State Highlights: N.Y. Legionnaires’ Outbreak Triggers Turf Fight Among State, City Health Officials; Wis. Fetal Tissue Bill Raises Researchers’ Concerns
Health care stories are reported from New York, Wisconsin, California, Kansas, Minnesota, Massachusetts, Wyoming, Iowa, Illinois and Virginia.
The New York Times:
Officials In Turf Fight Over Response To Legionnaires’ Outbreak In Bronx
An outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease in the South Bronx appeared to be ebbing on Friday, even as city and state officials jockeyed to show how they were responding to the airborne illness. ... Since the city learned of the outbreak in late July, health officials investigated the area, eventually narrowing in on five water-cooling towers in the South Bronx that were found to have the legionella bacteria. On Thursday, city health officials issued an order requiring buildings with the towers to inspect and clean them within two weeks. That, apparently, was not sufficient for the state. On Friday, state health officials convened a meeting and news conference with investigators from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, at the Manhattan office of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo. (Hu and Remnick, 8/7)
The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel:
Fetal Tissue Bill Imperils Medical Breakthroughs, Researchers Warn
This week, opponents of the measure mobilized to spread the word that the bill, which comes before an Assembly committee hearing on Tuesday, would cost the state millions in research, trigger an exodus of talented scientists to other states and rob patients with illnesses such as Parkinson's and Lou Gehrig's disease of an important source of hope. (Johnson, 8/7)
Los Angeles Times:
L.A. County Supervisors To Weigh Proposed Merger Of Health Agencies
Los Angeles County supervisors are poised to decide whether to go forward with a proposed overhaul of three health agencies, the latest in a series of moves to restructure county government since last year's election ushered in a new board majority.
In January, Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich proposed a merger of the Department of Health Services, which runs county hospitals and clinics; the Department of Public Health, which investigates disease outbreaks, inspects restaurants and runs substance abuse treatment and STD prevention programs; and the Department of Mental Health, which oversees treatment programs for county residents struggling with the most severe forms of mental illness. (Sewell, 8/10)
The Associated Press:
Audit: Replacing School Nurses With Aides Saves Money
A recent audit showed that an eastern Kansas school district could save money by employing health aides instead of nurses, but the district's recent superintendent said nurses are worth the extra money because of the services they can provide. A Legislative Post Audit study of staffing and other practices at Auburn-Washburn Unified School District 437 showed the 6,200-student district could save $68,000 a year by replacing four of its 10 nurses with health aides. The switch also would save the state $9,000 a year in pension funding because lower pay would mean lower retirement obligations. (8/9)
MinnPost:
Mental Health First-Aid Course Teaches Participants To Help People In Crisis
Many people have taken a CPR or a first-aid course, but not all that many have had a chance to put those lifesaving skills to use. Most people will never encounter a stranger having a heart attack in the grocery store, said Alissa LeRoux Smith, community health manager for Fairview Southdale Hospital in Edina, but with one in five Americans diagnosed with a mental illness, many will one day witness a person in the throes of a mental health crisis. For Fairview, this concern became apparent last year when the health system conducted its annual community needs assessment. In response, Fairview decided to conduct a series of adult mental health first-aid trainings based on a program created in Australia in 2001 and brought to the United States in 2008 by the National Council for Behavioral Healthcare. (Steiner, 8/7)
The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel:
Shortage Of Psychiatrists Compounds State's Mental Health Care Problems
Across the country, psychiatrists are in short supply. In most Wisconsin counties, fewer than one psychiatrist is available to care for every 30,000 people, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The need for child psychiatrists is even greater. (Hauer, 8/8)
The Boston Globe:
Partners, Hospital In Shanghai Team Up
Brigham and Women’s Hospital is co- developing a women’s health center in Shanghai, a deal that matches parent Partners HealthCare’s drive into new markets with growing demand for better medical care. The tie-up extends a relationship with Jiahui International Hospital, a 500-bed facility under construction in Shanghai for which Partners is working as a long-term consultant. (Dayal McCluskey, 8/10)
The Boston Globe:
Walk-In Clinics Force Big Medicine To Rethink
At Atrius Health, a large medical group, more doctors are leaving their doors open until 8 p.m. Tufts Medical Center is taking online appointments for its emergency room. Several hospital networks are building walk-in clinics for urgent care. Doctors have started seeing patients through video chats. And apps are being built that will let consumers make appointments and view medical information from their phones, the way consumers already access so many other services. (Dayal McCluskey and Luna, 8/8)
The Associated Press:
Group Says Wyoming Falls Short In Cancer Prevention
Wyoming has not done enough to adopt policies and laws that a national organization favors in fighting cancer, a report by the group says. For example, the state has not raised the tax on cigarettes or created a smoke-free Wyoming, says the American Cancer Society's Cancer Action Network. (8/8)
The Des Moines Register:
Former Iowa Mental Health Patients Scattered Around State
Karen Wininger keeps raising a fear to the staff at her new nursing home. Several times a day, she asks if she's going to be taken somewhere else. The 75-year-old woman expresses her anxiety in a voice so soft it's barely audible. Davis Center staff members lean down to her wheelchair, sometimes putting their ears inches from her mouth when she speaks. They reassure her, time and again, that she can stay. (Leys, 8/9)
Reuters:
Transgender California Inmate Who Won Reassignment Surgery To Be Paroled
A transgender California prison inmate will be paroled soon, rendering moot a controversial court order requiring the state to pay for gender reassignment surgery, state prison officials said late Friday. Michelle Lael-Norsworthy, for whom the state was ordered earlier this year to provide the surgery, will be released within about a week, a spokesman for the state said. Separately on Friday the state reached a settlement with another transgender woman inmate, Shiloh Quine, agreeing to provider her surgery and transfer her to a women's prison. (Bernstein, 8/7)
The Chicago Business Journal:
Health Care CEO Charged With $1.2M In Medicare Fraud
Henry Smilie, the CEO of Home Physician Services, a Chicago-based health care company, was arrested on allegations he participated in billing Medicare for as much as $1.2 million in fraudulent charges. Authorities used an undercover source to build a case that Home Physician Services was billing care for a homebound patient even though the man was walking about his neighborhood, according to a report by the Chicago Tribune. Authorities were also told by a former employee of the company that Smilie told him to “make it up” if services rendered did not qualify for Medicare payments, the report added. (8/7)
The Washington Post:
Fairfax County Launching Program To Reduce Mentally Ill Population At Jail
Fairfax County [Virginia] is launching a program to reduce the number of mentally ill inmates at its jail by diverting nonviolent offenders experiencing crises into treatment instead of incarceration. The move follows the high-profile case of Natasha McKenna, a schizophrenic woman who died in February after a team of sheriff’s deputies at the jail repeatedly used a Taser on her and hit her when she resisted their efforts to transfer her to another facility. About 40 percent of the jail’s 1,100 inmates suffer from mental illness, drug or alcohol addiction, or both, the Fairfax County Sheriff’s Office has said. (Jouvenal, 8/8)
The Center For Investigative Reporting:
Federal Report Confirms Veteran’s Overdose Death At Tomah VA Hospital
Federal investigators have confirmed that a lethal cocktail of prescription drugs killed Marine Corps veteran Jason Simcakoski, a psychiatric patient at the Tomah, Wisconsin, veterans hospital known as “Candy Land” for its rampant use of opiates. The inspector general’s report comes nearly a year after Simcakoski’s death on Aug. 30, 2014, in the psychiatric ward of the Tomah VA Medical Center, after he was prescribed yet another opiate to go with more than a dozen other drugs he had been issued. He was being treated for anxiety after entering the facility earlier that month, saying he felt suicidal. (Caina Calvan, 8/7)
Los Angeles Times:
What Last Weekend's Rave Looked Like To ER Doctors
The pace is rarely slow at Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center during weekends. But it was heart-poundingly faster when Live Nation Entertainment's Hard Summer music festival came into town, with ambulances sending overdosing concertgoers from the Los Angeles County fairgrounds. Dr. Bradford Hardesty saw one man so combative that he had to be sedated to keep him safe, as well as the nurses and doctors. His heart rate was up to more than 200 beats per minute — double the normal rate. “It had taken multiple police officers to hold him down. It took almost five or six staff members here,” Hardesty said. (Lin and Winton, 8/7)
Kaiser Health News:
For Marginalized Patients, BOOM!Health Is ‘A Great Model’
Harm reduction centers — where drug users and sex workers can get clean needles, syringes, free condoms and HIV prevention information — have existed for decades. They’ve generally operated on the outskirts of the health care system and pieced together shoestring budgets with the help of state and federal programs as well as private donations. But harm reduction centers are increasingly trying to reposition themselves as a commodity for hospitals and insurers because of their unique experience in coordinating care for high-risk and often marginalized patients. (Gillespie, 8/10)