University Hospital

Georgia Schweitzer has come a long way in her four years at Duke--on and off the court. Schweitzer was so squeamish in high school that she couldn't stand the sight of blood and refused to even step inside the training room. At Duke, she spent much of her first semester in tears. She cried because she was homesick; she cried during conditioning. She was shy and unsure of herself and never wanted the ball in a game.

USC University Hospital halted kidney transplants last month after a kidney was accidentally transplanted into the wrong patient, according to a spokesman for the program that coordinates organ transplants in Los Angeles. The patient who received the wrong kidney escaped harm, apparently because the kidney happened to be an acceptable match, said Bryan Stewart, spokesman for the program, OneLegacy, which was notified of the error by the hospital. The hospital, which performs about two transplants a week, confirmed in a statement that it had voluntarily halted transplants Jan. 29 after a "process error" was discovered.

The unique tripartite project between USC, Los Angeles County and National Medical Enterprises, which has resulted in the new USC University Hospital, represents a ray of hope for increasing services to the poor. This facility will provide the technology, resources and funding needed to attract and retain outstanding physicians who will be dedicated to teaching, research and service to both the public and private patients. New faculty and new services will be available to public patients.

The board of the beleaguered Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science resigned Friday, at the same time leaders of universities, hospitals and a foundation stepped in to try to rescue the South Los Angeles area campus from financial disaster. The action was a dramatic last-ditch effort to save the 44-year-old university — founded to train physicians to serve underserved, minority communities — from its lenders. The school was at risk of seizure because it was not expected to make loan and insurance payments on $43 million borrowed to build a state-of-the-art nursing school , which opened last month.

Intravenous tubes delivering medication and fluids to seven patients were deliberately cut at University Hospital, investigators said Tuesday. Nurses were added and security was increased at the hospital after the discovery, a hospital spokesman said. No one was harmed.

Surgeons at the USC University Hospital were unable to reattach a La Habra man's fingers severed in a work-related accident in Ventura, a University Hospital spokeswoman said. Armondo Veliz, 63, lost his two middle fingers and portions of his index and little fingers on his right hand Friday while working on a city-owned water tank, a Ventura Fire Department spokesman said.

Quality Systems Inc. said Wednesday that it has won a contract to develop and install an automated medical practice management software system at the 672-bed University Hospital in Augusta, Ga. Terms of the contract were not disclosed. The pact calls for the Tustin company to install customized software programs in one of the hospital's existing computer systems to provide the institution and its medical staff with real-time, interactive information processing capability.

A baby boy born in Seattle to a comatose woman was in excellent condition, University Hospital officials said. The 8-pound, 1/2-ounce baby was delivered late Friday night by Cesarean section after doctors determined he was too large for a normal birth, said Kay Rodriguez of University Hospital. The infant was born to Barbara Blodgett, 24, of Yakima, who has been in a coma since she was in an auto accident June 30.

A 26-year-old woman holding her 6-year-old daughter jumped off the Coronado Bridge Sunday afternoon, killing herself and leaving the girl in critical condition, San Diego police reported. The woman, whose identity the police were withholding until they could contact her relatives, stopped her car, took her child in her arms, and leaped from the bridge shortly before 5:15, said Officer Terry Berglund. People in a pleasure boat in the bay below pulled the child from the water, Berglund said.

USC has agreed to pay Tenet Healthcare Corp. $275 million to acquire USC University Hospital and USC Kenneth Norris Jr. Cancer Hospital, ending a three-year dispute over control. USC said Tuesday that it would retain the 1,600 employees and recruit needed staff and physicians. The two hospitals, on USC's health sciences campus in Los Angeles, have 471 inpatient beds.

The liver transplant program at USC University Hospital in Los Angeles has one of the highest death rates in the nation, with twice as many patients as expected dying after their surgeries, according to data released this week. The most recent statistics show that 38 USC patients who received new livers from January 2003 to June 2005 died within a year of surgery -- 19 more than expected, according to the Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients.

A Superior Court judge in Sacramento barred 9,000 registered nurses at the University of California from holding a one-day strike today at UC hospitals and student health centers, heightening tensions between the nurses union and the Schwarzenegger administration. The California Nurses Assn. called the strike this month because its negotiators were unable to reach agreement on a new contract with the UC system. But the state Public Employment Relations Board convinced Judge Loren E.

The Sultan of Brunei, one of the world's richest men, left Oklahoma City after a five-day hospital stay for undisclosed medical reasons, a spokeswoman at University Hospital said. Local media reports had said that Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah, who arrived Monday, was there for heart treatment for himself or for his son. Hospital officials declined to comment on the reason for the sultan's visit but said they may hold a news conference.

Georgia Schweitzer has come a long way in her four years at Duke--on and off the court. Schweitzer was so squeamish in high school that she couldn't stand the sight of blood and refused to even step inside the training room. At Duke, she spent much of her first semester in tears. She cried because she was homesick; she cried during conditioning. She was shy and unsure of herself and never wanted the ball in a game.

UC Irvine is considering transferring the management of the UCI Medical Center in Orange to a national for-profit health care organization. Although the details are not yet well defined, the intent is to keep the faculty and the physical facilities as part of the university while all the staff will become employees of the for-profit organization. This is not the approach to take.

Quality Systems Inc. said Wednesday that it has won a contract to develop and install an automated medical practice management software system at the 672-bed University Hospital in Augusta, Ga. Terms of the contract were not disclosed. The pact calls for the Tustin company to install customized software programs in one of the hospital's existing computer systems to provide the institution and its medical staff with real-time, interactive information processing capability.

Twenty-three California hospitals are ranked among the top 5% of all U.S. hospitals in overall administrative quality, the national agency that sets standards for health care institutions reported Thursday. A special commendation was given to just 273 of the 5,300 institutions surveyed by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Health Care Organizations, which has been reviewing hospitals for 40 years.