State Highlights: Hawaii Ranked As Healthiest State; San Diego’s Slow Response To Deadly Hep A Outbreak Cited

CNN: The Most -- And Least -- Healthy States In America
As the new year approaches, many people focus on improving their health -- but how does where you live rank when it comes to health? Hawaii now ranks as the healthiest state in America, beating out Massachusetts to return to the top spot in a new report by the United Health Foundation, a nonprofit division of UnitedHealth Group, which also owns the insurance company United Healthcare and Optum. (Howard, 12/20)

The Associated Press: State Audit Slams San Diego Response To Hepatitis A Outbreak
The city and county of San Diego failed to quickly recognize and control a Hepatitis A outbreak that grew into one of the largest in recent history, killing 20 and sending nearly 400 to hospitals, according to a state audit released Thursday. The county lacked a concrete hepatitis A prevention plan that led to a delay in getting the most vulnerable residents vaccinated, and mass vaccinations did not happen until after a health emergency had been declared, according to the audit conducted by the state auditor at the request of lawmakers. (Watson, 12/20)

The Star Tribune: Minnesota Lawmakers, Families Of Abuse Victims Renew Push For Elder Care Reform
Just weeks before the Legislature convenes, lawmakers and consumer groups are already gearing up for a major push to reform state laws aimed at protecting seniors from abuse and neglect. On Thursday, Sen. Karin Housley, the chairwoman of the Senate Family Care and Aging Committee, renewed her call for strengthening protections for the roughly 85,000 Minnesotans who live in senior care facilities across the state. (Serres, 12/20)

Los Angeles Times: Here’s How California Can Use Fire To Solve Its Wildfire Problem
If California wants to get out in front of its wildfire problem, scientists have some clear but counterintuitive advice: Start more forest fires. Decades of research shows that lighting fires under safe conditions not only clears out the dead plants and thick underbrush that fuel many severe wildfires, it also restores a natural process that once kept forests healthy and resilient. (Rosen, 12/20)

Houston Chronicle: UT Health Science Center Shows Off New High-Tech Teaching Facility 
The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston unveiled its new School of Biomedical Informatics building Wednesday. The high-tech space is designed to foster technology, innovation and collaboration in biomedical science research and health care delivery. The $15 million building, described by school officials as reminiscent of Google's headquarters, will open its doors next month to some 50 full-time faculty, 58 adjunct faculty and 300 graduate students, more than triple the amount five years ago. (Ackerman, 12/20)

Concord (N.H.) Monitor: Upcoming Health Care Shift For N.H. State Retirees, Explained
On Jan. 1, nearly 10,000 state retirees face a transition: a mandatory change from their present state-funded health care plan to a new one. For Kathleen Zaso, it’s been a process easier said than done. In September, the Concord retiree began working to schedule a surgery under her present plan, Medicomp, available to retirees through the end of December. But with the coming Jan. 1 transfer to the “Medicare Advantage” plan, Zaso wanted to make sure the same hospitals and providers would be continuously covered in the new year. (DeWitt, 12/20)

San Francisco Chronicle: SF Officials Want Health Officer’s Role In Shipyard Home Sales Investigated
San Francisco officials have called for investigations of a city health department employee who helped a powerful developer sell homes on land reclaimed from a toxic Superfund site. Four current or incoming members of the Board of Supervisors said this week they want to know if Amy Brownell, an environmental engineer, should have been directly involved in individual home sales at the former Hunters Point Naval Shipyard — the city’s biggest redevelopment project in a century. (Fagone and Dizikes, 12/21)

Dallas Morning News: DeSoto Psych Hospital To Lose Federal Funds After Inspectors Report Underage Sex, Safety Lapses
Federal officials say a DeSoto psychiatric hospital will lose Medicare funding in two weeks for putting its patients in "immediate jeopardy" of harm. That federal designation for Dallas Behavioral Healthcare Hospital — based on a pair inspections this year citing lapses in patient care and safety — is rare. The resulting loss of funding threatens to further strain a North Texas mental health care system that is still reeling from the February closure of Timberlawn psychiatric hospital. (Chiquillo, 12/20)

Cleveland Plain Dealer: Civil-Rights Lawsuit Against Cuyahoga County Over ‘Deplorable’ Jail Conditions Seeks Independent Monitor To Oversee Reforms
Seven inmates of the Cuyahoga County Jail filed a lawsuit against the county and a host of county and jail officials on Thursday, weeks after the release of a federal report detailing “inhumane” and potentially unconstitutional conditions at the jail. The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court Northern District of Ohio, seeks an independent monitor to oversee changes at the jail, and calls for an immediate fix to the crowding of inmates and understaffing of corrections officers. (Astolfi, 12/20)

Sacramento Bee: Kaiser: Health Giant ‘Quietly’ Settled 2014 Class-Action, Union Says
Kaiser Foundation Health Plan recently settled a 2014 class-action lawsuit stemming from two allegations that it dumped patients with severe mental illness. Plaintiffs Douglas Kerr and Barbara Knighton alleged that in separate incidents, Kaiser psychiatrists told them their sons needed to be transferred to locked residential facilities called IMDs (institutions for mental disease) for treatment, according to court documents. (McGough, 12/20)

Stat: New Details Emerge About A Stealth Startup Backed By Flagship Pioneering
A stealth-mode startup backed by one of Boston’s biggest venture capital firms, Flagship Pioneering, is planning to graduate from shared lab space to a much larger leased lab in Kendall Square, and is expecting to more than triple its staff by 2020, according to new details made public for the first time Thursday. The company — still referred to by its stealth-mode moniker “VL49” — is one of several new startups trying to leverage three buzzy technologies: artificial intelligence, CRISPR, and single-celled sequencing. (Sheridan, 12/21)

KCUR: With Teen Suicide On The Rise In Kansas City, Adults Ask Young People What They Need 
[Bella Price] among a group of students from Johnson County, Kansas, who are helping shape new suicide prevention programs aimed at addressing a spike in teen suicides in the county. The trend is even higher across the state line in Jackson County, Missouri. Both mirror what’s happening across the country. Suicides among young people have increased by 56 percent between 1999 and 2017. Families, friends, school and health officials are all trying to make sense of the rise. (Ziegler, 12/20)

Boston Globe: Cambridge Biotech Relay Therapeutics Raises $400M In Venture Capital Funding
Cambridge-based Relay Therapeutics said Thursday that it has raised $400 million in venture capital — one of the largest hauls this year by a privately held Massachusetts biotech — to advance its drug development programs. The company, which was founded in 2016 by Boston-based Third Rock Ventures, has now raised $520 million in capital. (Saltzman, 12/20)

Denver Post: Denver Health In Home Services' License Revoked Due To "Neglect And Abandonment"
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ decision to pull funding from Health in Home Services Inc. came after state regulators revoked the Denver agency’s license, according to a federal report. It was revealed Wednesday that the federal agency would stop paying for care provided by Health in Home to Medicare and Medicaid patients after Friday. Health in Home’s license was revoked on Nov. 29, requiring the agency to cease operations immediately, said Randy Kuykendall, director of the health facilities division with the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. (Seaman, 12/20)

WBUR: 'Kids Are Brutally Honest': Program Lets Students Taste Test Healthy, Chef-Made Lunches
[Sam] Icklan is the director of a program known as Chefs in Schools. Chefs in the program temporarily join cafeteria staff in Massachusetts, like the folks at Parthum Elementary, and help them develop healthy recipes kids actually like. Because the school is trying to keep the salt content down, Icklan adds flavor to these tacos with pickled onions and douse the vegetable slaw with some lime juice and cilantro. (Jung, 12/21)

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Firm Recommended For Inmate Medical Services Had Problems Elsewhere
A Miami-based company hired under a 2013 court order to correct glaring shortcomings with jail inmate medical services provided by Milwaukee County workers will be ousted because of its own problem-packed record when an extended contract ends March 31. But the company tagged as the possible successor faces nearly identical complaints at several jails around the country. (Behm, 12/20)

Des Moines Register: Fired Iowa Clinic Doctors Prevented From Seeing Des Moines-Area Patients
Hundreds of central Iowa urology patients, including some who had just undergone cancer surgery, have been prevented from seeing their chosen physicians since the doctors were fired by the Iowa Clinic in September, the doctors say in a lawsuit. ...The Iowa Clinic is a large medical practice that includes many of central Iowa’s medical specialists. Five of the practice’s remaining seven urologists submitted their resignations amid the dispute, but are continuing to work. (Leys, 12/20)

Texas Tribune: Death In The Oilfields: Fossil Fuel Boom Brings Mounting Risks
From 2008 through 2017, 1,566 workers died from injuries in the oil-and-gas drilling industry and related fields, according to data from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s almost exactly the number of U.S. troops who were killed in Afghanistan during the same period. (Morris, 12/21)

Health News Florida: High-Stakes Marijuana Ruling Placed On Hold
In a closely watched case, an appeals court this week agreed to put on hold a circuit judge’s ruling that said Florida lawmakers and the state Department of Health have violated a 2016 constitutional amendment that broadly legalized medical marijuana. The 1st District Court of Appeal approved a stay of the ruling but also said consideration of the underlying issues in the case would be “expedited.” (Saunders, 12/20)