Hospital News Roundup for April 13
Alta Bates Summit Medical Center in Berkeley on Monday officially will open its expanded and remodeled emergency department, the San Francisco Business Times reports.
The hospital in 1993 first approached Berkeley officials with plans to upgrade the ED. The original ED, built in the late 1960s, was intended to accommodate about 12,000 patients annually. The facility now handles four times that amount (Rauber, San Francisco Business Times, 4/11).
Sacramento County Department of Health and Human Services Director Lynn Frank on Tuesday announced the county's endorsement of Kaiser Permanente in its bid to operate the region's fourth trauma center, the Sacramento Bee reports (Kalb, Sacramento Bee, 4/11).
Methodist Hospital of Sacramento, owned by Catholic Healthcare West, is the rival hospital in the bid to operate a Level II trauma center in the county. The center is expected to open in 2010 (Robertson, Sacramento Business Journal, 4/10).
The endorsement goes to the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors, who on July 24 will choose a hospital (Sacramento Bee, 4/11).
Palomar Medical Center and San Diego County health officials are notifying about 25 families and 150 medical staff that they might have been exposed to a patient with infectious tuberculosis, the San Diego Union-Tribune reports.
The families at risk visited the hospital's neonatal intensive care unit between March 10 and April 5.
Dr. Nabil Fatayeriji said, "There is a minimal chance anyone in the (unit) may have become infected by this patient" (San Diego Union-Tribune, 4/10).
San Joaquin County Community Hospital next week will open its new North Medical Tower and begin admitting patients, the Bakersfield Californian reports.
The five-story facility includes a maternity care center, surgical suites and a new emergency department that is four times larger than the current ED. The tower was the first phase of an $80 million construction and renovation project at the hospital (Hagendorn, Bakersfield Californian, 4/10).
Unionized nurses at Stanford Hospital and Lucile Packard Children's Hospital have approved a new three-year contract, effective immediately, the East Bay Business Times reports.
Nurses represented by the Committee for Recognition of Nursing Achievement immediately will receive a 6% salary raise, followed by wage increases of 5.5% in 2008 and 5.5% in 2009. The new contract expires March 2010 (East Bay Business Times, 4/9).
The Tuolumne County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday voted to discontinue surgeries and eliminate intensive care, the emergency department and other services at Tuolumne General Hospital, the Modesto Bee reports.
Supervisors later this month could decide to transfer medical and dental clinics at the hospital to one of three health care organizations that have expressed interest.
Separately, supervisors voted to phase out long-term care and psychiatric units at the hospital but retained the option of seeking a private operator and funding to maintain services at the psychiatric unit (Carlson, Modesto Bee, 4/11).
The UC-Davis Health System has been awarded $2 million over the next four years from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation for a research program aimed at preventing psychotic illness in youth, the Sacramento Business Journal reports.
The Early Detection and Intervention for the Prevention of Psychosis Program will offer treatment plans to people ages 12 to 25 who show early symptoms of psychotic illness and their families. Seventeen Sacramento community organizations have partnered with UC-Davis for the program (Sacramento Business Journal, 4/11).