Patient Care

Hard hit by the recession and changes in the health industry, a number of area hospitals have laid off employees, eliminated hundreds of positions through attrition and cut some community programs. Recently, the two largest hospitals in Long Beach and another in Bellflower have dismissed workers, a sign that patients are opting to stay in hospitals for shorter periods or are avoiding them altogether whenever possible. Other hospitals also are cutting back.

Surgeons at Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center mistakenly left a metal clamp the length of a ballpoint pen inside a patient two weeks ago -- another in a series of lapses to occur despite the hospital's vows to fix failings in patient care. The clamp was left inside the unidentified patient during emergency trauma surgery for multiple gunshot wounds at the Los Angeles County-owned hospital.

State inspectors making a surprise follow-up visit to UC Irvine Medical Center last week found two deficiencies in "medication management" and issued an "immediate jeopardy" warning, alleging that patient care was at risk, hospital officials acknowledged Thursday. The warning, which was lifted Wednesday, is one of the most serious that can be issued to a hospital. UC Irvine Medical Center's chief executive, Terry A. Belmont, disclosed the findings by state inspectors working on behalf of the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in e-mails sent to the staff this week and last week.

Following a patient lawsuit filed last month, California officials say they are reviewing whether HealthCare Partners and its medical groups are in compliance with state law. The California Department of Managed Health Care said Monday that it is "reviewing the allegations that HealthCare Partners is operating as a health plan without a license. " Last month, patient Juan Carlos Jandres sued HealthCare Partners in Los Angeles County Superior Court, accusing it of violating state law by managing patient care without the necessary government license under the Knox-Keene Act. A spokesman for HealthCare Partners said the company is "in full compliance with state and federal law. " In May, kidney dialysis giant DaVita Inc. agreed to acquire Torrance-based HealthCare Partners for $4.42 billion in cash and stock.

A consultant who led the troubled effort to overhaul California's public psychiatric hospitals has played a lead role in federal reforms in at least five other states, where critics have raised similar concerns about cronyism and the quality of his work. Nirbhay Singh, a psychologist from Virginia, abruptly resigned from his California post last year after The Times asked state officials about rising violence in the hospitals and the state's hiring of Singh's family members. State mental health officials are now eliminating treatment approaches and elaborate paperwork that Singh imposed in a costly effort to satisfy a legal settlement between the state and the U.S. Department of Justice.

Chemed Corp., which owns plumbing and drain-cleaning service Roto-Rooter, agreed to sell its Patient Care Inc. unit to investors led by Schroder Ventures Life Sciences Group for $70 million in cash. Patient Care sells home health-care services mostly in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, Chemed said. The unit had $139.2million in sales last year. The sale of Patient Care will allow Chemed to concentrate on its maintenance and repair business, Chief Executive Kevin McNamara said.

Private, tax-exempt hospitals spent an average of 7.5% of their operating expenses on community benefits in 2009, according to a new study that raises questions about whether the amount is enough. Overall, the study published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine showed hospitals "varied widely" in the level of "community benefits" they provided, ranging from 20% of the operating budget at some to 1% at others. They concluded that most of the expenditures benefited patient care while "little was spent on community health improvement.

The number of times a doctor is paged in the hospital could be reduced by as much as 42%, giving physicians more time to rest and spend uninterrupted time with patients. Drs. Mitchell Katz and Steven Schroeder of UC San Francisco studied the paging system at three hospitals during three-day periods between February and June, 1987.