California Hospital News Roundup for the Week of May 9, 2014

Alameda Hospital

On May 1, an affiliation between Alameda Health System and Alameda Hospital took effect, the Contra Costa Times reports. The affiliation originally was proposed in November (Hegarty, Contra Costa Times, 5/7).

Under the affiliation, the Alameda Health Care District will retain ownership of the property and leases connected with the hospital, while Alameda Health System will take over day-to-day operations and provide funding for facility improvements and upgrades (California Healthline, 12/5/13).

Atascadero State Hospital

Last week, the California Department of State Hospitals announced that three patients at Atascadero State Hospital were arrested in connection with an attack on workers at the facility, the AP/Sacramento Bee reports. According to the AP/Bee, Atascadero is one of five hospitals in the state that treats inmates with mental illnesses who have been sent to psychiatric facilities under court order.

DSH said that the patients were subdued and arrested after they seriously injured four hospital workers (AP/Sacramento Bee, 5/3).

Cedars-Sinai Health System, Los Angeles

On Wednesday, Cedars-Sinai Health System and MemorialCare Health System announced that they jointly launched Summation Health Ventures, a health technology venture capital fund, the Los Angeles Times reports.

Cedars-Sinai and MemorialCare said that they have equal stakes in the venture, but they did not disclose any financial information (Li, Los Angeles Times, 5/7).

Doctors Medical Center, San Pablo

Doctors Medical Center is preparing for its likely closure this summer after local residents voted against implementing a parcel tax to keep the hospital operating, the Contra Costa Times reports (Rogers, Contra Costa Times, 5/7).

Last month, the West Contra Costa Healthcare District Board of Directors said that DMC would be forced to close as early as July 25 if it did not secure $20 million annually through the proposed parcel tax, among other things (California Healthline, 5/1).

Roughly 52% of voters supported the tax on May 6, but the ballot measure needed at least a two-thirds of voters to pass (Rauber, "Bay Area BizTalk," San Francisco Business Times, 5/7).

Prime Healthcare Paradise Valley

Last month, Prime Healthcare Paradise Valley was sued for failing to adequately compensate its hourly employees for overtime and failing to let those employees have appropriate meal and rest breaks, Lawyers and Settlements reports.

According to the lawsuit, the hospital has engaged in "systematic underpayment of overtime compensation" over the past four years by not calculating weekend and night pay differences in its regular pay rate (Mundy, Lawyers and Settlements, 5/6).