mesothelioma hospital

NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital recently established a Mesothelioma Center, unique in this area, to provide comprehensive diagnosis and treatment for this uncommon cancer. Mesothelioma originates in the membrane lining the abdominal cavity or the chest cavity, and is often seen in older patients who have been exposed to asbestos. Other causes, such as radiation and certain viruses, have sometimes been implicated.

Diagnostic Innovation

NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital offers patients the latest tools for the assessment of mesothelioma. This condition is diagnosed from biopsies of affected tissues (pleura or peritoneum) obtained surgically by thoracoscopy, thoracotomy, laparoscopy, or laparotomy. The tumor is imaged and staged by CAT scan or MRI and its metabolism assessed by newer methods of radioisotope or PET scanning. Using the latest "bench-to-beside" laboratory techniques, tumor tissue from a newly diagnosed mesothelioma patient is examined for its ability to grow outside the body, for patterns of gene expression, for tumor antigens potentially useful in constructing mesothelioma vaccines, and for sensitivity to selected chemotherapy drugs. These tests, many of which are not obtainable elsewhere, help to estimate the likelihood of effective curative or palliative therapy, and are often directly linked to treatment.

Therapeutic Excellence

Under the aegis of the Mesothelioma Center, more than 100 newly diagnosed patients with mesothelioma are cared for and followed each year from all over the country. (The total number of new cases in the U.S. is less than 3,000 per year). Most patients are seen or treated by a surgeon, medical oncologist, and radiotherapist during their course, as well as a highly specialized nursing staff and psychiatry liaison.

EXPERIMENTAL THERAPIES

Because mesotheliomas represent less than 1 percent of cancers and are infrequently seen in the practice of most community oncologists, finding the correct treatment can be very difficult. NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital's Mesothelioma Center offers patients access to the newest experimental treatments.

Peritoneal Mesothelioma
Over 50 patients with this rare disease have participated in our nationally recognized intensive multimodality treatment program, which involves debulking surgery, repeated intraperitoneal chemotherapy, second-look surgery, and whole abdominal radiation. This is a disease whose survival is traditionally 18 months or less from diagnosis. In our first clinical trial, the median survival has not yet been achieved (now over 68 months), and 37% of our patients are disease-free.

Pleural Mesothelioma
Our Center is among the leading US institutions that are evaluating new chemotherapy drugs, such as pemetrexed plus cisplatin, (currently the most effective, just recently FDA-approved drug combination), for advanced, inoperable mesothelioma; the combination of gemcitabine + cisplatin or oxaliplatin; and the amino acid analogue l-alanosine. For patients who are candidates for surgical treatment, we have implemented multimodal protocols for pre- and postoperative adjuvant chemotherapy in conjunction with surgical treatment and radiation therapy.

Whether the most up-to-date conventional or experimental plan of care is chosen, the goal of treatment is always the expeditious improvement of patient survival, symptoms, and quality of life.

Research

The Mesothelioma Center is very active in laboratory-based research in order to ensure that the newest concepts of cancer biology are used to design the most advanced investigative treatments.

TRANSLATIONAL STUDIES

Our colleagues in Pulmonary Medicine and Pathology have accumulated genetic profiles from microdissected specimens of peritoneal mesothelioma tissue removed from our patients at surgery. These data will aid in diagnosis of difficult cases, and allow development of rational therapies. For example, they have discovered that 15% of mesothelioma patients who show a sarcomatoid pattern of growth and with an extremely poor prognosis (average survival 6 months or less) have a unique genetic profile that distinguishes them from the other 85% of patients; these patients also demonstrate unique biochemical features that can be used as targets for experimental drugs.

PRECLINICAL STUDIES

Other preclinical studies include:

• Microarray gene studies of primary and long-term cultured mesothelioma cells exposed to conventional chemotherapy drugs, hypomethylating agents, and tyrosine- kinase inhibitors
• Genetic profiles of mesenchymal tumors sensitive or resistant to gemcitabine, cisplatin, and bortezomib chemotherapy
• In collaboration with the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, discovery and definition of tumor-related peptide antigens detected in our patient material using Serex and related techniques, and the development of peptide and protein vaccines for immunotherapy.

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northern california rehabilitation hospital

Overview

Northern California Rehabilitation Hospital is a acute long-term care hospital located in Redding, CA, with 76 beds. It is accredited by the Joint Commission. According to the most recent survey data, a total of 1,102 patients are admitted. Its physicians perform 0 inpatient and 0 outpatient surgeries.

Profile

This hospital has not provided a profile.

Details

For more about this hospital, see hospital details. The information shown is provided by the American Hospital Association, which compiles data on all U.S. hospitals through an annual survey and from other sources. Hospital ownership, number of doctors and nurses, volume of births and ER visits, and available services such as sports medicine are just a few examples of data collected by the AHA. Find out more at www.ahadata.com.

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hospital compensation

Private hospital negligence

If you have been treated in the private sector we need to identify exactly who was responsible for the medical mistakes. The doctors are generally self employed and separately insured, the nurses are likely to be employed by the private hospital and insured by the hospital, the responsibility for the equipment is that of the hospital, responsibility for follow up and referral is the responsibility of the doctor, the physiotherapists, occupational therapists and other professionals may either be employed by the hospital or self employed.

We will identify exactly what went wrong in your treatment and who was responsible for the medical negligence. Your hospital negligence claim is then brought against the appropriate insured defendant.

If you feel you have been a victim of medical negligence whilst being treated in hospital we would recommend you speak to an expert medical negligence lawyers, who can give you advice and guidance on how to make a claim for compensation.

Find out more about our specialist areas:

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foundation bariatric hospital

Let Us Help You Transform Your Life!
Toby Broussard, MD and Gregory F. Walton, MD, General and Bariatric Surgeons, comprise WeightWise. While our physical location is Edmond, Oklahoma, we perform metabolic and weight loss surgery on people from Oklahoma City, Dallas, Amarillo, Wichita, Little Rock, and all locations in between. Laparoscopic Gastric Bypass Surgery, Lap Band Surgery, and Laparoscopic Gastric Sleeve are the most common procedures we perform.

Bariatric Surgery has a new face and it is Transforming Lives. We have labored to design a uniquely integrated and comprehensive program to ensure great outcomes ? not only from the operation itself, but also through the long term success of each patient.

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international hospital group

The American Hospital Management Company provides turn-key, outsourced administrative and management services to hospitals and health systems. AHMC is the most experienced hospital administrator, project planner, medical equipment procurer, developer and advisory company in the Global market today. AHMC provides individual services, turn-key services and total solutions. Unique to AHMC is the experience and success with Private-Public Hospital Partnerships as well as with academic, teaching hospitals.

American Hospital Management Company (AHMC) is a member of the Family Hospital Group of Companies. AHMC is a United States based diversified international healthcare system whose focus is on the administration, management, and development of world-class hospitals and healthcare systems. Founded in 1998, AHMC has grown into the leading international hospital management and administration outsourcing company.

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hospital accounts receivable

They merged their identities, their facilities, and their mission statements. And then they attempted to merge their bad debt. In the case of two large Midwest hospitals that merged in 1997, determining what to do with a combined bad debt of more than $100 million was one of the most difficult decisions hospital administrators had to make. Faced with the challenge of how to address the hospital's unpaid accounts receivable was a team of financial executives from the two hospitals--the CFOs, patient accounts directors, and controllers.

Debbe Winkle, former interim director of patient accounts for one of the hospitals, was on the team. She recalls that, following the merger, leadership was focused on such things as combining the two hospitals' computer systems and determining which accounts were at which collection agencies. "The last thing we wanted to be dealing with was bad debt," she says.

One option the team explored was moving the accounts from a primary, agency to a secondary agency. "Not all of us wanted to pursue that option," says Winkle, who owns Outsource Receivable Services in Indianapolis. "Once you've written your A/R off to bad debt and sent it somewhere else, it can be very cumbersome transferring all that data from one agency to another."

The hospital's other option was to sell its bad debt. In the 1990s, however, it was rare for hospitals to sell their accounts receivable to a debt buyer, and Winkle and the rest of the team wanted to ensure that the hospital maintained a positive image in the community. "Our number one concern was that once we sold the accounts, we would lose all control," Winkle says. "We didn't want a bunch of bad public relations in the community, especially right after a merger."

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