California Hospital News Roundup for the Week of February 4, 2011
The Effort, Oak Park
This week, The Effort hosted a grand opening of a pediatric dental clinic in Oak Park, the Sacramento Business Journal reports.
The pediatric dental clinic is the first of four that the not-for-profit clinic network plans to open in the Sacramento region over the next year. The Effort plans to add dental services sites in North Highlands by April, south Sacramento by mid-summer and Rancho Cordova by early 2012. The First 5 Commission provided a $2.95 million grant to support the clinics (Robertson, Sacramento Business Journal, 2/2).
Sierra Kings District Hospital, Reedley
Sierra Kings District Hospital is in discussions with Adventist Health in Hanford about a possible lease-purchase agreement, the Fresno Bee reports.
Sandy Haskins, interim CEO at Sierra Kings, said the deal would let the Adventist Central Valley Network enter into exclusive negotiations about the potential lease of the Sierra Kings hospital. Sierra Kings filed for Chapter 9 bankruptcy in 2009. Voters would need to approve any takeover of the hospital (Fresno Bee, 1/28).
Shriners Hospital for Children, Sacramento
The Shriners Hospitals for Children health care system has received federal approval to begin collecting insurance payments for the first time, the Sacramento Business Journal reports.
Insurance billing already has started at six Shriners hospitals and will expand to six more in February. Shriners' 80-bed hospital in Sacramento and the health system's other facilities are expected to start insurance billing by the end of the year.
Proceeds from the insurance companies are not expected to cover costs. Shriners hospitals provide specialized care to children, regardless of the ability to pay. A task force formed by the health system is looking for ways to bring greater financial stability to the hospitals (Robertson, Sacramento Business Journal, 1/28).
Stanford Hospital & Clinics
On Tuesday, Stanford Hospital & Clinics announced that six Silicon Valley technology companies have pledged to contribute up to $150 million each over the next 10 years to the development of a new $2 billion hospital at Stanford Medical Center, the Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal reports.
The six companies -- Apple, eBay, Intel, Hewlett-Packard, Intuit and Oracle -- are the founding members of the new Stanford Hospital Corporate Partners Program. The new inpatient facility will increase the medical center's capacity to 600 beds (Sibley, Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal, 2/1).
UC-San Francisco Medical Center at Mission Bay
Officials at UC-San Francisco recently committed to hiring at least 20% of the construction workers for its new Mission Bay hospital from within San Francisco's city limits, the San Francisco Business Times reports.
The announcement comes as numerous unemployed city residents started picketing the UCSF construction site to call for increased local hiring. UCSF said it already is exceeding its hiring goal, with 22% of workers coming from the city.
The $1.5 billion, 289-bed hospital is expected to be completed in 2014. It will specialize in the treatment of women, children and patients with cancer (Rauber, San Francisco Business Times, 1/28).
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