NEW BEDFORD – The College of American Pathologists awarded the St. Luke’s and Tobey hospitals’ laboratories its 2003 Best Performer Awards for their performance and methodology.
The college conducts quality surveys several times a year at hospital laboratories all over the country, according to Southcoast Hospitals Group, formed in 1996 from the merger of Charlton Memorial Hospital in Fall River, St. Luke’s Hospital in New Bedford and Tobey Hospital in Wareham.
The college’s Laboratory Accreditation Program is recognized as the “gold standard” and has served as a model for other federal, state and private laboratory accreditation programs throughout the world.
Romney seeks $1.15 billion for road, bridge improvements
BOSTON – Gov. Mitt Romney has filed a $1.15 billion plan for capital transportation spending that guarantees the state will invest at least $400 million every year to upgrade its roads and bridges until the year 2012.
The bill maintains the spending requirement that the federal government put in place in 2001 to ensure spending on roads and bridges through the completion of the Big Dig in 2005. Under Romney’s plan, spending will continue until all of the actual payments for the project have ended, according to a statement from the Lieutenant Governor’s Office.
More than $1.5 billion of the state’s share of future federal funding is going toward the Big Dig until 2012. The bill also aims to encourage residential and economic development around MBTA stations by delegating $54 million in a Transit Oriented Development fund.
