Becker's ASC Review

76 HEALTHCARE NEWS 7 hospitals buying land for expansions By Alia Paavola B elow are seven hospitals or health sys- tems that purchased or announced plans to buy land for expansions in the last six months, as reported by Becker's Hospital Review. 1. UHS buys 32 acres in Florida for medical campus King of Prussia, Pa.-based Universal Health Services has purchased 32 acres of land in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., for a medical campus. 2. Cleveland Clinic buys 44 acres in Florida Cleveland Clinic Florida purchased 44 acres of land in Port St. Lucie, Fla., for $5.7 million. 3. Orlando Health buys 80 acres for medical campus Orlando (Fla.) Health finalized its purchase of 80 acres of land in Lakeland, Fla., which it will use to build a medical campus with a 360-bed hospital. 4. Inova buys more land for Virginia hospital campus Falls Church, Va.-based Inova Health System has purchased more land for its new hospital campus. 5. HCA buys land, plans freestanding ED Nashville, Tenn.-based HCA Healthcare has purchased a plot of land in Tennessee to build a freestanding emergency department. 6. South Carolina hospital buys land for expansion e board of Orangeburg, S.C.-based Regional Medical Center agreed to buy a 6.5-acre plot of land for an expansion. 7. University Health System to buy land in San Antonio for new hospital San Antonio-based University Health System plans to buy an 80-acre parcel of land to build a second hospital. n Outgoing UnitedHealth CEO to get pay for 2 years By Morgan Haefner D avid Wichmann, the outgoing CEO of UnitedHealth Group, will receive pay for two years after his departure, according to a Feb. 2 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Mr. Wichmann retired as CEO of UnitedHealth Group Feb. 2. He will stay with the organization in a transitional role until March 31. "As a result of Mr. Wichmann's lengthy and successful tenure with the company, he has met the definition of retirement set forth in his previously granted equity awards, which will continue to vest in accordance with their terms, similar to equity awards granted to other employees," the company said in the filing. "For a two-year period, Mr. Wichmann will also receive payments approximating his most recent base salary and non-equity incentive compensation award." Mr. Wichmann's exit pay and benefits are similar to severance benefits outlined in his employment agreement, according to Bloomberg. The severance benefits are two times base salary and bonus compensation. In 2019, Mr. Wichmann's salary was $1.4 million, and he received $4.5 million in bonus compensation, according to proxy filings cited by Bloomberg. Mr. Wichmann joined UnitedHealth in 1998. He has held the CEO position since 2017. n Moderna, Pfizer vaccines likely less effective on some virus variants, former FDA chief says By Maia Anderson F ormer FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, MD, said Feb. 7 that Moderna and Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccines are likely to be about 20 percent less effective against variants of the coronavirus that were first discovered in South Africa and Brazil, The Hill reported. But the vaccines will still offer significant protection against the virus vari- ants, he said. "The mRNA vaccines … are very efficacious. And so even if we see a reduc- tion in the efficacy of those vaccines, and it may not be as profound with those vaccines, you're still getting very good protection with those vac- cines," Dr. Gottlieb told CBS. "We also may be able to develop in a timely fashion, maybe in four or six months, a consensus strain that bakes in a lot of the different variation that we're seeing to have boosters available for the fall. So I think that there is a reasonable chance that we're going to be able to stay ahead of this virus as it mutates," he added, according to The Hill. n

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