California Healthline Highlights Recent Hospital News
Tenet Healthcare last week announced that it reached a deal with investment group Plymouth Health to sell Alvarado Hospital Medical Center for $36.5 million, the San Diego Union-Tribune reports.
Plymouth Health is led by two pediatrician brothers, Pedram Salimpour and Pejman Salimpour, neither of whom has owned a hospital before. The sale of the 306-bed facility is expected to be completed by the end of the year.
The brothers said that all of the hospital's departments, including the emergency department, will remain open. Most of the 1,000 employees are expected to remain employed as well (Darcé, San Diego Union-Tribune, 10/28).
Santa Clara Valley Medical Center on Monday received a $4.3 million award from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation to improve technology and upgrade a magnet nursing program, the Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal reports.
The first portion of the grant, $2.2 million, will establish bar-coding technology for the medical center's pharmacy services, making it the first public hospital in the state with the technology.
The second portion of the grant, $2.1 million over three years, will help the facility obtain magnet status, the highest level of nursing designation, from the American Nurses Credentialing Center. No public hospital in the state currently has achieved the status (Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal, 10/30).
St. Helena Hospital and its foundation last week announced the commencement of the first of a five-phase plan to rebuild and expand the facility, the San Francisco Business Times reports.
The hospital expects to invest $60 million in the campaign over the next five to six years. Its parent system, Adventist Health, will contribute $35 million of $60 million.
Phase I of the rebuilding phase, a $30 million effort that is expected to be completed by 2009, will include:
- Developing a cancer center and expanding an outpatient surgery center, located in a new Outpatient Services Pavilion;
- Relocating and expanding the Family Birth Center; and
- Adding a new cardiovascular and peripheral vascular lab, new diagnostic technologies and an electronic health record system (Rauber, San Francisco Business Times, 10/27).
Sutter Visiting Nurse Association & Hospice on Tuesday announced that it will stop providing services in Tracy by Jan. 3, 2007, because of low funds and few patients, the Stockton Record reports.
For more than 10 years, Sutter VNA in Tracy has provided house calls to discharged hospital patients, as well as long-term, in-home care for the elderly and people with serious illnesses. The hospice is one of 10 locations in Northern California.
The care provider is making arrangements with Community Hospice in Modesto to hire its 30 employees and absorb its 25 patients (Thigpen, Stockton Record, 11/1).
Catholic Healthcare West last week announced that its bond rating has been upgraded to "A" from "A-minus," a change that could save the company millions of dollars in interest on its expansion plans in Sacramento and around the West Coast, the Sacramento Business Journal reports.
Future projects may include construction of a new hospital in Placer County and upgrades to Methodist Hospital in Sacramento. Planning is already underway for CHW's flagship hospital campus in East Sacramento, which will undergo renovations and receive a new heart center (Sacramento Business Journal, 10/27).
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center on Tuesday signed a formal agreement with the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors to provide autopsy services for the county Coroner's Office, the Los Angeles Daily News reports.
The hospital will provide the services at no cost to the county, saying that performing the procedures will provide staff members with experience.
The deal marks the first formal agreement between the office and a satellite autopsy facility (Rock, Los Angeles Daily News, 11/1).
The Los Angeles County Emergency Medical Services Commission on Wednesday voted unanimously to approve a report saying that the closure of the ED at Centinela Memorial "will have an adverse effect on the emergency medical system and the community," the Los Angeles Times reports. The report will be submitted to the Department of Health Services (Engel, Los Angeles Times, 11/3).
Centinela Freeman HealthSystem in September announced that Memorial's ED would close in December and that it would divert patients to Centinela Hospital (California Healthline, 10/20).
The hospital system plans to open urgent care centers at both hospitals to help provide services to patients who do not have emergency conditions but previously sought treatment at Memorial's ED (Los Angeles Times, 11/3).
The Walt Disney Co. Foundation on Monday presented a $5 million donation to the Childrens Hospital Los Angeles, Los Angeles Business reports. The money will help fund construction of a new hospital building that is expected to open in 2009, Los Angeles Business reports.
The gift is the largest donation that the hospital has ever received from a corporate foundation (Los Angeles Business, 10/31).
The California Medical Assistance Commission on Thursday approved a plan that will provide as much as $20 million annually to Doctors Medical Center, the Contra Costa Times reports (Huff, Contra Costa Times, 11/3).
Under the approved plan, the hospital will receive $10 million from the county reserve fund, plus $10 million in federal Medicaid funds distributed by the state to fund salaries and other operating expenses.
The hospital's board last month filed for Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection and laid off 300 employees.
The plan already had been approved by the county board of supervisors and the West Contra Costa County Healthcare District, which owns the hospital (California Healthline, 11/2).
The agreement will make it possible for the county to begin finalizing terms of a management contract with the health care district. In addition, the new funding will allow the hospital to reopen its ED on Monday (Contra Costa Times, 11/3).
Community Medical Centers has completed its acquisition of the Fresno Heart Hospital, the Fresno Bee reports. CMC previously owned 51% of the shares in the facility.
Services at the heart hospital have expanded to include weight-reduction, orthopedic and general surgery. According to the Bee, adding more operating rooms is under consideration.
John Zelezny, senior vice president and spokesperson for CMC, declined to comment on terms of the acquisition (Correa, Fresno Bee, 11/3).
The Hemet Valley Medical Center last week announced that its new ED is near completion and could open later this month, the Riverside Press-Enterprise reports.
The new $7.7 million ED is about twice the size of the old one and will have 29 beds. The old facility will be used for day surgeries (Atienza, Press-Enterprise, 10/28).
The not-for-profit Adventist Health on Monday agreed to sell Paradise Valley Hospital to Prime Healthcare Services, a for-profit hospital chain in Southern California, the San Diego Union-Tribune reports.
Adventist Health has operated a hospital on the site for 102 years.
Prem Reddy, co-owner of Prime Healthcare, said he will maintain the hospital's existing services, ED and "current levels of charity care for at least five years." No layoffs are expected and physicians will retain staff privileges (Clark/Darcé, San Diego Union-Tribune, 10/31).
KPBS' "KPBS News" on Tuesday reported on the decision to sell Paradise Valley Hospital. The segment includes comments from Judith Yates, vice president and chief operating officer of the Healthcare Association of San Diego and Imperial Counties (Goldberg, "KPBS News," KPBS, 10/31). The complete transcript and audio of the segment are available online.