California Hospital News Roundup for the Week of July 26, 2013
El Camino Hospital, Mountain View
Last week, Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge James Kleinberg ruled that Measure M -- a voter-approved initiative that caps what El Camino Hospital can pay its administrators to twice what the California governor earns -- is unconstitutional, Modern Healthcare reports.
In December, El Camino officials filed a lawsuit against the measure, claiming it would hinder their efforts to attract and retain qualified administrators (Selvam, Modern Healthcare, 7/22).
Long Beach Memorial Medical Center
Long Beach Memorial Medical Center has notified 2,864 patients who received treatment between September 2012 and June 2013 that their protected health information was improperly accessed by an employee, Clinical Innovation & Technology reports.
The hospital said that the police still are looking into the incident, but that network security had not been breached and that there was no reason "to believe the information was used in a malicious manner."
Data involved in the incident included name, gender, date of birth, home address, phone number, account number, insurance information and reason for admittance.
According to the hospital, affected individuals will receive a year of free credit monitoring services (Walsh, Clinical Innovation & Technology, 7/22).
Marin General Hospital
The Marin Healthcare District board of directors has voted to put on the Nov. 5 ballot a $394 million bond issue for Marin General Hospital, the San Francisco Business Times' "Bay Area BizTalk" reports.
If approved, the bond issue would cover most of the estimated $500 million needed to update the hospital and meet state seismic requirements.
The bond issue requires a two-thirds majority to pass (Rauber, "Bay Area BizTalk," San Francisco Business Times, 7/17).
Sutter Health Alta Bates Summit Medical Center
On July 16, the Berkeley City Council voted 7-1 to require that Sutter Health's Alta Bates Summit Medical Center submit an annual report to the council detailing the hospital's charity care and community benefits as reported on its tax returns and the value of such benefits to Berkeley residents, the Sacramento Business Journal reports.
The decision follows research conducted by the Community Health Commission, which raised questions about how such information is reported, the extent of activities categorized as "community benefit[s]" and how well such services offset the not-for-profit health system's tax-exempt status (Robertson, Sacramento Business Journal, 7/19).
St. John's Pleasant Valley Hospital, Camarillo
St. John's Pleasant Valley Hospital is planning a $65 million building project to meet seismic safety standards and attract cardiac patients who otherwise might seek care at Los Robles Hospital and Medical Center or Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, the Ventura County Star reports.
Construction is scheduled to begin in 2016 and be completed by 2017 (Kisken, Ventura County Star, 7/23).
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