This sounds to me like the medical center is moving a little closer to what I call the Prime Healthcare business model, cutting out what is not profitable and what you can’t sustain and keeping the rest, but maybe not as drastic. Hospitals all over are doing the same thing today when looking at what stays and what goes.
Patients will go to other facilities but the ER will still retain psychiatric services. As stated in the article and has been in the news, mental health care services are dwindling all over the state. The big Medi-Cal cuts don’t help out either. Psychiatric residency too will be another thing of the past. Just last week the medical center had another very controversial issue and this one really needs to be changed too. BD
Cedars-Sinai Hospital Denies Liver Transplant to Patient Using Medical Marijuana–But They Were the Hospital that Prescribed It
All the hospitals really have to scrutinize and be sure they have enough in the budget these days to buy all the very expensive Health IT service they need to operate too, many sold and owned by health insurance companies that profit tremendously on the software, so the clinical sides lose again. BD
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center will close its in-patient and outpatient psychiatry programs over the next year, a move prompted by significant shifts in the healthcare system, hospital officials said.
The decision, which was announced Wednesday, was driven by hospital finances and changes to the delivery and organization of healthcare services nationwide.
"We are undergoing a massive transformation," said Mark Gavens, the chief operating officer. "It is natural for an organization to focus on what it does well and what it will continue to need to do well to serve the community."The planned closure is the latest in a long series of reductions in mental health services across the state. California has roughly 6,500 acute in-patient psychiatric beds, down from 8,500 in 1996, according to the California Hospital Assn. There have also been significant cutbacks in Medi-Cal funding for mental health services statewide.
"What hospitals across California are grappling with are serious financial challenges that are unrelenting," said Jan Emerson-Shea, spokeswoman for the association. "It is causing hospitals across the state to look at what services they can continue to provide and what services they can't.""The world of healthcare is very complicated right now and there are a lot of changes," she said. Land added that those changes should be done carefully and thoughtfully because they "impact people's lives."
http://www.latimes.com/health/la-me-cedars-mental-20111201,0,7075456.story
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