Hospital Officials

St. Joseph Medical Center, where three top executives went on leave two weeks ago amid a federal investigation, has brought in an outside "restructuring team" to manage the hospital and ensure that it is not violating federal health care laws, according to a memo circulated among employees. Officials at the hospital, a 354-bed facility in Towson that is among the region's largest employers, did not elaborate yesterday on the restructuring team's role. But Beth O'Brien, who is leading the team, said in the memo that "the overarching goal is to create a compliance program at St. Joseph that parallels the same high standards as our clinical quality."

For almost 100 years, the hospital in the heart of downtown Annapolis has had a largely peaceful coexistence with its neighbors.Skirmishes have occurred over expansion -- such as its successful fight 10 years ago to build a five-story parking garage -- and downtown residents say they felt a little betrayed when Anne Arundel Medical Center officials announced two years ago they would move to a new, much larger building west of the city in 2001.But the most contentious disagreement might occur as hospital officials and residents try to work out what will happen to the building after the hospital is gone.

For almost 100 years, the hospital in the heart of downtown Annapolis has had a largely peaceful coexistence with its neighbors.Skirmishes have occurred over expansion -- such as its successful fight 10 years ago to build a five-story parking garage -- but downtown residents say they felt a little betrayed when Anne Arundel Medical Center officials announced two years ago they would move to a new, much larger building west of the city in 2001.But the potentially most contentious disagreement looms as hospital officials and residents try to work out what will happen to the building after the hospital is gone.

A third person has died in an outbreak of Legionnaires' disease at Harford Memorial Hospital, raising to five the number of patients confirmed to have been infected with the bacteria, hospital officials said yesterday.An elderly man who had been treated at the Havre de Grace facility last month was readmitted Friday with pneumonia-like symptoms and died there that evening, hospital officials acknowledged. On Saturday, test results showed that the man -- who was in the hospital from June 18 to June 28 for an unrelated illness -- had contracted the disease, they said.

For almost 100 years, the hospital in the heart of downtown Annapolis has had a largely peaceful coexistence with its neighbors.Skirmishes have occurred over expansion -- such as its successful fight 10 years ago to build a five-story parking garage -- but downtown residents say they felt a little betrayed when Anne Arundel Medical Center officials announced two years ago they would move to a new, much larger building west of the city in 2001.But the potentially most contentious disagreement looms as hospital officials and residents try to work out what will happen to the building after the hospital is gone.

Annapolis Mayor Dean L. Johnson added his two cents yesterday on what should be done with the Anne Arundel Medical Center building when the hospital moves in 2001 from its prime downtown site to the city's outskirts: demolition.Johnson said he hopes hospital officials will pick a development plan that involves tearing down the eight-story building when they announce their choice in late September.Their decision will resolve a tense debate over redevelopment of the 5-acre site in the heart of the state capital.

State and Harford County health officials are investigating four cases of Legionnaires' disease at Harford Memorial Hospital, including two deaths -- the most recent of them Tuesday.As a precaution, the hospital over the weekend flushed its water system, a potential source of contamination. State health officials are trying to determine if the hospital is the source of the Legionella bacterium."We suspect that it might be in the hospital, but we will not be absolutely sure until we've tested water samples we've taken from their water system," said Tori Leonard, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

PEOPLE sometimes can catch diseases in hospitals. It appears that at least five people, three of whom died, may have contracted Legionnaires' disease at Harford Memorial Hospital. At least one family believes hospital officials were not forthcoming about the source of their relative's fatal disease.Outbreaks of the disease, caused by the Legionella bacterium, are more common than generally recognized. The bacteria grow in water and are present in water systems, air conditioners and whirlpools.

In response to health care workers' worries about HIV, Maryland might follow the lead of California and require hospitals to use syringes designed to reduce the risk of accidental needle-pricks.The General Assembly will hold a hearing this week on a proposal to direct the state Occupational Safety and Health Advisory Board to develop rules by 2001 requiring safer needles.The legislation, drafted by Del. Dan K. Morhaim, a Baltimore County Democrat who is also an emergency room doctor, is part of a national trend.

A Howard County circuit judge has postponed until Feb. 15 the trial of a Columbia man charged in the death of his estranged wife and critically injuring his stepdaughter.Police charged Tuse S. Liu, 49, with fatally shooting So Shan Chan, 52, and injuring Wing Sau Wu, 26, as the women were leaving the Ellicott City Circuit courthouse March 11. Liu has been evaluated at Clifton T. Perkins Hospital Center since the shootings.His attorney, Louis P. Willemin, asked for the postponement, saying hospital officials had not completed the evaluation.

Officials at Bon Secours Hospital are asking the state for $5 million to keep the struggling hospital afloat for a year while they devise a new strategy to offer health care to a troubled West Baltimore community. The company and the religious order that oversee Bon Secours have not ordered its closure. But executives say the hospital needs an infusion of cash and a new vision to avoid shutting its doors. "We are losing millions to an old system that cannot be sustained in the future," said Richard J. Statuto, CEO of the hospital's parent company, Marriottsville-based Bon Secours Health System Inc. The hospital lost $22 million last year - the largest loss in a decade, according to the state agency that sets the rates that hospitals can charge.

St. Joseph Medical Center, where three top executives went on leave two weeks ago amid a federal investigation, has brought in an outside "restructuring team" to manage the hospital and ensure that it is not violating federal health care laws, according to a memo circulated among employees. Officials at the hospital, a 354-bed facility in Towson that is among the region's largest employers, did not elaborate yesterday on the restructuring team's role. But Beth O'Brien, who is leading the team, said in the memo that "the overarching goal is to create a compliance program at St. Joseph that parallels the same high standards as our clinical quality."

Three executives at St. Joseph Medical Center are on administrative leave to avoid a conflict of interest as federal authorities look into financial dealings between the Towson hospital and an affiliated doctors' group, the hospital said yesterday. The hospital provided little information last night about what led the three executives to step down. According to a statement released by the hospital, the federal Department of Health and Human Services contacted the hospital in June 2008 to request information "pertaining to a physician group and its financial relationship with the hospital."

Osly St. Preux, the Haitian boy brought to Baltimore by a Union Memorial Hospital surgeon to have a large sarcoma removed, came through yesterday's operation well and was resting comfortably last night, hospital officials said. In a five-hour procedure, surgeons removed an enormous tumor protruding from Osly's right armpit. The size of the wound means Osly, 13, will need surgery today to create a skin flap to cover it. A football-shaped piece of skin will be cut from the back of one of his thighs.

The Baltimore Washington Medical Center has nearly doubled its size with the completion of a $117 million expansion that will accommodate more critical care patients and increase space for its outpatient services, at a time when the hospital has seen an increase in the demand for health care. And as part of the expansion, for the first time since the 1960s the hospital will be a designated birthing center. A labor and delivery unit is expected to open in the fall. (Although the hospital doesn't currently have a delivery unit, about 20 to 25 women give birth each year at the hospital through its emergency department, according to hospital officials.

The Baltimore Washington Medical Center has nearly doubled its size with the completion of a $117 million expansion that will accommodate more critical care patients and increase space for its outpatient services, at a time when the hospital has seen an increase in the demand for health care. And as part of the expansion, for the first time since the 1960s the hospital will be a designated birthing center. A labor and delivery unit is expected to open in the fall. (Although the hospital doesn't currently have a delivery unit, about 20 to 25 women give birth each year at the hospital through its emergency department, according to hospital officials.

When an accident happens, a family member should be notified as soon as possible. This is a service everyone has a right to expect, and that police and hospitals have long provided. But it appears that in at least one recent Baltimore County case, that obligation wasn't met. That failure underscores the need for the institutions involved in emergency care to have a written policy that spells out who is responsible for what. Gregory Guston, 52, of Monkton died May 2 at Maryland Shock Trauma Center about 3 1/2 hours after his car veered off the road and hit a tree in northern Baltimore County.

An article in yesterday's Maryland section about Union Memorial Hospital seeking to put a helipad on its roof should have said that the access road to its current helipad at Lake Montebello can still be used. However, because hospital officials must make advance arrangements to have the road opened, they say its use is limited in emergencies.

Union Memorial Hospital in Baltimore is asking the city to let it build a pad for helicopters to land on its roof, enabling the hospital to be more competitive in the care it can provide. But residents of the neighborhoods surrounding the hospital, at University Parkway and Calvert Street, are worried about the noise and safety hazards the helicopters would bring. The hospital is near a mix of high-rise apartment buildings, condominiums and single-family homes where Charles Village intersects with Oakenshawe and Guilford.

A Northeast Baltimore teenager arraigned with her boyfriend yesterday in the beating deaths of their 1-month-old twins was physically abused in the hospital by that boyfriend shortly after giving birth, according to court documents. Though Johns Hopkins Hospital knew about the abuse allegations, Sierra Swann, 17, was allowed by hospital workers to go home with Nathaniel Broadway, 24, and their twin daughters on April 14, the day after he was "beating on" her, documents show. Swann and Broadway pleaded not guilty yesterday in city Circuit Court to charges of first-degree murder and child abuse causing death.