LewisGale Medical Center is still trying to open a  neonatal intensive care unit, a process so lengthy that a child born at  the Salem hospital when it began would now be turning 3.

In a petition filed in Salem Circuit Court, the  hospital is appealing a decision by the state health commissioner, who  determined in April that there was no public need for the unit. A  previous commissioner reached a similar decision in 2011.

The application process began in June 2010, when  LewisGale announced plans for an intensive care unit that could treat up  to eight seriously ill or prematurely born infants.

Such a project would needlessly duplicate existing  services in the region, including a 60-bed NICU at Carilion Roanoke  Memorial Hospital, health commissioner Dr. Cynthia Romero recently  determined.

“We continue to be disappointed in the  commissioner’s decision and are committed to taking the appropriate  steps that are in the best interest of our patients,” LewisGale  spokeswomen Nancy May said Tuesday.

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Victor Giovanetti is resigning as president of LewisGale Regional Health System to take a leadership position with a hospital chain in Nashville, Tenn.

Giovanetti, who has led the Salem-based health system since 2008, has accepted the position of chief operating officer of LifePoint Hospitals Eastern Group.

LifePoint has nearly 60 hospital campuses in 20 states, with 28,000 employees and 3,000 physician partners.

The division that Giovanetti is joining consists of about 20 hospitals in four states: Tennessee, Virginia, North Carolina and Michigan.

Giovanetti said the close relationship he has built with the LewisGale system and the Roanoke Valley community made the decision to move on difficult.

“It is truly a bittersweet day,” he said this afternoon, shortly after his resignation was announced.

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Charges for the same medical procedures can vary by  thousands of dollars at hospitals across the country — and at the two  cross-town rivals in the Roanoke Valley, according to data released  Wednesday by the federal government.

At LewisGale Medical Center in Salem, the list price  for nearly all of the treatments included in the data was higher than  what was charged by Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital.

For example, the average cost for a joint replacement at LewisGale was $64,505, compared with  $53,441 at Roanoke Memorial.

In fact, Roanoke Memorial was less expensive for all but two of 95 procedures included in the data.

Released by the U.S. Centers for Medicare and  Medicaid Services, the figures were touted as the first opportunity for  health care consumers to make a hospital-to-hospital comparison.

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To go directly to the data on prices, click here. A note: This is raw data, and lots of it — a listing of hundreds of hospitals, arranged in alphabetical order by state. To search for a particular hospital, enter its name in the search box in the upper right corner, where the words “find in this dataset” appear.  That will take you to a list of up to 100 procedures performed at the hospital, which appear in the column labeled “DRG definition.”  Scroll to the right to find the list price for the services, which is labeled “ average covered charge.” The next column to the right, labeled “average total payment” is what Medicare actually paid to the hospital.

For the second time in two years, the state health commissioner has denied LewisGale Medical Center’s request to open a neonatal intensive care unit.

“I find that it is not necessary to meet a public need,” Dr. Cynthia Romero wrote in a decision dated Tuesday.

The decision was the latest setback for LewisGale in its long-running attempt to open an intensive care unit at its Salem hospital that could treat up to eight ill or prematurely born infants.

Such a project would needlessly duplicate existing services in the area, including a 60-bed NICU at Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital, Romero found.

To read the rest of this story,  click here.

LewisGale Medical Center has received high marks in a recent rating system.

The Salem hospital ranked among the nation’s top five percent in a recent study of mortality and complication rates for nearly 5,000 hospitals.

This achievement earned the hospital a five-star rating and the 2013 Healthgrades Distinguished Hospital Award for Clinical Excellence, according to a news release from LewisGale.

“Nothing is more important to us than providing safe, high-quality care to our patients.” Victor Giovanetti, president of LewisGale Regional Health System, said in the release.

“We credit our highly-skilled team of dedicated physicians and staff for helping us achieve this recognition. Their commitment to excellence ensures our patients have the best possible outcomes.”

Healthgrades, a leading independent healthcare ratings organization, focused on hospital performance for 28 common procedures and conditions from 2009 through 2011. The report found patients treated at five-star rated hospitals, on average, had a 58 percent lower risk of dying and a 42 percent lower risk of experiencing a complication.

A surge of patients sick with the flu is stretching the resources of emergency rooms at Roanoke-area hospitals.

On Wednesday, the number of patients treated at Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital’s emergency department exceeded the normal operating capacity of 225 patients per day.

Both Roanoke Memorial and LewisGale Medical Center in Salem have seen their capacity levels tested more than once recently, as an influenza outbreak struck hard in Southwest Virgina starting in mid-December.

To read the rest of this story, published in today’s newspaper, click here.

LewisGale Medical Center notified 45 of its cardiac patients last week that they had received a drug from the Massachusetts specialty pharmacy at the center of the deadly fungal meningitis outbreak.

All the patients received a “cardioplegia solution” during heart surgery that had been made by New England Compounding Center, said LewisGale spokeswoman Nancy May in an email.

“While these medications have not currently been confirmed as causing infections and authorities believe the risk is very low, we have notified these patients out of an abundance of caution as advised by U.S. Food and Drug Administration,” May said.

May said patients were contacted by mail and phone.

The move comes after health investigators said last week that more people may be at risk for infections beyond those who received spine injections for pain. The FDA said products from New England Compounding may have caused other infections in patients who had eye operations or open-heart surgery. The warning was based in part on two heart transplant patients who got fungal infections, but it is unknown if the company’s medication caused the infections, according to the Associated Press.

An ongoing battle with the state for a neonatal intensive care unit led LewisGale Medical Center to launch a petition last week to document community support for the effort.

Collecting signatures comes as LewisGale has filed a new application asking Virginia Department of Health Commissioner Karen Remley for permission to open an eight-bassinet NICU. She denied an identical request last year, saying that the addition of NICU services at LewisGale would unnecessarily duplicate and harm existing services available for the tiniest patients.

LewisGale’s chief competitor, Carilion Clinic, operates a NICU with 60 bassinets at Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital. Carilion opposes LewisGale’s effort to open a NICU, and Carilion spokesman Eric Earnhart said in an email that its NICU has “a consistent vacancy rate of at least 10-12 beds.” Read more »

LewisGale Medical Center in Salem will continue its program that uses specially trained nurses to gather evidence while treating victims of rape, domestic violence, child abuse and other assault crimes. Read more »

Jeanna Duerscherl / The Roanoke Times file

LewisGale Medical Center is continuing its fight to open a neonatal intensive care unit to care for its tiniest patients.

In an appeal filed in Salem Circuit Court, the hospital has asked the court to throw out the September decision by Virginia Health Commissioner Karen Remley denying LewisGale’s request for an eight-bassinet NICU. Read more »