Community Health Network and Johnson Memorial Hospital plan to spend $14 million to build a medical office building and outpatient center in Bargersville. The 70,000-square-foot facility is scheduled to be completed in mid-2013.
Franciscan St. Francis Health said its plans to build an emergency room and physician office building in Greenwood are on hold due to uncertainty over the effects of health care reform.
Franciscan St. Francis Health announced five years ago that it would consolidate its Beech Grove operations into an expanded hospital seven miles south, near Interstate 65 and Emerson Avenue. The last inpatient department to close at Beech Grove will be its emergency room, on March 16.
FINALIST: Community Achievement in Health Care
A number of acquisitions last year disclosed no sale price. In the Indianapolis area, those deals ranged from MacAllister Machinery’s purchase of a Caterpillar dealership in Michigan to Herff Jones’ acquisition of a Memphis, Tenn.-headquartered maker of cheerleading uniforms.
Indiana University Health Methodist Hospital hired Dr. Jeffrey Walker as its lead physician in the palliative care services department. A graduate of the IU School of Medicine, Walker spent most of the past three years as medical director of the Matthew 25 Health Clinic in Fort Wayne.
IU Health also hired Dr. Shiplee Sinha to be a staff physician in the palliative care services department under Walker. She graduated from Armed Forces Medical College in India and has been employed with IU Health Physicians as a hospitalist since 2006.
Stephen Wheatley, a registered nurse, has been named operations director of Franciscan St. Francis Health’s new Carmel hospital, at 12188 N. Meridian St. Franciscan St. Francis Health Carmel, opening in phases now through April 1, is designed as a short-stay medical center. It will have six inpatient beds and facilities for outpatient services. Wheatley has spent nearly 10 years as administrator of the Franciscan Surgery Center in Indianapolis. From 1990 to 2002, he was a surgical first assistant for Cardiac and Vascular Surgery Associates. Wheatley received his bachelor’s degree in nursing from Indiana University School of Nursing in 1980.
The Indianapolis-based partnership is among 32 in the U.S. chosen for a model program designed to provide more coordinated care for people served by Medicare.
Franciscan Alliance’s Indianapolis-area hospitals, along with more than 700 physicians, have been named one of the nation’s first 32 accountable care organizations.
Independent health care facilities, like Body One Physical Therapy, are seeing referrals from physicians beginning to slacken as more and more doctors become employees of hospitals. The hospitals request that doctors send patients to their in-house physical therapy practices.
Dr. David Roodman has been named director of hematology oncology at the Indiana University Melvin and Bren Simon Cancer Center. He also will begin Nov. 15 as a professor at the Indiana University School of Medicine. Four researchers from his bone disease lab at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine will move with him. Over the past 10 years, Roodman has received significant financial support for his research, including more than $13.2 million in grant funding from the National Institutes of Health. He was recruited to IU through a physician scientist initiative funded by a $60 million grant from Indianapolis-based Lilly Endowment Inc.
Dr. Justin Smith has joined the St. Vincent Physician Network in Fishers. He offers primary care to all ages and has a special interest in sports medicine and preventive care. Smith has a bachelor’s degree from Butler University and did his medical training at the Indiana University School of Medicine.
Krystal L. Cole, a certified physician’s assistant, has joined Plastic & Reconstructive Surgeons with St. Francis Medical Group. She holds a bachelor’s degree in biology from Indiana University and did her physician assistant studies at Western University of Health Sciences in California.
Nicole G. Barnes, a registered dietitian, has been appointed clinical nutrition manager for Franciscan St. Francis Health. Since 2006, she has served as a clinical dietitian for the hospital system. Barnes received a master’s degree in dietetics at D’Youville College in Buffalo, N.Y. She also holds a bachelor’s degree from Pennsylvania State University.
Franciscan St. Francis Health entered an exclusive-provider agreement with Greenwood-based Indiana Internal Medicine Consultants, one of the largest physician groups working at Franciscan’s hospitals. The practice has 37 doctors specializing in family practice, internal medicine, infectious disease and sleep medicine. The tighter relationship, which took effect Oct. 1, is designed to help Franciscan function as an accountable care organization. That concept, promoted in the 2010 health reform law, calls for hospitals and doctors to work together to care for a specific population of patients—and have some of their pay hinge on how well they maintain the health of that population. Hospitals around Indianapolis and the nation have been acquiring physician practices or entering tight contractual relationships, such as Franciscan’s exclusive-provider agreement, which will not allow Indiana Internal Medicine’s doctors to practice at hospitals outside the Franciscan chain. Franciscan operates hospitals in Beech Grove, Indianapolis and Mooresville.
The pain isn’t ending for the Warsaw-based makers of orthopedic implants. Democrats from the House Energy and Commerce Committee have asked Republican leaders to hold hearings on metal-on-metal hips, saying they have caused "significant harm to human health". The FDA is conducting its own review of metal-on-metal, having requested post-market data from about 20 companies, including Warsaw-based DePuy Orthopaedics, Zimmer and Biomet, as well as New Jersey-based Johnson & Johnson.
Bloomington-based Cook Medical Inc.’s drug-coated stent to treat blocked femoral arteries is sailing toward approval. The Zilver PTX got an 11-0 approval vote from a panel of outside advisers to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, according to Bloomberg News. The FDA does not have to follow the recommendations of its advisory panels, but it usually does. The device would be the first drug-coated stent approved in the U.S. to treat peripheral vascular disease in the largest artery of the upper leg. It would be an alternative to bypass surgery, angioplasty or the use of a stent without a coating of a drug, paclitaxel, which is designed to reduce the build-up of new fatty deposits. Peripheral arterial disease affects 8 million to 12 million people in the U.S., according to the Peripheral Arterial Disease Coalition, and can lead to heart attacks and strokes.
