Massachusetts hospitals today are revealing the rates of pressure ulcers their patients have acquired during their hospital stays, another in a series of statistics made public by the Massachusetts Hospital Association on its Patients First web site. Falls by patients in the hospital and nurse staffing plans were previously posted.

The data on pressure ulcers, better known as bedsores, was gathered on two days in March and September 2007 when nurses did full-body examinations of their patients. Pressure ulcers are a particular danger to certain patients, such as diabetics with circulation problems, paraplegics, or trauma patients immobilized on ICU ventilators.

Pressure ulcers are a good measure of nursing and hospital quality, Carol Haraden, vice president of the Cambridge-based Institute for Healthcare Improvement, said in an interview. The sores can become serious after skin breaks down from pressure, moisture, or abrasion, later destroying muscle and bone.

“In people who are prone to them, their ability to heal from them is often impaired,” making prevention critical, she said.

The Lahey Clinic Medical Center, North Shore, broke ground yesterday for a $50 million expansion in Peabody.

A new three-story wing will add 63,500 square feet to the current 162,000 square-foot space off Route 128. Its cancer center, orthopedic surgery and emergency departments will be enlarged and sleep disorders, spine and pain units will be added. About 25 doctors and 125 nurses, technical and clerical workers will be hired. The project is expected to be completed in spring of 2009.

By Elizabeth Cooney, Globe Correspondent

Certain diabetes drugs should be used with caution in people who have heart disease or a history of heart failure, researchers from the Lahey Clinic report after analyzing previous studies, a finding they hope will clarify the debate on treatment.

Dr. Richard W. Nesto and his colleagues reviewed the results of seven randomized clinical trials that enrolled a total of 20,000 patients to study Actos and Avandia, two drugs from the class called thiazolidinediones, or TZDs, that lower blood sugar. Their article in tomorrow’s Lancet concludes that while TZDs do increase by 72 percent the relative risk of heart failure in people who have type 2 diabetes or are close to it, the drugs do not raise the risk of cardiovascular death. The risk of heart failure was already known.

"I view this as helpful information because if doctors want to use this drug even despite the recent debate about it, they can more appropriately select patients for the drugs in whom the risk of heart failure would be very, very low," Nesto, who is Lahey’s chair of cardiovascular medicine, said in an interview.

Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center has taken over the cardiothoracic surgery program at St. Vincent Hospital previously run by Tufts-New England Medical Center and is starting a transplant referral program at the Worcester hospital, the hospitals said.

BIDMC physicians already staff the 348-bed medical center's emergency and radiation oncology departments. The change in cardiothoracic surgery took place July 1, when Dr. Robert M. Bojar, a surgeon based at St. Vincent, switched from Tufts-NEMC to BIDMC. Bojar and Dr. David C. Liu, another BIDMC surgeon, now operate in Worcester.

Tufts-NEMC spokeswoman Brooke Tyson Hynes said yesterday the cardiothoracic surgery change came about because of BIDMC's new surgical residency program at St. Vincent. On July 1, seven surgical residents began the first BIDMC rotations at the Worcester hospital, a year after University of Massachusetts Medical School and its clinical partner, UMass Memorial Medical Center, ended their surgical residency programs at St. Vincent.

By Liz Kowalczyk, Globe Staff

The Board of Registration in Medicine has disciplined two physicians, Dr. Matthew Cushing Jr. and Dr. Douglas M. Katz.

The board revoked Cushing's license, following a similar action by the California Medical Board in 2004 over his treatment of a patient who later died of an overdose. No Massachusetts office was listed for Cushing, whose specialty is internal medicine.

The board reprimanded Katz, a 1987 graduate of the School of Medicine, State University of New York, for "engaging in communication" with a patient whose tattoo he removed "designed to foster a personal relationship beyond the boundaries of a doctor/patient relationship."

Katz, who is board certified in internal medicine, practices in Peabody and is affiliated with Lahey Clinic and Union Hospital.

Three Massachusetts hospitals have been named among the country's top 100 integrated health networks -- hospital systems that operate as a unified group.

Baystate Health System in Springfield was ranked 31st, Cambridge Health Alliance came in 49th and Lahey Clinic in Burlington finished 85th in the ratings released by Verispan. There were 587 hospital networks considered.

The healthcare information company said it surveyed health systems about patient access, clinical quality, physicians and the use of technology.

Dr. Desmond H. Birkett of Lahey Clinic has been named president-elect for 2007 of the Massachusetts chapter of the American College of Surgeons.

Birkett is the chair of general surgery at Lahey and a clinical professor of surgery at Tufts University School of Medicine.

Paul Levy has harsh words for the new joint program for liver transplantation between Lahey Clinic and UMass Memorial Medical Center. Both transplant centers will continue to function independently, with surgeons operating in Burlington and Worcester, undermining the promise of collaboration, he writes in his blog today.

"I cannot imagine how asking Lahey doctors to commute to Worcester for a relatively small liver transplantation program will be a good use of their time or will optimize patient care and control costs overall," Levy says. He is president and CEO of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, which has its own liver transplant program.

Levy welcomed word that Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center on the New Hampshire-Vermont border may be canceling plans for its own liver transplantation program because there would be too few patients.

Dartmouth-Hitchcock denied that suggestion.

"DHMC will not be expanding its solid organ transplant program to include liver transplants at this time, but no final decisions have been made," hospital spokesman Jason E. Aldous said.

Children's Hospital Boston will double its space in Lahey Clinic's North Shore center when it's done in 2009, the clinic said today.

Children's opened its outpatient satellite in Peabody in 1994. The new 15,000-square-foot pediatric space is part of Lahey's $50 million addition, which includes a larger emergency department and more room for cancer, cardiology, neuroscience and orthopedic services.

Dr. John Abramson argued in his 2004 book "Overdosed America" that pharmaceutical companies are distorting medical knowledge. Now he writes in a medical journal that too many people -- healthy women of any age and men over 65 -- are taking statins without proof they need them.

A clinical instructor at Harvard Medical School and former chair of family practice at Lahey Clinic, he questions National Cholesterol Education Program guidelines recommending the blockbuster drugs for people who may have high cholesterol but don't have clogged arteries.

Commenting with Dr. Jim Wright of the University of British Columbia in the Jan. 20 Lancet, he says there's no proof that statins prevent heart attacks or strokes in healthy people, yet high cholesterol numbers are enough to prompt a prescription. We called him, and here's some of what he said:

Lahey Clinic's ties to Tufts University School of Medicine just got stronger through the appointments of two new deans.

Dr. David J. Schoetz, a colon and rectal surgeon, is the first Tufts academic dean at Lahey in Burlington. Dr. David A. Neumeyer is the new dean of admissions at Tufts, chairing the admissions committee he has been on for five years. At Lahey he is co-director of the Sleep Disorders Center.

The relationship between Tufts and Lahey began only about six years ago, said Schoetz, who looks for Lahey's 200 doctors with Tufts faculty appointments to become more closely integrated with the medical school and increase Lahey's research projects.

Tufts has similar posts at its other major academic affiliates, including New England Medical Center, Caritas St. Elizabeth's Medical Center and Baystate Medical Center.

"These appointments more formally reflect a long-standing and important relationship with Lahey Clinic," Dr. Jeffrey Glassroth, vice dean for academic and clinical affairs at Tufts School of Medicine, wrote in an email.