REGIONAL NEWS:
Tornado damages Illinois hospital, and other news
HARRISBURG, Ill.— Inpatients at 74-bed Harrisburg Medical Center were transferred to nearby hospitals after a tornado that struck the Southern Illinois town damaged the hospital’s building, said Melaney Arnold, a spokeswoman for the Illinois Department of Public Health who was speaking on behalf of the Illinois Emergency Management Agency. The emergency department at Harrisburg Medical, though, remained open for critical patients, Arnold said. It was a nonemergency evacuation and “the damage is being assessed,” she said. Hospital officials could not be reached for comment. Parts of Harrisburg were flattened last week. The town of 9,000 was one of several in the Midwest and South that were hit by tornados that killed 13 people, according to the Associated Press. NEW LENOX, Ill.— Silver Cross Hospital completed its move from Joliet, Ill., to a new 76-acre campus in New Lenox. Silver Cross started the $370 million construction on the project in 2009. During the course of about eight hours on Feb. 26, according to a news release, the Silver Cross staff moved 129 patients to the new facility, which is about four miles east of the hospital’s Joliet site and near interstates 355 and 80, which connect Chicago’s far southwest suburbs and outlying towns. The 560,000-square-foot replacement hospital has six stories and 289 beds. The majority of the construction costs were financed with a $260 million bond issue. Silver Cross and the University of Chicago Medicine are building an outpatient cancer center on the campus, which is scheduled to open in April. Joliet continues to be home to 457bed Provena St. Joseph Medical Center. CLEVELAND— University Hospitals, a seven-hospital system based in Cleveland, launched an initiative to develop a not-for-profit clinical research institute and a for-profit drug development company. The Harrington Project for Discovery & Development will be funded by a $100 million ongoing investment that University Hospitals began several years ago, an additional $100 million that the for-profit company plans to raise from other academic institutions and private investors, and a $50 million gift. “One of the challenges that we have today is that many biomedical discoveries end up staying on the shelf; they never get commercialized,” University Hospitals COO Dr. Achilles Demetriou said in a news release. The research institute, to be called the University Hospitals Harrington Discovery Institute, plans to fund physician-scientists’ clinical development projects as part of a program called Harrington Scholars. Dr. Jonathan Stamler, director of the UH Harrington Discovery Institute, said the development programs will probably focus on oncology, cardiovascular, infectious diseases and neurology therapies, and physician-scientists will receive mentoring, funding and infrastructure. The for-profit company, now operating under the name Biou, is expected to provide commercialization support to the therapies and products developed by the physician-scientists. Last fall, Biou hired Robert Keith, a former president and CEO of Verus Pharmaceuticals, as CEO. NAPERVILLE, Ill.— Edward Hospital gained approval from a state board to add two floors of patient beds. Last week, the Illinois Health Facilities and Services Review Board approved the 330-bed hospital’s plan to add the floors to a building on its campus. Edward Hospital CEO Pamela Davis said the beds are needed to meet expected growth. The cost is estimated at $64 million. Construction is set to begin this summer with completion expected in 2013. A new third floor will house 36 medical-surgical beds and a physical therapy gym. A fourth floor will house