South.(Regional News) - Modern Healthcare

JOHNSON CITY, Tenn.-Mountain States Health Alliance has announced a long-term plan for its flagship 430-bed Johnson City Medical Center, the first phase of which will begin in its fiscal 2009, which starts July 1. The first phase, budgeted for $10 million, includes expansions of the emergency and operating departments and its cancer center, a new food court and a new connection from the main hospital to a same-day surgery building. The first phase is expected to take two years. Future work is expected to include construction of a 10-story bed tower to replace bed towers built in the 1970s, Mountain States said. Separately, the nine-hospital system also expects to build a new parking structure at the medical center.

NEWNAN, Ga.-Piedmont Newnan Hospital received the green light from the state Department of Community Health to build a 136-bed, $193.6 million replacement facility. The current 128-bed hospital, part of the four-hospital, Atlanta-based Piedmont Healthcare system, received a certificate of need last month and expects to begin construction in the fall on the 362,400-square-foot project, located on Poplar Road near Interstate 85. The new nine-floor facility will include eight operating rooms and 23 rooms in the emergency department. Piedmont, which hopes to open the doors of the new hospital in January 2011, expects to increase its full-time-equivalent employees to 1,106 from the current 665 FTEs. The construction process will include sustainable building strategies to conserve energy and water in an effort to reduce operating costs, the hospital said in a news release. In addition, the hospital, which is located on 114 acres, will designate 'green belts'' of natural spaces to provide relaxing areas for patients, families and staff. A spokeswoman said the health system is still determining how the existing hospital site will be used in the future.

JACKSON, Miss.-Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour named seven hospital chief executive officers to a Medicaid Hospital Advisory Committee to advise the state as reimbursement changes cut hospital payments. The administrators are: Chris Anderson, Singing River Hospital System, Pascagoula; Gerald Wages, North Mississippi Medical Center, Tupelo; Chip Denton, Grenada (Miss.) Lake Medical Center; Wallace Strickland, Rush Foundation Hospital, Meridian; Gary Marchand, Memorial Hospital at Gulfport (Miss.); Will Ferniany, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson; and Ray Humphreys, Delta Regional Medical Center, Greenville. The committee will serve in an advisory-only capacity to the state's Medicaid program as reimbursement changes at the federal level begin to affect hospitals in the state, according to the governor. 'It is my hope they will offer ... their best counsel based on their combined years of experience in determining a solution to fund the Medicaid shortfall,'' Barbour said in a written statement.

MIAMI-The U.S. attorney in Miami indicted three former employees of 300-bed Kendall Regional Medical Center, an HCA hospital in Miami, for allegedly generating nearly $7 million in phony supply orders and collecting the proceeds through shell companies. Joanna Delfel, Victor Garcia and Sylvia Oramas each face a charge of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and face up to 20 years in prison if convicted. The alleged scheme also included three unnamed co-conspirators, according to information U.S. Attorney Alex Acosta filed June 5 in U.S. District Court in Miami. Two of them are described as employed 'in positions of authority'' at Pharmed Group Corp., a bankrupt supply company that was a vendor for Kendall Regional, and the other was employed in a position of authority for Allied Medical Products, a 'purported medical supply company.'' Delfel, who'd previously been an inventory analyst for Kendall Regional, worked in HCA's supply center for its hospitals in east Florida. She allegedly used her access to HCA's computerized supply-management system to place phony orders along with Garcia, and the deliveries were documented with fake invoices from Pharmed and Allied Medical Products, according to the court document. Oramas, who worked in housekeeping at the hospital, allegedly set up a shell corporation that served to steer the proceeds to the conspirators.

WACO, Texas-Hillcrest Health System, Waco, said it has signed a 'memorandum of understanding'' that it expects will lead to a definitive agreement with not-for-profit system Scott & White Healthcare, Temple, Texas, to operate Hillcrest Baptist Medical Center, Waco, as a partnership. Each institution would have five representatives on a 10-member board of trustees overseeing the 274-bed hospital and a new campus that is scheduled to open in May 2009. The agreement is expected to be made final in late July or early August, according to a Scott & White spokesman. The 452-bed Scott & White Memorial Hospital is the principal clinical teaching facility affiliated with the Texas A&M Health Science Center's College of Medicine.