State Highlights: Addressing Physician Shortage In Texas, Governor Signs Bill Creating New Medical School; Doctor Cites Poor Care For Immigrant Children At New Jersey Shelter

Texas Tribune: University Of Houston Medical School Gets Approval From Texas Legislature
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has signed a bill creating a medical school at the University of Houston amid concerns about a physician shortage in the state. Under the legislation signed into law Wednesday, the University of Houston's College of Medicine will be the 13th medical school in Texas. It will be based in the UH System's flagship campus in Houston. Nearly half of the Texas medical schools are in the Houston area. (Byrne, 5/2)

ProPublica: Pediatrician Who Treated Immigrant Children Describes Pattern Of Lapses In Medical Care In Shelters
For months, she’d been noticing a lax attitude about the medical needs of children at the federally funded immigrant youth shelters run by the Center for Family Services, a nonprofit based in Camden, New Jersey. So, she decided to review the charts of the 90 CFS patients the community health center had seen. Children, including infants, were showing up as many as 10 weeks late for their booster vaccines, increasing their risk of contracting infectious diseases, she said. (Grabell, 5/3)

Cleveland Plain Dealer: University Hospitals Fertility Case: Appellate Court Rules Lost Embryos Were Not Living Persons
An appellate court Thursday ruled against a couple seeking a legal declaration that their embryos lost in a freezer malfunction last year were living persons and should have been treated as patients, not property. The 8th District Ohio Court of Appeals, in a 2-1 decision, upheld then-Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Stuart Friedman’s ruling that the frozen embryos were not persons. (Caniglia, 5/2)

North Carolina Health News: One Big Request At Teachers Rally: More Mental Health Support Professionals 
Thousands of red-clad teachers marched through the streets of Raleigh on Wednesday asking for more resources in their classrooms, but that request extended beyond merely school supplies. For the teachers, one of the big asks was for more of the other school staffers who support their mission of teaching some 1.5 million of the state’s public schoolchildren. One of the biggest priorities many teachers expressed was for help with dealing with the mental health needs of their students, a priority made clear in the stickers on many red shirts reading, “FIRST hire more psychologists,” or “FIRST hire more counselors.” (Hoban, 5/2)

Arizona Republic: Arizona Budget: Documents Show Ducey, Senate GOP Not Close To Deal
Draft documents obtained by The Arizona Republic appear to show Republican lawmakers have a long way to go before reaching agreement on a budget deal with Gov. Doug Ducey. ...These are seven key areas where the Senate's preliminary proposal differs from the governor's executive budget. Senate President Karen Fann, R-Prescott, declined to comment on the disparities, while a spokesman for the governor said Ducey preferred not to "negotiate the budget through the media.” (Polletta, Leingang and Altavena, 5/2)

NH Times Union: Lawmakers Approve $20M In New Funding For Child Protection, Mental Health 
Legislation to pay for a major expansion of the state’s child protective workforce cleared the House on Thursday, 272-87, as 59 Republicans joined Democrats in approving Senate Bill 6. The legislation funds 77 new positions at the Division for Children, Youth and Families over two years at a cost of $8.6 million, consisting of 57 new child protective service workers and 20 new supervisors. The bill passed the Senate 23-0 on Feb. 14. (Solomon, 5/2)

New Hampshire Public Radio: More Women Say They Were Raped, Assaulted In Dartmouth Neuroscience Department
Two additional women have joined a $70 million class-action lawsuit against Dartmouth College stemming from allegations of sexual misconduct and assault in the school’s prestigious Psychological and Brain Sciences Department. The women, identified anonymously in an amended complaint filed Wednesday, say they were harassed by tenured faculty over a number of years. (Greene, 5/3)

The Associated Press: Panel Raises Questions About $13M In Tax Credits To Hospital
A Camden hospital chaired by one of New Jersey's most powerful Democrats collected $13 million in state tax incentives by claiming it was considering moving some of its operations to Philadelphia when that was apparently not an option, a task force found on Thursday. The task force, which is investigating the state Economic Development Authority's use of business tax credits, presented its findings on the Cooper Health System at it second public hearing since Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy established it earlier this year. The roughly seven-hour hearing included testimony from current and former officials at the authority as well as other experts. (5/2)

Sacramento Bee: Toxic Drinking Water In California Prisons Costs Taxpayers Millions
An inmate’s death in Stockton from Legionnaires’ disease marks the third time in four years the rare form of pneumonia has struck California’s state prisons – and has laid bare a history of contamination and other problems plaguing water supplies in the corrections system. Incidents of tainted water have spawned inmate lawsuits, expensive repairs, hefty bills for bottled water and fines, putting a multimillion-dollar burden on the taxpayer-funded corrections system, according to documents and court records reviewed by McClatchy. (Sabalow, Kasler and Venteicher, 5/3)

Austin American-Statesman: Local ERs Eye Legislation To Address Fee Transparency
Texas House Bill 2041 seeks to require freestanding emergency rooms to disclose, by posting and providing written notice to patients, that they may be an out-of-network health plan provider and to state for which health plans the facility is an in-network provider. On April 29, the bill was placed on the general state calendar for consideration by the full house. If passed, the measure will become law Sept. 1. (Bassman, 5/2)

Modern Healthcare: SSM Health Selling Home Health And Hospice Agencies In Missouri
SSM Health entered a deal to sell home health and hospice agencies to a joint venture that includes LHC Group, the health system said Thursday. The agencies, located in in Jefferson City and Mexico, are affiliated with hospitals Catholic-sponsored SSM is in the process of selling to University of Missouri Health Care in a deal announced in August. The home health and hospice operations were originally slated to be included in that deal. (Bannow, 5/2)

North Carolina Health News: Outsiders Help Solve Health Care Access Problems In Charlotte
If you lack health insurance and have a medical problem, there are many people in Charlotte who can help you. ...Since the early 2000s, members of the safety-net provider consortium MedLink have wrangled with how to get residents to services they need the first time before patients appear at a less-appropriate clinic’s doors. ...The winning solution had two parts. MedLink providers will use a health “heatmap” to see the issues in any census tract, such as diabetes or high blood pressure, and what services to treat them are available in those areas to plan their deployment of new services. Clients will input their health issues, location and insurance information into a mobile app, which will output which provider could best serve them. (Duong, 5/3)