State Highlights: Emergency Responders Squeezed In Texas; Mental Health Costs In Kansas City

The Texas Tribune: Rising Costs And Accidents Squeeze Emergency Responders
The recent surge in Texas energy production has brought a new set of hazards to communities facing the bulk of the drilling — including an increase in traffic accidents and chemical spills. That means more work for already understaffed emergency response units across small-town Texas. In the West Texas city of Midland, which has seen its fair share of booms and busts over the years, firefighters face an additional set of off-the-clock challenges. Due to rising housing prices, those at the bottom of the department’s pay scale say they’ve been forced to work part-time jobs or room together just to make rent. That’s made it difficult for the department to attract and keep first responders. (Rocha, 11/4)

The Kansas City Star: Untreated Mental Illness Has High Cost For Kansas City Area
Now that the elections have passed, area lawmakers going to Washington, D.C., Jefferson City and Topeka in 2015 should read a Kansas City area report released this year on the untreated costs of mental illness. In Missouri it’s $2.5 billion and $1.17 billion in Kansas, reports the Health Care Foundation of Greater Kansas City in partnership with the HSM Group. The estimate is based on one in 10 adults in Missouri and Kansas having a serious mental illness and almost 40 percent of those going untreated. (Diuguid, 11/4)

California Healthline: Open Data Portal Expands, Now More State Agencies Likely To Contribute
On Monday, the state's largest health care agency announced a system-wide effort to "free the data" -- opening up non-confidential health data for use by entrepreneurs, researchers and reporters. (Gorn, 11/4)

The Kansas City Star: Cerner CEO Makes Emotional Plea For Interoperability Among Health Care Tech Providers
Jeanne Patterson has battled breast, bone and brain cancer, carrying suitcase-size bags of her paper health records to about 20 locations around the country. Her husband, Cerner Corp. co-founder and chief executive Neal Patterson, intends to get rid of Jeanne’s bags. A rapt audience of about 11,000 Tuesday morning at the annual Cerner Health Conference heard Patterson emotionally invoke personal experience to illustrate his passion for what his company does. The North Kansas City-based company is an industry leader in digitizing patient health records and working with other providers to make that information “interoperable” across health care information technology providers. (Stafford, 11/4)

North Carolina Health News: Triad HealthCare Group Displays Potential, Pitfalls Of ACO Model
For patients who walk into one of the physician offices run by Triad HealthCare Network, not a lot seems different from other practices: You get weighed and your blood pressure checked. The nurse will ask about your most recent mammogram, your blood sugar; you might get some instruction about how to lose weight or stop smoking. All of these activities are typical in doctors’ offices. But for patients at Triad, the difference is that no matter which of their clinics you walk into you’ll be asked the same questions, the record of your medications will always be the same and up-to-date, you’ll get encouragement and reminders from every provider you see to get that mammogram or be offered nicotine patches to help you stop smoking, and you’ll get help navigating a health care system that often can seem overwhelming in its complexity. (Hoban, 11/4)

The Des Moines Register: Medical Marijuana Gets Fresh Look From Pharmacy Board
The Iowa Board of Pharmacy, which has said the state should move toward allowing medical uses of marijuana, is considering whether to make a new recommendation on the issue to legislators. A committee of the board will meet Nov. 17 to hear testimony on the issue. The pharmacy board voted unanimously in 2010 to recommend that legislators reclassify marijuana in a way that could make it easier to use legally for medical purposes. Iowa law now classifies marijuana both as a Schedule I drug, impermissible for almost any use, and a Schedule II drug, which could be used for closely controlled medical purposes. (Leys, 11/4)