Hospital operator Integrated Healthcare Holdings Inc., one of Orange County’s lower-profile public companies, is working with some of its affiliates to lease a hospital in the High Desert community of Joshua Tree.
Santa Ana-based Integrated owns Western Medical Center-Santa Ana, Western Medical Center-Anaheim, Coastal Communities Hospital in Santa Ana, and Chapman Medical Center in Orange. The company, which trades on the low-profile Over-the-Counter exchange, was formed out of the acquisition of the four hospitals from Dallas-based Tenet Healthcare Corp.
Integrated is now vying against Tenet to lease the 179-bed Hi-Desert Medical Center, a public hospital.
Executives from Strategic Global Management, a privately held company affiliated with Integrated, made their case last month before the Hi-Desert Memorial Healthcare District’s board of directors.
Strategic, Integrated and its affiliates committed to investing $7 million in doctor recruitment and service expansion over the first three years of the lease and up to $10 million for information systems, according to a report in the Hi-Desert Star.
The company said it intended to “hire substantially,” adding that current Hi-Desert Medical Center personnel would see no changes in their wages or benefits, and that it would work with the hospital, its medical staff, and community members to formulate a strategic plan.
“We’ve been able to successfully keep community hospitals open. Our quality scores are rising. We’re changing processes, we’re adding capital,” Strategic Global Chief Executive Suzanne Richards told the Star.
Strategic “envisions” more outpatient services, a women’s multispecialty clinic, urgent care centers, an assessment center and psychiatry center at Hi-Desert, according to Richards.
Former parent Tenet’s offer included $17 million in capital projects and $5 million for doctor recruitment and service expansion during the first three years of the lease.
The Hi-Desert board is scheduled to meet Wednesday to review the information it sought and to possibly decide on the proposals.
Healthcare Forecast Planned
The University of California-Irvine is gearing up to host its annual Health Care Forecast Conference on Feb. 19 and 20 at the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Center of the National Academies of Science and Engineering on its campus.
The university’s Paul Merage School of Business’ Center for Health Care Management and Policy is presenting the conference.
Norman Ornstein, political pundit, TV commentator and resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative-leaning think tank, returns for his 18th year as keynote speaker.
Ornstein’s talk will address last month’s midterm elections and how they will affect the “ongoing challenges and continuing debate in Congress over [Affordable Care Act] implementation and the politics of healthcare.”
Past speakers have included UC Irvine Medical Center Chief Executive Terry Belmont and Dr. Jay Cohen, executive chairman of Monarch HealthCare.
Parent Talks Beckman Coulter
Beckman Coulter Inc., a Brea-based maker of diagnostic testing instruments and supplies, has been on a steady growth pace, according to the head of its parent.
Tom Joyce, chief executive of Washington, D.C.-based Danaher Corp., which acquired Beckman in 2010 for $6.8 billion, talked Beckman during the company’s recent third-quarter earnings call.
“Core revenues increased at a mid-single digit rate with double-digit growth in immunoassay, urinalysis and automation,” Joyce said.
He singled out China, where he said revenues were up by more than 20%.
Danaher doesn’t break out revenue figures for Beckman. It’s part of the conglomerate’s life sciences and diagnostic unit, which accounted for $1.7 billion, or 36%, of the company’s $4.87 billion in third-quarter revenue.
Joyce also discussed recent regulatory approvals. Beckman received Food and Drug Administration 510(k) clearance for its Power Express sample processing device during the quarter. The device is designed to automate sample processing in medical laboratories of all sizes across core disciplines, including chemistry and hematology.
Power Express “will help our U.S. customers improve efficiency and reduce turnaround time for critical diagnostic tests,” Joyce said.
Bits & Pieces
Irvine-based ChromaDex Corp. had a pair of patents issued from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office covering its pterostilbene ingredient. The patent application was originally jointly filed in 2012 by ChromaDex and the University of California-Irvine. ChromaDex was subsequently granted a worldwide exclusive license to all rights in the patent. … Santa Ana-based Irvine Scientific Inc. said it introduced a chemically defined cryopreservation solution that excludes dimethyl sulfoxide and animal-derived components. It said in a news release that it offered the solution amid growing concerns that DMSO compromises the potency of human mesenchymal stem cells that are cryopreserved in the patented process.
