California Hospital News Roundup for the Week of July 25, 2014
Alameda Health Care District
The Alameda Health Care District has appointed Kathryn Saenz Duke to its board of directors, the Contra Costa Times reports.
Saenz Duke will be part of the board until November, when the seat will be voted on in the county ballot (Hegarty, Contra Costa Times, 7/11).
Children's Hospital Los Angeles
A team of surgeons at Children's Hospital Los Angeles performed the first auditory brainstem implant surgery on a deaf child in the U.S., HealthCanal reports.
The surgery was completed as part of an FDA-approved trial funded by an NIH grant. It was done in conjunction with the University of Southern California's Keck School of Medicine and Huntington Medical Research Institutes.
The stakeholders have reported that the child's brain registered sound for the first time after the implanted hearing device was activated (Benet/Trinidad, HealthCanal, 7/22).
Dignity Health
Dignity Health reports that about 12,000 patients in the past year have used an online scheduling program to arrange emergency department visits at the health system's hospitals in California, Arizona and Nevada, Kaiser Health News/Stanly News and Press reports.
The hospital chain recently increased marketing of the online scheduling system through advertisements online, on the radio and in print (Gorman, Kaiser Health News/Stanly News and Press, 7/21).
Fountain Valley Regional Hospital & Medical Center
Fountain Valley Regional Hospital & Medical Center has named Edward Littlejohn as its chief operating officer, the Orange County Business Journal reports.
Littlejohn previously was COO at Kaiser Permanente in San Diego and John Randolph Medical Center in Virginia (Yu, Orange County Business Journal, 7/15).
Prime Healthcare Services
On Wednesday, Superior Court Judge Margaret McVeigh finalized the sale of New Jersey-based St. Mary's Hospital to Prime Healthcare Services of California for $30 million, the New Jersey Star-Ledger reports.
Prime said it will retain all of St. Mary's employees and honor its physician contracts. The company plans to operate the facility under the name Prime St. Mary's for a minimum of five years (Livio, New Jersey Star-Ledger, 7/23).
VA San Diego Healthcare System, La Jolla
Nurses at the Department of Veterans Affairs San Diego Healthcare System in La Jolla say that patient care is being compromised at the facility because of understaffing, KUSI News reports.
One nurse at the facility said the lack of adequate staff has led to average patient wait times of up to 43.8 days. However, Cindy Abair, the health system's acting director, said the claims were incorrect and that the average wait time for appointments is five days (Bosh, KUSI News, 7/23).
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