By Chelsea Conaboy, Globe Staff

A look at the morning's top health industry news.

State layoffs: The Department of Public Health has begun laying off workers in an effort to adjust to $33 million in budget cuts proposed by House lawmakers, the State House News Service reports. The department is expected to eliminate about 50 jobs across the department, affecting disease prevention, environmental regulation, and community health efforts.

By Chelsea Conaboy, Globe Staff

By Robert Weisman, Globe Staff

Steward Health Care System today named John Polanowicz as president of St. Elizabeth's Medical Center in Brighton, the largest Steward hospital with 291 beds and about 2,000 employees.

Polanowicz's hiring set in motion a series of other executive moves within Steward. Current St. Elizabeth's president John Holiver will take over as president of the chain's Norwood Hospital, while the current Norwood president, Margaret Hanson will become vice president of hospital integration at Steward's new corporate offices in downtown Boston.

Steward has now replaced the presidents of four of its six Catholic hospitals since the start of this year, building a new leadership team for chief executive Ralph de la Torre.

By Robert Weisman, Globe Staff

Steward Health Care System, the company formed to run the newly privatized Caritas Christi Health Care hospitals, today said it has hired Jeffrey Liebman to be president of its Good Samaritan Medical Center in Brockton. Liebman replaces Steven R. Gordon, who left the 231-bed Catholic community hospital to run a hospital in Vermont.

Liebman was previously president and chief executive of the Beth Israel Deaconess Healthcare campus in Needham, where he has served since 2003. Leibman's boss, Beth Israel Deconess chief executive Paul F. Levy, this month said he was stepping down as head of the Harvard-affiliated teaching hospital.

Liebman's appointment comes less than a week after Boston-based Steward announced it had tapped Bill Walczak, chief executive of the Codman Square Health Center in Dorchester for the past 35 years, to be president of Steward's Carney Hospital in Dorchester.

Steward, an affiliate of New York private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management, owns six Catholic hospitals and has an agreement to buy two secular community hospitals in eastern Massachusetts.

Globe Staff

The longtime chief executive officer of the Codman Square Health Center is leaving to become the president of the Caritas Carney Hospital in Dorchester, the health center announced today.

Bill Walczak , has served as the Codman Square Health Center's CEO for the past 36 years. According to a news release, Sandra Cotterell, Chief Operating Officer for Codman for the past sixteen years, will become the CEO position.

Walczak co-founded the Codman Square Health Center in 1974 and has been credited for leading the organization to its present day success, the release said.

In a statement, Walczak said the transition would be seamless. “I will miss being a daily part of Codman, but the institution and people will always be within me,'' he said. "It is in a strong position as it begins this next chapter, with talented and effective leaders. Sandra Cotterell has been an integral part of running our operations for years and, with a strong senior management team behind her, the Health Center will carry on and continue to develop new and innovative programs.''

The Health Center provides health care and other services to the residents of Dorchester.

For people who work in hospitals, getting a flu shot should be like washing their hands, public health specialist Dr. Al DeMaria says.

“There’s no logical reason to decline it, just like there’s no logical reason for health care workers to refuse to wash their hands,” said DeMaria, who is the state’s epidemiologist.

But Massachusetts hospitals fall short of the public health goal of vaccinating every health care worker, according to a report on immunization rates released by the state today.

Globe Staff

Caritas Christi Health Care, the state's second largest hospital chain, said this morning that it has closed its sale to an affiliate of Cerberus Capital Management, a New York private equity firm.

As the chain's new owner, Steward Health Care System LLC, the Cerberus affiliate, could give Caritas the resources it needs to improve the quality and efficiency of its medical care, while also potentially attracting other for-profit companies to a state long dominated by nonprofit health care, analysts have said.

"The completed transaction brings approximately $895 million of capital to the Caritas Health Care System to be used for the assumption of pension obligations, repayment of debt, funding for operations, and significant capital projects, including immediate upgrades to Caritas’ six hospitals," the Caritas press release said.

Chief executive Ralph de la Torre and the current senior leadership at Caritas will remain in place, the release also said.

By Megan Woolhouse, Globe Staff

More than 700 Caritas Christi Health Care workers at Holy Family Hospital in Methuen will join the Service Employees International Union, labor officials said today.

The employees, which include licensed practical nurses, paramedics and housekeepers, voted to join the union's Local 1199 yesterday.

Local 1199 now represents nearly 3,600 Caritas employees in the six-hospital chain, and more than 37,000 health care workers across the state.

“Health care workers across Massachusetts know that in these tough economic times, we must come together to protect the quality of care we provide, the economic health of our hospitals and our communities," Local 1199 Executive Vice President Veronica Turner said in a statement. “We’re proud to welcome the workers at Holy Family into the 1199 family – and we’re ready to continue this unprecedented momentum at hospitals throughout Massachusetts.”

The Catholic hospital system's sale to Cerberus Capital Management, a New York private equity firm, is set to close soon. Last week, the deal cleared its final regulatory hurdle -- approval from the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.

By Robert Weisman, Globe Staff

Lawrence General Hospital's board of trustees has voted to expand its cardiovascular services partnership with Boston's Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center into a broader clinical affiliation.

The arrangement will give Lawrence General's patients in the Merrimack Valley increased access to specialists from Beth Israel Deaconess, a Harvard-affiliated teaching hospital, and improve the coordination of care through integrated electronic medical records.

In a statement today, the hospitals said the affiliation will help Lawrence General remain independent while expanding the services it can offer patients at local sites. The hospital is part of a coalition urging state regulators to impose tough conditions on the purchase by
Cerberus Capital Management of Caritas Christi Health Care, which operates the competing Holy Family Hospital in Methuen.

The hospitals also said today that Lawrence General's physicians association, the Choice Plus Network, is formalizing its collaboration with the Beth Israel Deaconess Physicians Organization.

Cesarean delivery rates are rising across the country. In California, a health policy group says a woman’s chance of having a Cesarean is at least 17 percent higher at for-profit hospitals than at a nonprofit or public hospital, according to a story over the weekend in the San Jose Mercury.

In Massachusetts, it's not so clear.

There are only two acute-care hospitals in the state that are for-profit, but the number could rise if the proposed sale of the Caritas Christi network to Cerberus Capital Management goes through. Both of the state’s for-profit hospitals -- MetroWest Medical Center in Framingham and St. Vincent Hospital in Worcester -- are owned by Nashville-based Vanguard Health Systems.

According to figures collected by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health in 2008, MetroWest had a Cesarean rate of 41.8 percent, which was above the state average of 34.4 percent of deliveries, but at St. Vincent the rate was below the average, at 32.2 percent.