California Hospital News Roundup for the Week of August 23, 2013
Adventist Health, King County
On Oct. 10, Adventist Health will begin breaking ground on a $40 million, 49,000 square-foot Family Birth Center designed to replace Central Valley General Hospital's birth center, The Business Journal reports.
The new complex will house 34 regular beds, six neonatal intensive care beds and two operating rooms (Lindt, The Business Journal, 8/15).
Corona Regional Medical Center
On Aug. 21, the Corona City Council tabled a resolution opposing Corona Regional Medical Center's recent decision to shut down its pediatric unit, the Riverside Press-Enterprise reports (Fischetti, Riverside Press Enterprise, 8/21). Corona Regional said it would close the department by Sept. 6, but the hospital did not specify reasons for the closure (California Healthline, 8/9).
The resolution notes that more than 45,000 of Corona's 152,000 residents are younger than age 18 and would be forced to seek treatment outside of the city if the facility closed.
Hospital CEO and Managing Director Kevan Metcalfe cited safety issues and a reduced number of pediatric patients as the reason for the closure (Fischetti, Riverside Press-Enterprise, 8/20).
Doctors Medical Center, San Pablo
Doctors Medical Center has initiated preliminary talks with UC-San Francisco Medical Center to develop a partnership, according to hospital officials and Contra Costa County Supervisor John Gioia, Becker's Hospital Review reports.
Since January, Doctors has been operated with a deficit of $17 million annually (Adamopoulos, Becker's Hospital Review, 8/20).
Doctors also is considering a long-term plan to rebuild the center at a new location to meet state seismic safety standards (Rauber, "Bay Area BizTalk," San Francisco Times, 8/19).
Tulare Regional Medical Center
Tulare Regional Medical Center will resume construction of its 115,000 square-foot medical tower once the structure's concrete decks are tested for strength and compliance and the Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development issues final approval, The Business Journal reports.
The concrete decks located on the tower's third and fourth floors were found to be in need of delamination remediation repair (The Business Journal, 8/14).
UC-San Diego Health System
The UC-San Diego Health System recently implemented a new program at its Hillcrest and La Jolla hospitals that requires certain patients to wear bright orange wristbands to help workers ensure that the individuals do not wander without assistance, U-T San Diego reports.
The program was launched during an ongoing investigation of whether the death of a patient who wandered from his bed and fell in a nearby canyon qualifies as a "never event."
The hospitals -- which also use routine nurse visits, bed alarms, video cameras and sitters to ensure patients are kept from roaming -- have not had a similar occurrence since the program was launched in June (Sisson, U-T San Diego, 8/19).
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