Piedmont Healthcare and Henry Medical Center announced in August that they had finalized the details of their partnership deal.
The 215-bed Stockbridge hospital will become a subsidiary of Piedmont Healthcare. Piedmont will lease the hospital’s facilities and take over day-to-day operations, with oversight by a newly constituted board of directors for Henry Medical Center. Henry County community members and doctors will make up a majority of the board, but Piedmont executives will also serve on it. The facility is owned by the Hospital Authority of Henry County.
Piedmont is expected to take over in January after final regulatory hurdles are cleared.
Under the plan, Piedmont will provide care to uninsured patients and relieve Henry’s county government of its obligation to pay $6 million a year for indigent care. Piedmont will also guarantee existing bond debt, make capital investments and develop a plan to expand clinical services.
The deal was prompted by years of financial losses at Henry Medical Center. The partnership is also part of a trend of consolidation in Atlanta’s hospital market.
The deal with Henry will add a fifth hospital to the Piedmont system. In addition to its flagship hospital in Buckhead, Piedmont operates hospitals in Fayetteville, Jasper and Newnan.
Top blood transplant outcomes: The National Marrow Donor Program has released outcome data that indicate Northside Hospital’s blood and marrow transplant program has the best survival rates for matched related and unrelated transplants of any program in the country. The data was based on related transplants performed in 2008 and unrelated transplants performed from 2004 to 2008, with 100-day follow-up post transplant.
The blood and marrow transplant program at Northside is one of the largest and most comprehensive programs in the nation, serving patients who require bone marrow or stem cell transplants. In 2010, 175 transplants were performed at Northside, placing the hospital among the top 10 percent of all programs in the nation in terms of volume. The one-year survival rate of matched unrelated patients transplanted at Northside was 77 percent, the best of any program in the country.
Public health accreditation: Georgia Southern University's Jiann-Ping Hsu College of Public Health in Statesboro has received accreditation by the Council on Education for Public Health. The school is one of only 48 colleges or schools of public health worldwide to receive this recognition.
“The accreditation by the Council on Education for Public Health is both an honor and an opportunity,” said interim dean Lynn Woodhouse. “This accreditation will help us attract additional capacity to understand and tackle the many health disparities in the rural southeastern United States. We will continue to build our world-class faculty and recruit exceptional students from around the world as we strive to develop a public health work force prepared to change the future.”
Neurologic PT residency: Mercer University and the Shepherd Center have launched a post-professional residency in neurologic physical therapy. The 13-month residency program, which is one of only 14 in the United States, helps physical therapists accelerate their expertise in evaluation, examination, diagnosis, prognosis, intervention and management of patients with neurologic dysfunction.
Developed for new professionals and physical therapists with one or more years of practice, the program combines contemporary, evidence-based coursework with highly individualized, advanced clinical mentoring under the supervision of experienced clinicians. Residents will be trained to manage adults with spinal cord injuries, traumatic brain injuries, stroke, balance and vestibular disorders, and various neuromuscular diseases.
Residents will engage in 90 hours of self-directed learning, 30 hours of teaching and 30 hours of service learning. They also will be required to engage in a research project, case study or other scholarly pursuits.
The residency program, which began in August, is a collaborative effort by the Shepherd Center and the department of physical therapy in Mercer’s College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences. The department was established last year to offer a doctor of physical therapy degree as well as post-professional residency and fellowship programs.
Holocaust survivor speech: The Atlanta Area Chapter of the Association of Clinical Research Professionals' fourth annual conference will feature Holocaust survivor Eva Kor.
Kor, founder of the CANDLES Holocaust Museum and Education Center in Terre Haute, Ind., will talk about her experience at Auschwitz death camp and the atrocities committed in the name of research. She will draw lessons for today’s research community based on the concept of mutual respect and justice.
The event will be from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. on Oct. 5 at the Michael C. Carlos Museum Reception Hall at Emory University. The conference will be geared toward members of the clinical research community and people with an interest in the history and status of the ethical underpinnings of clinical research.
The cost is $15 ($20 after Sept. 20) for Atlanta chapter members and $25 ($30 after Sept. 20) for ACRP members and others. The cost for optional CEU hours (1.5 hours have been approved) is $10 for ACRP members and $25 for nonmembers.
For information, email Carole Ehleben (cmecear@msn.com) or Susan Benson (bensonsh@bellsouth.net). To register, go to www.acrpnet.org and find the Atlanta chapter’s upcoming events.
Nursing faculty grant: Mercer University received more than $430,000 in federal grants to produce more nursing faculty and support trainee positions for registered nurses in advanced nursing education programs, officials announced in August.
The faculty money is crucial. College leaders say they want to graduate more nurses to address shortages, but they struggle to hire enough faculty to teach the classes. Mercer runs the Nurse Faculty Loan program, which provides financial help to registered nurses completing graduate programs to become faculty.
'Hawthorne' canceled: Atlanta-based TNT announced it has canceled nursing drama "Hawthorne" after three seasons. The show, which starred Jada Pinkett Smith as nurse Christina Hawthorne, lost viewers this season and was the network's second-lowest rated original drama.
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