Maryland Medical System

Now that the Cuban baseball team has visited Baltimore, the city will move into its next exchange with the Communist nation Sunday by sending doctors to Havana.Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke said yesterday that four area doctors, a city nurse and two hospital administrators will join city Health Commissioner Dr. Peter Beilenson in observing the highly praised Cuban medical system on a three-day trip.Despite being a poor nation, Cuba provides residents universal access to health care. At the top of the list of issues city officials want to explore is the infant mortality rate, considered a critical measure of poverty.

Transplant Center is bringing more organs to MarylandIn response to Judy LaSov's letter, "Health system has failed Maryland's transplant patients" (Aug. 9), I'd like to point out that 387 people received life-saving organ transplants during 1998 at the Johns Hopkins Hospital and the University of Maryland Medical System.Two hundred-four of those patients received kidney transplants. The patients received 226 locally recovered organs and 224 organs imported from other areas of the country.

TODAY'S scheduled announcement of Maryland General Hospital's merger into the larger University of Maryland Medical System is a welcome development for residents of downtown Baltimore and for west side redevelopment efforts.This sound business move should strengthen University's health-care system while assuring that two thriving medical centers will anchor renewal along Howard Street.Maryland General is a low-cost, 300-bed community hospital; University is a high-cost, 747-bed teaching and specialty-care facility.

The major stakeholders in the city's proposed west side redevelopment plan yesterday launched a campaign to create a nonprofit corporation devoted to boosting the $350 million effort.Representatives of Orioles owner Peter G. Angelos, the University of Maryland Medical System, the University of Maryland, Baltimore, and the Harry and Jeannette Weinberg Foundation said they support the creation of the West Side Development Corp.They met about 50 business leaders and state officials yesterday during a fund-raising lunch in the Camden Club at Orioles Park.

Today in Maryland, 66 people will discover they have cancer, 28 people will die of cancer and 59 children will start to smoke. -- Gov. Parris N. GlendeningWITH these words, Mr. Glendening began an historic speech at the University of Maryland Medical Center on June 3. His remarks were a call to arms for our state to fight tobacco use, make breaththroughs in cancer treatment and research, and end tobacco farming.Sadly, many states are squandering the unprecedented opportunity created by the tobacco settlement.

The University of Maryland Medical System said yesterday that it will become the parent company of Maryland General Health Systems in an "affiliation" that would preserve the two hospital systems as separate entities, while reducing their operating costs.No money will change hands, except for a contribution by UMMS for capital improvements at Maryland General, officials said at a news conference at Maryland General.Each system will retain its name and board of directors, but they will pool some medical resources and develop a joint referral system.

The University of Maryland's Greenebaum Cancer Center said it has secured commitments from Gov. Parris N. Glendening and state legislators to provide the center with $10 million per year from state tobacco settlement funds.The center had been seeking the money to set up a statewide cancer research and treatment network.The state will receive $4.6 billion as its share of the national settlement with tobacco companies. Health organizations and farmers' groups have come forward with proposals on how to use the money gleaned from the deal.

Medevac helicopters landed on the Towson University campus recently, but their purpose wasn't to help save someone's life. The emergency-medical personnel who work on them were among those honored at the 19th annual University of Maryland Shock Trauma Gala, held at the Towson Center.The soiree highlighted two trauma cases from last year, with everyone who worked on each case receiving a "Hero" award. Helping present those awards was 20-year-old Shelly Roush, who was rescued after she fell 70 feet while rock climbing in Washington County.

University of Maryland Medical System and Maryland General Health Systems announced yesterday that they are in talks that could lead to a "business affiliation."Maryland hospitals have been merging rapidly over the past few years, but they have also formed other kinds of alliances. UMMS and Maryland General, for example, have negotiated nonmerger deals to do Medicaid contracting.In yesterday's joint statement, they said they "are exploring a wide range of potential affiliations."The two set October as the target for deciding whether and how to join forces but said the deadline could be extended.

It was when the lights started flickering in the small, Spanish-built hospital last Wednesday that Dr. John E. Herzenberg knew Hurricane Mitch had struck the remote Nicaraguan village where he was working."

A statewide health information exchange that would give doctors computerized access to patients' medical histories got a $10 million funding boost Wednesday. The Maryland Health Services Cost Review Commission, the state agency that sets rates that hospitals can charge, approved the startup funding to build the system that's been studied for several years. The funding comes from a surcharge of a few pennies on hospital bills, which are mostly footed by insurance companies. "This will give health care providers the right information at the point of care so that they can make the best diagnosis and treatment decision, while in a framework that protects patient privacy," said David Horrocks, president of Chesapeake Regional Information System for our Patients.

In a deal designed to address doctor shortages and bring new medical services to Harford County, the University of Maryland Medical System announced Wednesday that it will acquire Upper Chesapeake Health System, which owns hospitals in Bel Air and Havre de Grace. Upper Chesapeake, the county's largest private employer, would be the latest example of hospital consolidation in Maryland, as large medical systems scoop up smaller hospitals that face competitive pressures. Also on Wednesday, executives marked the official takeover of Suburban Hospital in Bethesda by the Johns Hopkins Health System.

David J. Ramsay, who helped push the redevelopment of Baltimore's west side while presiding over prestigious law and medical schools, announced Thursday that he will step down after 15 years as the president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore. Ramsay, who will remain in the job until a successor is chosen, announced the decision in an understated e-mail to the campus. "It has been my privilege to spend these last fifteen years at the helm of the University of Maryland, Baltimore and to participate in its remarkable growth and development," he wrote.

The troubles at the University of Maryland Medical System started long before one-third of the board, including its chairman, resigned a week and a half ago. And it predates the dispute over how to replace outgoing Chief Executive Officer Edmond F. Notebaert, who announced his retirement in July. Tensions at the medical system have been building for years, and critics who now lambaste Gov. Martin O'Malley for intervening in the matter have it exactly wrong. The problem is not that the governor took recent action but that he did not step in much earlier when it was clear that UMMS leadership had become dysfunctional.

After months of acrimony and personality clashes at the University of Maryland Medical System, the board chairman and nine other directors resigned yesterday, and the remaining members installed new leadership at the health care powerhouse that oversees hospitals in Baltimore and around the state. The board shake-up follows disagreements between some board members and Gov. Martin O'Malley over what they perceive as the governor's attempt to politicize the board and also between physicians and former Chief Executive Officer Edmond F. Notebaert over concerns that he ignored their interests.

With the departure of Edmond F. Notebaert as president and chief executive officer, the University of Maryland Medical System is in need of a world-class leader. UMMS is not only the Baltimore area's third-largest private employer, but it contributes more than $3.5 billion to the state economy when its various member hospitals are factored into the equation. With so much at stake, the UMMS board of directors should move immediately to begin a serious and thorough national search for its next CEO. That person must have not only a vision for the nonprofit system's role in 21st-century health care but also an understanding of the organization's unique, and sometimes challenging, relationship with state government.

Dr. James Patrick George Flynn, who headed the University of Maryland Shock Trauma Center as its acting director and was medical officer for the Maryland National Guard, died of cancer Tuesday at the Gilchrist Center for Hospice Care. He was 71 and lived in Towson. During his career in medicine and medical administration, Dr. Flynn had been director of the Montebello Rehabilitation Hospital in Northeast Baltimore and the Maryland Institute for Emergency Medical Services Systems. He was also chief medical officer at University Specialty Hospital on South Charles Street and the Kernan Orthopedic and Rehabilitation Hospital near Dickeyville.

On March 12, 2007, BILL JONES "Jonesy" to friends, much-loved husband of the late Missy Jones (nee Christy); dear dad of Karyn, Robin, Nigel and son-in-law Rick; grand-dad to Amanda; a brother to Earle, son of the late Weldon and Lelia Jones, Maryland Terrapins fan to the end. Friends and family are welcome to a Celebration of his Life on March, 25, 2007, at the family home from 2-5 P.m. In lieu of flowers, memorials may be directed in Mr. Jones' name...

She's not mayor yet, but Sheila Dixon hosted her first formal post-election announcement in the City Hall conference room reserved for Baltimore's chief executive. It was a symbolic, but telling, way to show she's comfortable in that space. And all the right people were in the room. Her transition team represents a cross-section of Baltimore: black and white, figures from previous administrations and the present one, the business sector and the community, who have invested their brains and talent in improving the quality of life in the city.

An item in "The Week That Was" column in Sunday's Maryland section might have left an erroneous impression regarding the governance of charter schools. Charter schools are publicly funded but operate independently under contracts with local school boards or regulating agencies. An article in Saturday's editions about the retirement of Dr. Donald E. Wilson as dean of the University of Maryland School of Medicine quoted Dr. Morton I. Rapoport, who was chief executive officer of the University of Maryland Medical System in 1991 when Wilson was hired.