New Orleans

Disagreements over the future of the Louisiana healthcare system temporarily came to a halt yesterday, when Gov. Kathleen Blanco and U.S. Sen. David Vitter agreed to begin planning for a new teaching hospital in downtown New Orleans. Vitter and Blanco intend to give Louisiana State University an initial $74 million to buy land and hire architects, the first steps in the building process. Gov. Blanco expects to give LSU another $226 million in federal money, once the school has developed a …

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Queuing up early Sunday, hundreds of New Orleans-area residents waited hungrily to take advantage of a week long event offering them free care. The free care is available to anyone from the area, though it's aimed at those who are unemployed, without insurance or can't pay for care. The fair, which expects to see 10,000 patients over the week, is a collaboration between volunteer medical group Remote Area Medical and a charity operated by televangelist Pat Robertson. More than 400 …

Last week, state political leaders debated the wisdom of sustaining the charity hospital system run by the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Division, with some suggesting that there may be better ways of caring for the poor than routing them through LSU's 10 hospitals. Right now, state dollars follow the patient to whichever charity hospital they use. But state senator Tom Schedler, for one, argues that in the wake of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, it's time to remake the system …

State health planners must be exasperated. With plans for the redesign of the New Orleans health system still on the drawing board, projected costs have already hit $500 million, a whopping 43 percent higher than they'd projected only one month ago. The new estimates take healthcare inflation into account, and also include $125 million to raise reimbursements for physicians who'd …

> 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. …

In New Orleans, the two owners of St. Bernard Parish nursing home have been indicted for the drowning deaths of 35 nursing home residents. The owners are accused of ignoring an evacuation order that could have saved residents' lives. "Katrina's massive storm surge flooded the one-story nursing home to the ceiling within 20 minutes, overwhelming the elderly residents, many of whom were confined to beds or wheelchairs."  Rescue workers saved 29 elderly patients but could not reach all …

Despite the fact that some Hurricane Katrina-affected regions lost half of their population after the disaster, all types of healthcare providers are in short supply for those who remain. This has led to long wait times, particularly for emergency care. A survey conducted by the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) reports that many Gulf Coast physicians think that their patients have been harmed by the long wait to receive treatment. Among their primary concerns: staffing …

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the hospital system in New Orleans remains short-staffed and overworked. But employees at four area hospitals can look forward to some relief as the Department of Veterans Affairs sends over 180 healthcare workers to the region. Nurses, radiology technicians and other workers will be sent to Tulane University Hospital and Clinic, New Orleans; East Jefferson General Hospital, Metairie; West Jefferson General Hospital, Marrero; and Meadowcrest Hospital, …

Tenet Healthcare will pay $725 million to resolve outstanding charges that it improperly billed Medicare and violated other federal rules governing hospitals. As part of the settlement, the hospital chain will be required to sell hospitals in Philadelphia, New Orleans and Florida. The charges, which date back to 2002, involve allegations that the company gamed the Medicare outlier payment system to win undeserved payments from the government. The settlement follows last month's news of …