• E-mail
• Print
• RSS

L.A. supervisors consider new school to help troubled hospital

Quality Improvement Monitor, April 7, 2005

Los Angeles County supervisors on April 6 questioned whether the belaguered Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center should switch to a different medical school to train its physicians in hopes to improve the quality of care, according to the <i>Los Angeles Times</i>.

Supervisor Mike Antonovich filed a motion April 6 calling for the county health department to consider ending a relationship with Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science and partnering with a school such as the University of California, Los Angeles; the University of Southern California; or Loma Linda University, the <i>Times</i> reported.

The county pays Drew University about $12 million a year to train physicians to be specialists and to provide some clinical services. The county renewed its contract with the school in September.

Antonovich accused Drew University of being more concerned with renegotiating its contract than fixing problems, the newspaper said. Drew University's interim President Harry Douglas told the <i>Times</i> that he was "just dumbfounded" by Antonovich's motion. Eleven of the hospital's 15 physician-training programs recently received positive reviews from accreditors, he said.

"We thought we were proving ourselves as a capable and reliable partner," he told the newspaper.

Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center has come under fire in the past two years for lapses in care and patient deaths. The JCAHO in February revoked the hospital's accreditation, and Medicare almost pulled $200 million in funds soon after.

• E-mail to a Colleague
• Print
• RSS
• Archive