State Highlights: New Calif. Children’s Hospital A Bold Look At What’s Needed To Lure In Patients These Days; Trailers Full Of Hurricane Donations Were Left To Rot

Boston Globe: In California, A Glimpse At The Future Of Elite Children’s Hospitals
Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford is billed as the hospital of the future, but it doesn’t look much like a hospital at all. It is some hybrid of hotel, museum, and high-tech laboratory. (Dayal McCluskey, 8/11)

The New York Times: Containers Of Hurricane Donations Found Rotting In Puerto Rico Parking Lot
At least 10 trailers full of food, water and baby supplies donated for victims of Hurricane Maria were left to rot at a state elections office in Puerto Rico, where they broke open and became infested by rats. Radio Isla, a local radio station, posted a video Friday showing cases of beans, water, Tylenol and other goods covered in rat and lizard droppings. (Robles, 8/10)

The Associated Press: List Grows Of People Said To Know Of Ohio St. Doctor's Abuse
Several former students and student-athletes at Ohio State University have described sexual abuse they suffered at the hands of Dr. Richard Strauss, who worked at the university from 1978 until he retired in 1998. Interviews with Strauss' victims and lawsuits filed on their behalf have named several Ohio State officials alleged to have known about the abuse but done nothing about it. (8/11)

Columbus Dispatch: Program Brings Hospital To Your Home At A Fraction Of The Cost
Conrad is one of six patients who have participated in Mount Carmel’s Hospital at Home initiative, which seeks to serve 40 patients through a $500,000 Trinity Health Innovation Challenge grant. ...The initiative is reserved for patients 65 or older who have specific diagnoses: certain skin infections; congestive heart failure resulting in fluid in the lungs; pneumonia; and other certain lung conditions, such as emphysema or bronchitis. (Viviano, 8/12)

Health News Florida: Democratic Candidates Push For Expanded Health Coverage
Reflecting the same fault lines that have emerged nationally, Florida’s Democratic and Republican candidates for governor are deeply split over whether the state should take a more direct role in providing health care. And that split is resonating in a campaign where health care has become one of the touchstone issues for the five Democrats running in the Aug. 28 primary. (Sexton, 8/13)

The Associated Press: Pennsylvania Health Aide Sentenced For Scalding Disabled Man
A Pennsylvania health aide who authorities say poured scalding water on a disabled man in his care, leaving him with burns on 20 percent of his body has been sentenced to serve up to five years in prison. The state attorney general's office has announced that 27-year-old Akeem Nixon of Erie, Pennsylvania, was sentenced Thursday to serve between two and a half and five years in prison. Nixon had pleaded guilty in June to neglect of a care-dependent person and aggravated assault. (8/10)

The Associated Press: Mayo Clinic Names Head Of Florida Campus As New CEO
Mayo Clinic will get a new president and chief executive at the end of the year when Dr. Gianrico Farrugia takes over from Dr. John Noseworthy, the world-renowned health care organization announced Friday. Farrugia, the CEO of Mayo's campus in Jacksonville, Florida, since 2015, told The Associated Press that he will work closely with Noseworthy during the transition period. Noseworthy announced his plan to retire in February in keeping with Mayo's tradition of rotating its top leadership position every eight to 10 years. (8/10)

Boston Globe: Boston-Based Partners In Health Receives $15 Million From Wagner Foundation
The $15 million gift to Partners in Health came from the private Wagner Foundation, and represented the largest donation in the foundation’s 13-year history. The money will target new programs, including tools to collect and store data in remote Liberia, where health records are sometimes kept in decaying handwritten ledgers. (Nierenberg, 8/13)

Sacramento Bee: How One Health Care Company Prepared For Wildfire
After evacuating two weeks ago for the Mendocino Complex Fire, hospice CEO Corrigan Gommenginger offered that advice as the most critical piece for leadership teams at small health care companies all around California. ...When an evacuation advisory was made a day after the Ranch and River fires chewed their way into Lake County, they said, they felt that they were as prepared as they could be. (Anderson, 8/11)

Concord (N.H.) Monitor: Mental Health Remains A Challenge For N.H. Hospitals
In the winter of 2017, Concord Hospital first sounded the alarm on the lack of available beds for mental health patients. Those suffering from mental health-related conditions found themselves languishing in the hospital’s emergency department for weeks until a bed could open up. They spilled into hallways and treatment rooms, and the hospital converted space to make room. The overflow increased wait times for all emergency room patients. (Andrews, 8/11)

Kansas City Star: Missouri Influencers Weigh In On Cutting Cost Of Health Care
The Star asked the Missouri Influencer panel to respond to readers who said their biggest healthcare issue is lowering the cost of health care and making it accessible for all, including those with pre-existing conditions. The question for the Influencers: What can policymakers do? (Marso, 8/13)

East Oregonian: Treatment Center Offers Care For Mentally Ill Inmates 
The Oregon Department of Corrections has opened a new behavioral health treatment center at Oregon State Penitentiary to help improve conditions for inmates with severe mental illness. Two years ago, DOC Director Colette Peters signed a memorandum of understanding with Disability Rights Oregon to increase out-of-cell time for these inmates and make other improvements. Peters agreed to give inmates at least 20 hours per week, or less than three hours per day, outside their cells by 2020. (Achen, 8/10)

San Diego Union-Times: Email Reveals Former Salk President's Efforts To Discourage Gender Discrimination Suit
The former president of the Salk Institute discouraged one of her professors from suing for gender discrimination, saying in a private email that legal action could damage the La Jolla science center’s reputation — and suggested it might harm the researcher’s career. Elizabeth Blackburn, a Nobel laureate, sent the email to biochemist Beverly Emerson on June 30, 2017. (Fikes and Robbins, 8/13)

The Star Tribune: Minneapolis Children's And Its Neonatal Doctors Set To Split Up
A dispute between Children’s Minnesota and doctors caring for its fragile premature newborns has spawned a lawsuit and a professional divorce that could undermine neonatal intensive care in the Twin Cities. Doctors with Minnesota Neonatal Physicians are leaving Children’s Minneapolis hospital at the end of the year and instead will staff expanded neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) at Maple Grove Hospital and North Memorial Health in Robbinsdale. The move came after an unsuccessful attempt by Children’s to switch them from private practitioners to hospital employees. (Olson, 8/12)

Kansas City Star: $90 Million Billing Scheme Reached More Hospitals, Suit Says
The $90 million billing scheme blasted in a state audit of a rural Missouri hospital spread to as many as 10 other hospitals, including four in Kansas and Missouri, a Mission Hills couple has alleged in federal court. ...An investigation by Missouri Auditor Nicole Galloway a year ago led to a call for a federal investigation into what she said were “questionable laboratory billing practices.” (Davis, 8/13)

Cox Media Group: Company Trying To Keep Details Of Running Psychiatric Ward Secret 
A company trying to secure a $60.3 million contract to run a 21-bed psychiatric facility in Maine is shrouding its proposal in secrecy. Correct Care, based in Deerfield Beach, Florida, told The Associated Press its staffing, list of current and closed lawsuits and cost proposals to run the facility are exempt public records because it contains trade secrets in a letter with a redacted version of the proposal. (Leone, 8/12)

The Associated Press: High Number Of Cape Cod Mosquitoes With West Nile Virus
Public health officials say an unusually high number of mosquitoes have tested positive for West Nile virus on Cape Cod. The Cape Cod Times reports that state Department of Health said Thursday 14 mosquito samples from Falmouth, Barnstable, Dennis, Bourne and Yarmouth tested positive for the virus after being trapped Tuesday and July 31. (8/10)

Cincinnati Enquirer: Is Homelessness Illegal? New Court Rulings Raise The Question
The most sweeping ruling came Thursday from Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge Robert Ruehlman, who banned homeless camps and told police to arrest anyone who defied his order. ...When Ruehlman late Thursday expanded his ban on homeless camps to the entire county, Black's reasoning presumably still applied: Communities can consider being homeless illegal if there is space available in shelters. (Horn and Curnutte, 8/10)

Georgia Health News: Emory’s Takeover Of DeKalb Medical Set To Occur Next Month
Now that the state has given its approval, DeKalb Medical will become part of Emory Healthcare on Sept. 1. The deal will continue to expand Emory’s reach in metro Atlanta. It’s one of Georgia’s leading hospital-based systems, along with WellStar, Piedmont and Northside. (Miller, 8/12)

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Emory Plans To Wipe Out DeKalb Medical’s $170M In Debt When They Merge
Emory Healthcare’s absorption of DeKalb Medical Center has been approved by the Georgia Attorney General’s Office. ...As part of the deal, she said, Emory will pay off DeKalb Medical’s more than $173 million in long-term debt it reported to the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services in 2016. (Brasch, 8/10)

Pioneer Press: Woodbury’s Bold Move Results In 209 Medical Businesses, And Counting 
The grand openings are falling over each other. On Tuesday, a kidney care center. A stomach clinic next week, and a chiropractor’s office. A mental health clinic in June, following an orthopedic center and eye clinic. They are flooding into Woodbury, which is now home to 209 medical businesses. They are slipping into empty retail spaces, popping up in malls and erecting their own new buildings across the city. (Shaw, 8/12)