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Arkansas Heart Hospital has agreed to pay $900,000 to settle claims that it billed Medicare for implanting cardiac devices in situations that violated the program's payment guidelines, the U.S. Department of Justice announced Wednesday. The Little Rock hospital was among 51 hospitals that entered settlements during the "final stage" of a nationwide investigation into devices implanted from 2003 through 2010, the Justice Department said in a news release. The settlements announced Wednesday involved hospitals in 15 states and totaled more than $23 million, the release says. (Davis, 2/19)

Five Long Island hospitals are among more than 500 nationwide to reach settlements of more than $270 million in a cardiac devices case with the Department of Justice — one of the biggest whistle-blower lawsuits to date. The settlements stemmed from a suit filed in 2008 alleging health care fraud in hospitals that inserted implantable cardioverter defibrillators, or ICDs, in Medicare patients before the federal government deemed it proper. (Ochs, 2/18)

The malware ransom attack on Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center — which prompted the facility to pay a $17,000 ransom in bitcoin to the hacker who seized control of the hospital's computer systems — is part of a larger problem that is generating outrage. The hospital attack has prompted a California state senator to propose making it an extortion crime for a hacker to infect a computer system with so-called ransomware. (Winton, 2/19)

As superbug outbreaks raised alarm across the country last year, a prominent doctor at a Philadelphia cancer center wrote in a leading medical journal about how to reduce the risk of these often-deadly patient infections. Dr. Jeffrey Tokar, director of gastrointestinal endoscopy at Fox Chase Cancer Center, pointed to recent outbreaks from contaminated medical scopes and discussed steps doctors and hospitals should take to ensure patient safety in his Sept. 22 article in the Annals of Internal Medicine. (Terhune, 2/22)

Jefferson Health announced Friday that it was taking the unusual step of voluntarily suspending heart transplant procedures for six to nine months while it begins a "significant redesign" of the program. "Every facet of healthcare delivery in our country is changing, and transplant care is no exception," Anne Docimo, chief medical officer of Jefferson Health, said in a statement. (Sapatkin, 2/20)

Roughly 200 people staged a loud, angry march tonight in the vicinity of St. Joseph's Hospital to protest next month's slated closing and layoffs at the longtime North Philadelphia health care facility. Observers said that as many as 25 police cars lined the streets near the hospital at 16th Street and Girard Avenue, but there were no immediate reports of trouble or arrests. (2/19)

Florida's health care agency has rejected Calhoun-Liberty Hospital's corrective action plan. A hospital spokeswoman says the Blountstown facility has until Wednesday to submit a new plan to the Agency for Health Care Administration. The agency said the hospital did not provide specific details on staff training in emergency room care and oversight in addressing patient complaints. (2/20)