State Highlights: Frustration Mounts Over Duplicated Efforts For Connecticut’s Health Information Exchange; Details Emerge Over VA’s Missteps In Minn. Veteran’s Suicide

The CT Mirror: Advisory Council Stunned To Learn About Parallel Health Information Exchange Efforts
Members of the council charged with creating a health information exchange for Connecticut seemed stunned Thursday as they realized the state Department of Social Services is continuing to create its own products for exchanging this information. As a DSS official gave a presentation on her agency’s work, members of the Health IT Advisory Council reacted with disbelief and frustration. (Werth, 9/27)

MPR: Walz Details VA Missteps Before Patient's Suicide
More information has been released about the veteran whose death sparked a federal review of the Minneapolis Veterans health care system. In a statement before the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs, U.S. Rep. Tim Walz laid out the details of the last four days of Justin Miller's life. (Enger, 9/27)

The Associated Press: Nurse Charged With Injuring Infants At Wisconsin Hospital
Wisconsin prosecutors charged a former nurse Thursday with abusing multiple infants in a Madison hospital's intensive care unit, accusing him of bruising them and breaking their bones. Christopher Kaphaem faces 19 felony child abuse counts involving nine infants. All but one of the counts carries a maximum sentence of six years in prison. The 19th count, intentional child abuse causing great bodily harm, carries a maximum 25 years behind bars. (9/27)

Boston Globe: AG, Public Health Agency Weigh Conditions For Beth Israel-Lahey Merger
The state attorney general’s office and the Department of Public Health on Thursday signaled that they are drafting conditions for the biggest health care merger proposed in Massachusetts in decades, after a state watchdog agency stood firm behind projections that the deal could sharply raise costs for consumers. The comments from the three public agencies indicated that nearly two years after it was first proposed, a merger between Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Lahey Health may be nearing final approval — but with guardrails. (Dayal McCluskey, 9/27)

WBUR: Panel Asks AG Healey To Ensure Beth Israel-Lahey Merger Doesn't Hike Prices Or Hurt Care
It's now up to Attorney General Maura Healey to decide whether she'll challenge a proposed hospital merger that the Massachusetts Health Policy Commission estimates could increase state health care spending by tens of millions of dollars a year. The commission on Thursday approved a final assessment of the plan to combine Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Lahey Health. (Goldberg and Bebinger, 9/27)

The Associated Press: Vermont To Test More Schools For Chemicals In Water
State environmental officials plan to test the drinking water at more schools after an initial round of testing found unsafe chemical levels at two schools. Last week, the state health department recommended that all schools test their water for lead. Now, the Department of Environmental Conservation said it is looking at a list of about 25 schools to figure out which should be in line for testing for chemicals known by the acronym PFAS. The state recently tested 10 schools for the chemicals and found that both Grafton Elementary School and Warren Elementary School had levels above the state's safe drinking standard. (9/27)

San Francisco Chronicle: SF Gets State OK To Expand Involuntary Holds For Severely Mentally Ill
Officials in San Francisco, San Diego and Los Angeles counties will be able to expand conservatorship rules to give them more control over who can be involuntarily held for mental-health treatment. Gov. Jerry Brown signed SB1045 by Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, on Thursday. The bill creates a five-year pilot program in the three counties intended to get more mentally ill people who suffer from substance abuse off the streets and into treatment. (Gutierrez, 9/27)

The Washington Post: D.C. Council Will Consider Law To Strengthen Prevention Of Lead Poisoning In Homes
Safety measures to ensure that children are protected from the dangers of lead poisoning while living in District homes may soon become a lot more stringent. The D.C. Council is considering a bill to shore up weaknesses in lead-poisoning-prevention laws that in recent years have led to elevated blood lead levels for some low-income children in subsidized rental housing. (McCoy, 9/27)

Los Angeles Times: Gov. Brown Signs Bill Cracking Down On L.A. 'Veto' For Homeless Housing
In Los Angeles, members of the City Council have had the power to block funding for homeless and affordable housing projects by refusing to hand over a required letter. Critics have sued the city over it, denouncing the rule as an unfair and arbitrary “pocket veto.” Now the city must get rid of that requirement — or end up losing out on state funding for housing projects. (Reyes, 9/27)

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Unconscious Racial Bias Compounds Pain In High-Trauma Milwaukee
It's known as implicit bias and is present among the calmest of people in the best of times. But a high-trauma environment, such as the urban center of Milwaukee, can scramble the brain’s fast-moving neurobiological triggers, intensifying the impact of implicit bias, multiplying the instances of unconscious racial profiling and compounding the psychological suffering for those with traumatized minds, according to researchers speaking Thursday at a major trauma conference in Milwaukee. (Schmid, 9/27)

Georgia Health News: Medicare Readmission Penalties Hit Dozens Of Georgia Hospitals Again
Hospitals can receive Medicare penalties if too many of their patients are readmitted within a month of their discharge. And recently released federal data show that 85 percent of such facilities in Georgia are set to be penalized. The readmission penalties, created by the Affordable Care Act, have brought increased scrutiny to the care of patients after discharge. (Miller, 9/27)

Cleveland Plain Dealer: Summa Health Looking For Health System Partner
Summa Health on Oct. 1 will begin searching for a potential partnership or merger with another health system, officials said. The Akron-based system has struggled financially in recent years, and this move will help ensure "long-term financial stability," according to a press release. Dr. Cliff Deveny, interim president and CEO of Summa Health, said the system wanted to "proactively reach out to larger health systems" while it was in a financial position to do so. (Christ, 9/27)

The Associated Press: Denver Removes Homeless Storage Units Lived In By People
Denver officials have removed large outdoor storage containers set up last year for homeless people after discovering that people were living inside them. The city paid $30,000 for 10 4-by-6-foot (1-by-2-meter) containers meant to give homeless people a safe place to store clothing and other possessions. But the city decided to do away with the containers for now because people were staying in the unventilated units day and night, Chris Conner, director of the city’s Denver Road Home homelessness agency, told The Denver Post. (9/27)

Cleveland Plain Dealer: Fighting Human Trafficking, Protecting Victims Drives Salvation Army Honorees
From November 2016 to November 2017, a special task force that battles human trafficking in Northeast Ohio recovered more than 130 victims and placed them in a myriad of recovery services, from shelters to substance abuse counseling. That task force is on track to pull even more victims out of traffickers' clutches, and on the road to improved lives. (Washington, 9/28)

KCUR: Johnson And Wyandotte County Nurse, Aides Charged In Crackdown On Medicaid Fraud 
A licensed nurse in Johnson County is one of 10 nurses and aides accused of Medicaid fraud and other criminal charges in a statewide crackdown on Kansas health care facilities that get Medicaid funding. In a complaint filed in Johnson County District Court, Catherine M. Santaniello is charged with one count of Medicaid fraud, two counts of mistreatment of a dependent adult, and battery.The complaint contains few details and the person she allegedly mistreated is not identified. (Margolies 9/27)

California Healthline: Whipsawed: Low-Income Patients At UC Davis Losing Coverage Again
Whipsawed is not a medical condition, but it describes exactly how Lee Henderson feels about his on-again, off-again care at UC Davis Medical Center, a place he’s been visiting since he was a child. For the second time in three years, Henderson is about to lose access to his primary care team at the Sacramento institution. (Waters, 9/26)