Martin Luther King Community Hospital opened its doors last week in the Watts area of Los Angeles on the same grounds as it deceased predecessor King/Harbor hospital, but with a much smaller capacity and hopes of a better fate. The original hospital served the area from 1972 until 2007 when the death of a patient in an alleged EMTALA violation caused CMS to cut off federal funds as the culmination of years of quality issues. L.A. County, which operated the facility, closed the hospital. The county and the community have been looking for a way to restore the facility ever since.
At one time, the former hospital and Trauma Center housed more than 400 beds, a medical school, and an emergency department that saw more than 70,000 visits per year. The resurrected facility will staff 131 in-patient beds and an emergency department with 21 treatment rooms in the under-served urban area. MLK Website — Click Here
The L.A. Times reported that the new operation involves a complete change in staff and a shift in emphasis to preventive care. Hospitalization and Emergency Department visits are intended to be healthcare options of last resort in the era of Obamacare, so the new operation will emphasize an expanded outpatient clinic and a public health clinic.
The biggest challenge to the new operation will be to overcome the reputation for poor care that the predecessor built up, ultimately earning the title of “Killer King.” Part of the new approach for MLK Community will be operation under its own government agency board rather than the county board, hiring of all new staff, and selection of a new medical staff of 130 physicians (mostly associated with UCLA medical center).