medical center

Increasingly, hospitals are looking at paying specialists to provide on-call coverage for their emergency departments. However, it looks like a new advisory opinion issued by the HHS inspector... Read more...

> An Illinois VA medical center is facing a suit after letting a surgeon with a questionable safety record operate on its patients. Read more...

At least one of Tenet's Dallas-area hospitals has begun restructuring its relationship with its doctors, with the ultimate goal of getting physicians to invest in the facilities where they practice. ... Read more...

> The sad story of Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center is drawing to a close. And now Dr. Bruce Chernof has to figure out where patients will go when the facility shuts down. Read more...

A group of St. Petersburg, Fl.-area paramedics have been cleared of allegations they acted improperly in transporting a sick patient to a more-distant hospital than necessary. The charge stems from a... Read more...

A VA healthcare system in Pennsylvania has sparked a biomedical controversy after destroying 4,000 research specimens which it said were inadequately labeled. The samples were located on the site of the Special Pathogens Laboratory at the VA Medical Center, which closed last year. A statement from the VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System said that the organization destroyed only samples that weren't clearly labeled and identified, "to protect the safety of VA Pittsburgh patients and staff." …

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In Southern California, a new trend is emerging: combining doctor's offices with shopping malls. Developers hope that they can make a profit--and give patients a more pleasurable visit--by combining doctor's offices, retail stores and restaurants in a single complex. "...Patients would come for medical appointments and perhaps meet a friend for lunch or browse for skin-care products. To encourage browsing and eating, the doctors' offices will have small waiting rooms and patients will be …

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> Cleveland Clinic-affiliated Fairview Hospital has kicked off a program using letting physicians perform remote fetal monitoring using smart phones and PDAs. Article

> Children's Hospital of Denver is planning a $25 million upgrade of its IT infrastructure. The investment is part of the planned $400 million construction of its new main campus facility. …

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Jumping on a trend that seems to be gathering momentum, the UC Davis Health System may be the next medical center to strictly limit how much pharma company swag doctors are allowed to accept. Interestingly, the initiative is being driven by Garen Wintemute, an emergency doctor and UC Davis professor, rather than a bioethics think tank or executive board looking to polish its reputation. The effort is also endorsed by many UC Davis medical students.

While the restrictions are only …

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King/Drew Medical Center administrators are urging hospital staff to carry on as if nothing were amiss, despite the fact that staff will be greatly affected by the hospital's impending loss of federal funding. The hospital board may turn King/Drew over to a private hospital operator or hand management over to another county hospital. Article