Community Regional Medical Center, Fresno
Humana has donated $200,000 to Community Regional Medical Center to help increase patient access to the hospital, The Business Journal reports.
The majority of the funding will help create extra space and staffing at the facility.
Mark Kiffer -- Humana's regional medical officer -- said that the expansion seeks to "reduce the frequency of visits to the emergency room and reduc[e] in-patient admissions," as well as readmissions (The Business Journal, 9/13).
Simi Valley Hospital
Last week, Simi Valley Hospital broke ground on an emergency department expansion, the Ventura County Star reports.
The expansion will increase the ED's size by 5,500 square feet and the number of beds from 10 to 20. The project is scheduled to be completed in 2014 (Doyle, Ventura County Star, 9/13).
St. Rose Hospital, Hayward
On Monday, the St. Rose Hospital board of directors announced that they have signed a letter-of-intent to allow the newly formed Alecto Healthcare Services to acquire the hospital, the Oakland Tribune reports.
California Attorney General Kamala Harris (D) must approve the deal.
St. Rose currently has about $75 million in debt. The board turned down offers from Prime Healthcare Services and Alameda County Medical Center.
In a statement, board members said that they based their decision on goals to keep the hospital open and to retain its mission as a private, not-for-profit hospital serving an "ethnically and economically diverse community."
Alecto is led by Lex Reddy, who served as CEO of Prime for 11 years before resigning in February (Woodall, Oakland Tribune, 9/17).
UC-San Diego Center for Transplantation
On Wednesday, UC-San Diego announced that it has received federal approval to treat Medicare beneficiaries requiring heart transplants at its Center for Transplantation, U-T San Diego reports.
The approval means that the university can receive Medicare payments for heart transplants and mechanical heart assistance devices.
The university's heart transplant program began in 1989 and was stopped in 2007, after UC-San Diego consistently failed to meet a federal requirement for performing at least 12 transplant procedures annually.
Not-for-profit United Network of Organ Sharing said that the program restarted in 2010 and that 16 heart transplants have been completed since then (Lavelle, U-T San Diego, 9/19).