California Hospital News Roundup for the Week of February 13, 2009
Hemet Valley Medical Center
On Tuesday, the Joint Commission informed Hemet Valley Medical Center that it had satisfied 15 requirements to receive full accreditation, Jerry Randrup -- vice president of communications and marketing for the facility's parent company, Valley Health System -- announced.
The Joint Commission accepted Hemet Valley Medical Center's improvement plan on Jan. 28, Randrup said.
The facility currently has conditional accreditation from the Joint Commission (Wesson, Riverside Press-Enterprise, 2/11).
Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center
On Feb. 6, Los Angeles County-USC California Medical Center closed its rooftop helicopter pad, the Los Angeles Times reports.
Hospital CEO Pete Delgado said fumes from helicopters landing on the roof set off fire alarms and caused fire protective doors to automatically close in the hospital.
Helicopters carrying patients will now use the hospital's older, ground-based landing pad (Lin, Los Angeles Times, 2/7).
Stanford Medicine Outpatient Clinic
On Feb. 10, reporters toured the new Stanford Medicine Outpatient Clinic, which is scheduled to open Feb. 17, the San Jose Mercury News reports.
The facility will house a group of six different clinics: dermatology, imaging, pain management, sleep medicine, digestive health, and orthopedic surgery and sports medicine (Bishop, San Jose Mercury News, 2/10).
USC University Hospital, USC Kenneth Norris, Jr. Cancer Hospital
On Tuesday, USC confirmed that it will pay Tenet Healthcare $275 million to acquire USC-University Hospital and USC-Kenneth Norris Jr. Cancer Hospital, the Times reports.
USC said it planned to keep the 1,600 employees affected by the purchase and recruit additional staff and physicians. The two hospitals have a combined 471 patient beds.
The deal ends a three-year dispute between Tenet and USC over control of the hospitals (Girion, Los Angeles Times, 2/11). This is part of the California Healthline Daily Edition, a summary of health policy coverage from major news organizations. Sign up for an email subscription.