ROSWELL, N.M.—Lovelace Health System, Albuquerque, N.M., part of for-profit chain Ardent Health Services, Nashville, announced it signed a letter of intent to purchase 26-bed, for-profit Roswell Regional Hospital.

Community Health Systems, Franklin, Tenn., which already owns a Roswell hospital, earlier this month ended talks to buy Roswell Regional after receiving word that the Federal Trade Commission planned an extensive review of the transaction. Terms of the Lovelace deal were not disclosed. “We're excited to expand to southeastern New Mexico,” said Ron Stern, president and CEO of Lovelace Health System in a news release. “After we finalize this transaction, we'll immediately begin to study the needs of this community and make plans to expand the hospital and add new services, new technology, new equipment, new physicians and new jobs,” Stern said. The transaction is expected to close after receiving typical regulatory and licensing approvals, according to Lovelace. Earlier this month, Lovelace sold SED Medical Laboratories, an Albuquerque-based medical and drugs-of-abuse testing laboratory, to Quest Diagnostics, Madison, N.J.

PASADENA, Calif.—A former construction director of a Southern California hospital was sentenced to three years in prison for a kickback scheme that cost his employer nearly $5 million, according to federal prosecutors. Prosecutors alleged that David Hamedany led 541-bed Huntington Hospital to enter contracts with construction companies that performed no work or substantially less work than was promised. Most of the money the hospital paid was funneled to companies Hamedany controlled, according to a news release from the U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles. Hamedany, 55, was indicted in January 2011 on 12 counts of mail fraud and in May pleaded guilty to two of those counts. His plea agreement with prosecutors was filed under seal. In addition to the prison sentence, a federal judge in Los Angeles ordered Hamedany to pay $4.8 million in restitution, according to the release, and Hamedany agreed to give the hospital ownership of his house, vehicles and $500,000 seized last year from a bank account. Hospital spokeswoman Andrea Stradling said in an e-mail that the hospital is pleased with the sentencing and that the scheme was detected by an internal audit and referred to prosecutors. “Huntington Hospital anticipates that there will be no impact on hospital operations and services provided to our community,” Stradling said.

DENVER—Colorado hospitals, surgery centers and dialysis clinics are making progress in curbing rates of healthcare-associated infections, according to a report released by the state's Department of Public Health and Environment. Rates of central line-associated bloodstream infections in adult intensive-care units have fallen 43% during the past three years, from 1.57 per 1,000 central line days in 2008 to 0.89 per 1,000 central line days in 2010, according to the report. Overall statewide rates of central line infections also fell nearly 44% during the same period. Colorado state law requires that hospitals report their rates of healthcare-associated infections using the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Healthcare Safety Network, a Web-based reporting system that uses standard definitions and surveillance methodologies. The report also contains facility-specific data, including hospitals' total number of infections and national infection rates. The department warned readers of the report against using the data to make side-by-side comparisons. “There are several reasons direct comparisons between facilities do not provide an accurate assessment,” according to the report. “Facilities vary in the types of patients they treat, and a facility that treats a high volume of severely ill patients may have higher infection rates, regardless of their prevention efforts. The NHSN system provides the best risk adjustment possible to account for this, though there will always be patient risk factors that cannot be measured, and included in the adjustment.”

SAN FRANCISCO—California Pacific Medical Center, San Francisco, and Lucile Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford, Palo Alto, announced the formation of a collaborative relationship. As a result of the agreement, pediatric specialty physicians from 302-bed Packard Children's can work at pediatric inpatient units at 919-bed California Pacific and can see patients at offices there, according to a news release from the two not-for-profit organizations. A separate entity was created to provide operational oversight and support for the effort, and California Pacific, which is part of Sutter Health, Sacramento, will maintain responsibility for the patients cared for in the collaboration, according to the news release. “This collaborative comes at an opportune time,” said Dr. Lorry Frankel, chairman of California Pacific's pediatric division and a pediatric intensive-care specialist, in the news release. “Across the country, inpatient-care programs are struggling, children's hospitals are consolidating, pediatric inpatient-care volumes are declining and recruitment of pediatric specialists is becoming increasingly challenging.”