City trying to buy Methodist Hospital in eastern New Orleans http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2008/10/city_trying_to_buy_methodist_h.html Hospitals Fall Victim to Spreading Credit Crisis [Free registration required] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/15/business/15hospital.html?ref=business Credit Crisis Spreads to Hospitals, Colleges [Real Player] http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95460507 New Orleans Three Years After the Storm: The Second Kaiser Post-Katrina Survey, 2008 [pdf] http://www.kff.org/kaiserpolls/7789.cfm Running a Hospital http://runningahospital.blogspot.com/ People may be generally familiar with the effects a bank closure might have on a community, but what happens when a hospital closes? This is a trend that many inner-city areas continue to struggle with, and large cities such as Detroit and New Orleans find themselves in a precarious position in this regard. This public health problem grows more serious every year, and many nonprofit hospitals choose to close up shop in poor areas and work to establish elaborate facilities in more affluent locales where people generally have private insurance health care plans. This week, the Wall Street Journal reported on the situation in Detroit involving Ascension Health, which is the country's largest nonprofit hospital system. Last year, Ascension Health elected to close its only hospital in Detroit's east side as it prepared to open a new $224 million hospital in an upscale suburb of the Motor City. Along with other aspects of life in Detroit, the situation regarding hospital access and availability remains somewhat dire, as there are now only four hospitals left in the entire city. Meanwhile in New Orleans, the city government is attempting to buy the shuttered Methodist Hospital on that city's eastern side. The hope is that the hospital would include an emergency room and other facilities which are desperately needed to serve the neighborhoods hit hard by Hurricane Katrina three years ago. The first link will take users to a piece from the Wall Street Journal's Tuesday edition which reports on the situation involving Riverview Hospital in Detroit. The site also includes a video clip of local residents talking about their search for healthcare options and several interactive graphics. The second link leads to a piece from the New Orleans Times-Picayune on that city's efforts to purchase and rehabilitate the Methodist Hospital. Moving on, the third link leads to an article from this Wednesday's New York Times about how the ongoing credit crisis is affecting hospitals. The fourth link will whisk users away to an audio report from WBUR's Curt Nickisch with further discussion about the current credit crisis and its effect on nonprofits including hospitals and colleges. The fifth website contains a report from the Kaiser Foundation which discusses the ongoing recovery effort in New Orleans. Lastly, the final site leads to a fine weblog written by the president and CEO of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. Appropriately enough, the weblog is titled "Running a Hospital" and it contains some interesting insights into that subject.