal of raising $50,000 through the crowdfunding website Indiegogo to fund OASIS, a project that aims to develop small sensors to measure pollution and identify disease, U-T San Diego reports.

According to U-T San Diego, the university is falling short of its goals for this project because of a confusing fundraising message, which uses several different names to describe the project and is unspecific about how the sensors are being developed. Overall, the university has raised just $4,605 in funding (Robbins, U-T San Diego, 1/6).