Modern Healthcare is providing continuing coverage of how the active 2008 hurricane season is affecting healthcare delivery in the Gulf Coast states. We're also presenting stories on ongoing efforts in the area to recover from the 2005 powerhouse storms Katrina and Rita. In addition to the latest stories from the pages of Modern Healthcare--including our special coverage of the one-year anniversary of Katrina--read one hospital CEO's discussion of the challenges his organization continued to face more than a year after the hurricane hit. Several other executives share their firsthand stories, published shortly after Katrina struck.
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal has signed legislation to compensate state hospitals more than $212 million for hurricane-related losses in the past few years and uncompensated-care costs.
The city of New Orleans has put up $2 million in earnest money toward the purchase and eventual reopening of a hospital on the city’s east side, which has been without its own acute-care facility since Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
Shriners Hospitals for Children, Tampa, Fla., has proposed closing six hospitals to balance the 22-hospital system’s budget after the weak economy wiped out $3 billion from its endowment, the system’s president and CEO said.
An attorney review board in Louisiana has recommended the state pay more than $450,000 in legal fees for Anna Pou, the physician who was accused but never formally charged with killing patients at Memorial Medical Center in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast nearly four years ago.
The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston said that as of March 10, it has re-hired 415 employees after the system laid off about 2,450 of its workers a few months ago.
A doctor accused but never formally charged with giving four patients lethal doses of drugs in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina is asking the state to pay her legal fees.
The Shriners Hospitals for Children system, Tampa, Fla., has suspended reconstruction on its Galveston hospital, which was severely damaged by Hurricane Ike last September.
The University of Texas system will lay off about 3,800 employees at its University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, according to a statement from the system.
Despite the damage Hurricanes Gustav and Ike caused two months ago, the storms resulted in an unexpected gain for Louisiana, as they accounted for nearly half of a current $100 million surplus in the state’s Medicaid program.
More than 1,000 students returned to classes at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston on Oct. 20, five weeks after Hurricane Ike caused most to flee the Gulf Coast island. Now the question remains if the UTMB’s entire labor force will return—and, if so, when that will be.
Louisiana inappropriately received nearly $20 million from federal funding directed at uncompensated care provided to Hurricane Katrina evacuees, HHS’ inspector general’s office estimated in an audit report posted Oct. 24.
West Jefferson Medical Center, Marrero, La., has agreed to pay $3.3 million to the federal government and the state of Louisiana to resolve allegations that the 307-bed public hospital collected Medicaid reimbursement as a Level 1 pediatric intensive-care provider but didn’t qualify for the designation, the Justice Department announced.
The healthcare industry’s response to Hurricane Ike last week was helped by lessons learned about collaboration and communication in the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita three years ago. Comparisons to those 2005 storms were inevitable after Ike, the nation’s latest natural disaster, pounded Galveston, Texas, in the early morning hours of Sept. 13. The storm—a Category 2 hurricane—also affected Houston and the state’s “Golden Triangle” region of Beaumont, Port Arthur and Orange, and many areas were still without power at deadline.
Months before two hurricanes pounded the Gulf Coast and their remnants brought torrential rains to many parts of the heartland, a small Indiana hospital knew a thing or two about how to come back from a devastating flood.
Up until June 7, Columbus (Ind.) Regional Hospital’s leaders were about to build a new emergency room and patient tower, and then heavy rains overwhelmed the path of the trickle called Haw Creek that runs through the campus. Then it was time to rebuild the old building rather than build a new one.
Water filled the 235-bed hospital’s 12-foot basement, wiping out the...
Lack of power, fuel and water are the most serious concerns facing Texas hospitals hit by Hurricane Ike over the weekend, according to the Texas Hospital Association in Austin.
More than 40 hospitals along the Texas Gulf Coast evacuated thousands of patients this week in preparation for Hurricane Ike, a sprawling Category 2 hurricane expected to increase in strength before making landfall near Galveston.
Hurricane Gustav offered the Gulf Coast healthcare industry what turned out to be a real-life drill to test newly improved disaster-relief tools, yet some providers warn that more federal capital is needed to boost a still-ailing healthcare system in Louisiana and other states.
Three Louisiana hospitals have been closed and nine others have limited capacity or services as a result of Hurricane Gustav, the Louisiana Hospital Association reported.
In declaring a public-health emergency in states affected by Hurricane Gustav, HHS is waiving certain program requirements for providers to ensure that beneficiaries in public-health programs continue to receive healthcare items and services. The declaration was issued Aug. 31 and applies to individuals enrolled in Medicare, Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program in Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas.
NEW ORLEANS--Checkpoints popped up around New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Gustav to keep the city empty of residents so work could get under way to restore power and other critical services knocked out by the storm. Gov. Bobby Jindal said officials were focused on taking care of the roughly 1,000 critical needs medical patients evacuated from hospitals and nursing homes.
Despite the unprecedented move to suspend all but the bare minimum activity at the Rebublican National Convention, a handful of scheduled healthcare events throughout the Minneapolis/St. Paul area are expected to go on, but with some last minute changes.
In a blow to Louisiana healthcare providers, the Louisiana Supreme Court said a failure to have adequate evacuation plans after Hurricane Katrina does not qualify as medical malpractice, which could result in providers paying more for wrongful death claims.
Louisiana will soon have a new official to oversee its healthcare system. Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco appointed Roxane Townsend as secretary of Louisiana’s Department of Health and Hospitals, effective Sept. 15. Townsend, 50, serves currently as the department’s deputy secretary and will succeed Fred Cerise, who has served as secretary since January 2004, when Blanco appointed him to the position. Cerise, 45, accepted the position of vice president for healthcare and medical education at the Louisiana State University System, Baton Rouge.
With the approaching late-summer anniversaries of two of the worst disasters in U.S. history—Hurricane Katrina and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks—the American healthcare system’s readiness for public emergencies continues to be a work in progress. Last week, a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and a new Web-based prescription response program highlighted the need for U.S. hospitals and other healthcare providers to improve their emergency-response planning efforts.
A grand jury’s decision not to indict cancer surgeon Anna Pou was claimed as a victory by physicians, but still serves as a reminder to hospitals about the potentially fatal consequences when facilities are unprepared for a major disaster.
Last week’s decision by a Louisiana district attorney to not pursue charges against two nurses accused of helping to kill four hospital patients after Hurricane Katrina isn’t necessarily bad news for Anna Pou, the physician also implicated in the case.
Modern Healthcare is providing continuing coverage of how the active 2008 hurricane season is affecting healthcare delivery in the Gulf Coast states. We're also presenting stories on ongoing efforts in the area to recover from the 2005 powerhouse storms Katrina and Rita. In addition to the latest stories from the pages of Modern Healthcare--including our special coverage of the one-year anniversary of Katrina--read one hospital CEO's discussion of the challenges his organization continued to face more than a year after the hurricane hit. Several other executives share their firsthand stories, published shortly after Katrina struck.
