Medical Center may step in when King/Drew steps out.

THE proposal to close the trauma unit at Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center could benefit at least one Los Angeles hospital.

The plan to close in about 90 days, announced to howls of protests last week by the L.A. County Board of Supervisors, has breathed new life into an effort by California Hospital Medical Center to open its own trauma unit. In July, the downtown L.A. facility failed to reach agreement with the county on how many patients would be sent there.

"This whole thing has made people more responsive," said Katreena Salgado, the hospital's director of public affairs. "We are at the point where we are ready to move forward."

The previous discussions foundered when the county only wanted to guarantee $1.6 million in annual funding for 600 projected trauma victims. The hospital projected it would receive 1,000 patients.

But with King/Drew being taken out of the 13-hospital trauma network, the county appears open to new discussions on the matter. The hospital had been projected to treat 1,800 trauma patients next year.

California Medical Center, which is owned by Catholic Healthcare West, the San Francisco-based non-profit, has increased staffing and made a host of emergency-room improvements in preparation for what officials thought would be a summer agreement on the trauma unit. "We are ready and waiting," Salgado said.

Tenet Billing Impact

Just how responsible might Tenet Healthcare Corp. be for the high premiums paid by Los Angeles County employers? Possibly a lot, according to a recent study conducted for the California Nurses Association.

The study found that 14 area hospitals owned by Tenet were among the top 50 most costly nationally as measured by their charge-to-cost ratio (the amount of their gross charges for services compared to the actual cost).

The hospitals ranged from Midway Hospital Medical Center, which ranked No. 4 nationally and charged nearly 10 times more than its costs, to Queen of Angels/Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center, which ranked No. 50 and charged nearly seven times its costs, according to the study by the Institute for Health and Socio-Economic Policy.

"They are fighting lot their bottom line. There is a war among the major players in this industry. The market demands and encourages this kind of behavior," said Don DeMoro, executive director of the institute.

Jan Emerson, a spokeswoman for the California Healthcare Association, a hospital trade group, derided the study as unreliable, noting that DeMoro is the husband of Rose Ann DeMoro, executive director of the nurses association.

Staff reporter Laurence Darmiento can be reached at [phone], ext. 237, or at [e-mail].