Skilled Healthcare Group Inc., a Foothill Ranch-based nursing home operator, recently turned over day-to-day operations of five Northern California nursing homes that were involved in a lawsuit that threatened to bankrupt the company.
Brius Healthcare LLC of Los Angeles now is running the homes, which are in Humboldt County and serve about 300 patients.
Skilled said a subsidiary is retaining ownership of the buildings housing the nursing homes.
Skilled signed a 10-year lease with Brius that has two 10-year extension options.
The company turned over operations to Brius after settling a lawsuit for some $50 million in September.
The suit alleged chronic understaffing at 22 of Skilled’s Northern California nursing homes.
Last year, a Humboldt County jury initially hit Skilled with a $677 million verdict in the suit.
An article in the Times-Standard, which covers Eureka and other Humboldt communities, talked of Brius’ plans for the nursing homes. In it, Brad Gibson, a former Skilled official who is now Brius’ vice president of operations, seemed to be speaking to local sentiment regarding Skilled.
“They just weren’t part of the community anymore, and it was time for them to go,” he told the paper. “Now that it’s back in local control, I think you’ll see that turnover slow down. We feel that a regional office suits this area best.”
Gibson spent more than seven years with Skilled, commuting nearly 700 miles between the company’s Foothill Ranch office and his home in Eureka.
Skilled didn’t respond to a request for comment.
The company’s decision to hand off daily operations of the nursing homes to Brius was criticized by patient advocates in the Times-Standard story.
The nursing homes no longer will be required to submit monthly staffing reports or be subject to inspection by a court-appointed monitor, as was the case under Skilled.
Humboldt County District Attorney Paul Gallegos said he was optimistic that Brius would continue to submit reports and undergo inspections.
Skilled has about 100 nursing homes and assisted living facilities in California and six other states.
The company’s services also include rehabilitation therapy, hospice care and home healthcare.
Skilled said in April it hired J.P. Morgan Securities LLC, part of New York-based JPMorgan Chase & Co., to look at a possible sale of its real estate holdings or the entire company.
European OK
Advanced Cardiac Therapeutics Inc., a venture-backed Laguna Beach startup device maker, received European regulatory approval for its Tempasure catheter for treating irregular heartbeats.
Tempasure uses saline irrigation and temperature-sensing technology. It’s manually placed in a patient’s heart to selectively kill off certain areas of tissue and prevent the spread of electrical signals that cause irregular heartbeat.
Advanced plans to start selling the catheter in Europe later this year, said Chief Executive Peter van der Sluis, in a statement.
Prior to getting the approval, Advanced had to conduct a safety trial on Tempasure.
“European regulatory authorities only require (you) to show the technology is safe to use in patients, and that’s exactly what we are doing,” van der Sluis said earlier.
Tempasure is “probably a good two years away” from a domestic introduction, according to van der Sluis.
Advanced modernized a piece of Cold War-era technology known as microwave radiometry to create Tempasure. Microwave radiometry measures microwave emissions off a heat source.
Auxilio: Sodexo Investment
Mission Viejo-based Auxilio Inc. said it has an expanded marketing deal with Gaithersburg, Md.-based food and facilities management company Sodexo Inc.
The contract will allow Auxilio, which helps hospitals and other healthcare providers cut their dependence on paper records, deeper access into the 1,300 hospitals that Sodexo serves nationwide.
In exchange, Sodexo will become a direct shareholder in Auxilio, which trades on the low-profile Bulletin Board exchange.
Auxilio gave Sodexo restricted stock and performance-based equity and cash commissions based on meeting sales and growth achievements.
Bits and Pieces
Deborah Proctor, chief executive of Orange-based St. Joseph Health System, recently was elected to the board of the Catholic Health Association, a Washington, D.C., trade group with more than 1,200 members. Proctor is serving her second three-year term on the association’s board … LeMaitre Vascular Inc., a maker of devices to treat vascular disease, recently closed its manufacturing facility in Laguna Hills and transferred production to its main operation in Burlington, Mass. The facility had seven jobs. LeMaitre said some of those workers were offered jobs in Massachusetts … NextGen Healthcare Information Systems Inc., a subsidiary of Irvine medical software maker Quality Systems Inc., said that a client, the Springfield Center for Family Medicine Inc. in Ohio, was among the first providers to receive federal payments for demonstrating meaningful use of electronic medical records … Orange Coast Memorial Medical Center in Fountain Valley said that its MemorialCare Breast Center at Orange Coast was designated a “breast imaging center of excellence” by the American College of Radiology.
