Medical mart, convention center project at risk? — MedCity Weekend Rounds

Here are five of the top stories at MedCity News this week:

Cleveland’s back-to-the-drawing-board medical mart and convention center has frustrated local politicians. But in a development even more significant to the success of the project, recent construction setbacks suggest one competing medical convention center — Nashville Medical Trade Center — could open ahead of Cleveland’s.

About one in three financial executives of health care organizations surveyed by Grant Thornton LLP said they would hire more workers within six months. That was 14 percentage points higher than the national number and one of the most optimistic industries surveyed, according to the U.S. unit of the global audit, tax and advisory firm. But a handful of Ohio hospitals contacted about the Grant Thornton survey didn’t quite fit this hiring trend.

Half of Ohio’s adult residents could be obese by 2018, a number that would send the state’s health costs spiraling, according to a new report from health advocacy groups. Ohio is one of six states that could see its obesity rate top 50 percent in less than 10 years, according to the report based on research by an Emory University professor.

MetroHealth System and Cleveland Clinic Health System are creating the region’s first trauma network, which is expected to begin operating Jan. 1. The Northern Ohio Regional Trauma Network will bring together MetroHealth’s Level 1 trauma center and four Level 2 trauma centers at Cleveland Clinic hospitals in a cooperative effort to get critically injured patients the trauma care they need.

Akron Children’s Hospital Medical Center is growing again — this time in its own backyard. The children’s hospital – now in 78 locations throughout Northeast Ohio, from specialists’ offices to pediatric emergency rooms – expanded last year in Boardman, among other locations. In 2010, the expansion will be in Akron.

Have a great weekend!