MemorialCare Health System is expanding its outpatient footprint, with South Orange County in particular getting more emphasis.
The Fountain Valley-based four-hospital healthcare delivery system—which also operates about 200 additional care systems across Southern California—announced this month that it was expanding a nearly 1-year-old venture with RadNet Inc. (Nasdaq: RDNT), a provider of outpatient diagnostic imaging services.
The two companies previously ran 26 diagnostic imaging centers in Orange and Los Angeles counties, and this month announced they were bringing four more into the fold, all in OC.
The new centers are in Laguna Woods, Santa Ana, Irvine and Mission Viejo.
Terms of the acquisitions were not immediately disclosed.
The Irvine center will become a new MemorialCare Breast Center, offering comprehensive imaging services specific to breast health.
The Mission Viejo site is currently under construction and will open early next year.
The joint venture between RadNet and MemorialCare was formed in December last year and began operations shortly thereafter.
The partnership “is another example of our commitment to a higher quality, enhanced patient experience that is competitively priced with savings for individuals and families, health plans and employers and their employees,” MemorialCare President and Chief Executive Barry Arbuckle said in a statement.
Also coming to MemorialCare’s South Orange County outpatient portfolio: a new 26,000-square-foot, two-story comprehensive health center in Rancho Mission Viejo. It broke ground in November and is slated to open in the summer.
The location will provide primary care and specialty services, as well as on-site X-ray and laboratory services, breast screen mammography and cardiology and more.
The center is designed to be a one-stop shop for a wide range of healthcare needs, according to MemorialCare.
Marcia Manker, chief executive of MemorialCare Saddleback Medical Center in Laguna Hills and Orange Coast Medical Center in Fountain Valley, said for those requiring hospital care, Saddleback Medical Center is a short distance away.
An interim health center in Rancho Mission Viejo and urgent care center in San Juan Capistrano is available for patients while the new center is under construction.
Stroke Data
Cerenovus, part of Johnson & Johnson’s (NYSE: JNJ) Irvine-based medical device operations, recently launched a new registry that will collect and analyze stroke-inducing blood clots that were removed with the company’s Embotrap II Revascularization Device.
The neurovascular device maker, which makes products used to treat hemorrhage and ischemic stroke patients, received Food and Drug Administration clearance for Embotrap II in May.
The stent retriever has been available in Europe since 2016.
Cerenovus said the registry, which plans to enroll up to 1,000 ischemic stroke patients in as many as 50 clinical sites in the U.S. and Europe, will be “the single largest global registry.”
It also received European CE Mark approval for another stent retriever, Geometric Clot Extractor Revascularization Device, earlier this month.
iStent Results Positive
San Clemente-based Glaukos Corp. (NYSE: GKOS), which makes minimally invasive devices used to reduce intraocular pressure in glaucoma patients, announced that its iStent Inject Trabecular Micro-Bypass System, combined with cataract surgery, achieved a 37% reduction in mean intraocular pressure after three years of follow-up.
The single-site international study was published in international, peer-reviewed journal “Ophthalmology and Therapy.”
“The results showed that iStent Inject, in combination with cataract surgery, is a procedure capable of delivering substantial reduction in [intraocular pressure] and medication burden not only in mild to moderate glaucoma cases, but also in subjects who were previously using multiple topical medications or had undergone prior glaucoma surgeries,” said Dr. Fritz Hengerer at the University of Heidelberg in Germany, who conducted the study.
See more on Glaukos on page 22.
Senior Housing
A 480-unit senior housing community will open next year in San Juan Capistrano.
The community, called Reata Glen, combines independent living, assisted living and skilled nursing care.
It’s on a 60-acre site at the intersection of Ortega Highway and Reata Road.
The community will offer more than 200 activities and amenities, including a movie theater, fitness center and spa, an indoor and outdoor pool and multiple dining venues.
