State Highlights: Report Uncovers Political Ties At Georgia Jail Where Suicides Persist; Patient Seeking Assistance-In-Dying ‘Overwhelmed’ When Colorado Doctor Is Fired

Reuters: Special Report: Death And Politics Roil A Georgia Jail
In the summer of 2016, Georgia’s Chatham County hired jail monitor Steven Rosenberg with a mission: scrutinize the county jail’s healthcare services after a string of deaths. In the previous 30 months, seven inmates had died at the Chatham County Detention Center, shaking public confidence. The last healthcare provider lost its contract in June 2016 after some of its own staff accused it of improper practices. Chatham County sought a fresh start, signing a multiyear contract worth $7 million annually with a small Atlanta company, CorrectHealth LLC. (9/4)

The Associated Press: Firing Of Doctor Sets Off Fight Over Assisted Suicide Law
After watching his mother die slowly when he stopped her medication, Neil Mahoney knew he wanted the option of ending his own life peacefully when a doctor told him in July that he had months to live after being diagnosed with cancer. A physician was willing to help him do that under Colorado's medically assisted suicide law, but she was fired by Centura Health, a Christian-affiliated health system, for violating its guidelines on the issue. (9/4)

Previous KHN coverage: Firing Doctor, Christian Hospital Sets Off National Challenge To Aid-In-Dying Laws

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Wisconsin Farmers To Get $100,000 For Mental Health Services
The Legislature's budget committee agreed Wednesday to put $100,000 toward mental health services to farmers grappling with low prices, bankruptcies and an international trade war. The unanimous vote came about a month after the Senate majority leader and state agriculture secretary traded barbs over the program. (Marley, 9/4)

The New York Times: Johns Hopkins Opens New Center For Psychedelic Research
Since childhood, Rachael Petersen had lived with an unexplainable sense of grief that no drug or talk therapy could entirely ease. So in 2017 she volunteered for a small clinical trial at Johns Hopkins University that was testing psilocybin, the active ingredient in magic mushrooms, for chronic depression. “I was so depressed,” Ms. Petersen, 29, said recently. “I felt that the world had abandoned me, that I’d lost the right to exist on this planet. Really, it was like my thoughts were so stuck, I felt isolated.” (Carey, 9/4)

The Baltimore Sun: Johns Hopkins Opening A New Psychedelic Research Center, Studying Use Of ‘Magic Mushrooms’ And More 
Johns Hopkins Medicine is launching a new psychedelic research center where scientists will test the potential of so-called magic mushrooms and other drugs to treat some of the toughest mental health and addiction challenges. The center, announced Wednesday, is believed to be the first center in the United States and the largest in the world to focus on drugs still better known as symbols of 1960s counterculture than serious medicine. (9/4)

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Georgia Child Welfare Agency OKs Cuts To Meet Governor's Order
The Georgia agency that oversees child welfare, elder abuse prevention and food stamp programs would cut hundreds of jobs and spending on numerous services under a proposal to slash $46 million in order to meet Gov. Brian Kemp’s call for a leaner state government.Department of Human Services officials said none of its current 8,500 employees would lose their jobs, but more than 200 vacant positions or jobs now filled that will become vacant through normal attrition would remain open under the plan approved by its board Wednesday. (Salzer and Prabhu, 9/4)

St. Louis Public Radio: More Dementia Care Facilities Coming To The Metro East
Metro East residents will have more options for affordable dementia care. The Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services announced it is expanding its number of dementia care sites across the state. The department said it will add 1,600 apartments for dementia patients at 40 care sites over the next three years. Three of those sites are in the Metro East. The Cambridge House communities in Swansea, O’Fallon and Maryville will each get 50 new apartments. (Schmid, 9/4)

Stat: Can MassBio Turn Boston Into A Hub For Digital Health?
Boston is the biotech industry’s home base. But in digital health, the city hasn’t kept up with the competition. MassBio wants to change that. The state’s trade group is launching a series of new efforts to make the Bay State a leader in digital health. Earlier this year, the company released a report looking at how digital health could change the life sciences industry in Massachusetts. Next week, the group is hosting its first dedicated event centered around digital health. And next year, MassBio will add a digital health track to its mentoring program for budding entrepreneurs. (Thielking, 9/4)

Politico Pro: Florida Should Refund $412M To HHS, Federal Watchdog Says
Florida should repay the federal government $412 million improperly paid to Jackson Memorial Hospital, the country's largest public hospital, under a safety net health program, the HHS inspector general said in a report released this morning. The amount is slightly less than the $436 million the office was preparing to recommended Florida repay to the federal government, according to a draft report obtained exclusively by POLITICO in July. Federal auditors reduced the amount based on "additional information" provided by Florida, the inspector general said today. (Pradhan, 9/4)

Modern Healthcare: Specialty Physician Groups Attracting Private Equity Investment
The 18 physician shareholders at Beacon Orthopaedics in Cincinnati decided last year they needed an outside investor to help them grow and compete more effectively in the rapidly consolidating healthcare market. After interviewing about 15 private equity firms, the Beacon orthopedists selected Denver-based Revelstoke Capital Partners to help them launch a management services organization that takes over the business functions of the practice. That structure sidesteps rules in most states barring nonphysicians from formally owning medical practices. (Meyer, 8/31)

Sacramento Bee: Gavin Newsom Seeks More Changes On CA Vaccine Exemptions
Despite clearing the Legislature on Wednesday, a bill to restrict vaccine medical exemptions for California schoolchildren faces one last hurdle: winning the support of a governor who has publicly wavered on the proposal. Although he said in June he would sign Senate Bill 276, Newsom has since reversed course and one of his top advisers now says his signature on the measure isn’t guaranteed. (Wiley and Bollag, 9/4)

The Associated Press: Newsom’s California Vaccine Bill Changes Surprise Backers
Medical groups and a lawmaker behind California legislation to crack down on vaccine exemptions said Wednesday they were surprised by Gov. Gavin Newsom’s last-minute call for changes to the bill, a move that inserted fresh uncertainty into one of the year’s most contentious issues. It was the second time the Democratic governor sought to change the measure aimed at doctors who sell fraudulent medical exemptions for students, a proposal vehemently opposed by anti-vaccine activists. After expressing hesitancy with the bill and winning substantial changes to the measure in June, Newsom had committed to signing it. (Thompson and Ronayne, 9/4)

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Ascension Wisconsin, Emerus To Open Menomonee Falls Micro-Hospital
Ascension Wisconsin is partnering with a for-profit company to open a so-called micro-hospital in Menomonee Falls. The hospital — essentially an emergency department with eight inpatient beds — will be the third in the Milwaukee area. Froedtert Health also has partnered with a for-profit company to open micro-hospitals in Mequon and Oak Creek. (Boulton, 9/4)

Kaiser Health News: As Measles Outbreak Fades, N.Y. Sets In Motion New Rules On School Vaccinations
As children head to school this fall, the number of measles cases in New York has slowed to a trickle, and officials this week declared that the outbreak in New York City, which largely affected Orthodox Jewish families who avoided immunizations, is over. But even though the New York outbreak — which has sickened nearly 900 people in 2019 so far and accounted for three-quarters of all cases nationwide — may finally be fading, school vaccination requirements remain a contentious issue. (Andrews, 9/5)

Modern Healthcare: Lisa Bari Leaves Medicare Innovation Center
Lisa Bari has left the CMS' Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation where she spent more than three years working on interagency health IT, interoperability and artificial intelligence issues. Bari will now work on health IT and value-based care issues as an independent consultant and said she hopes to still support primary care's adoption of technology. (Brady, 9/4)

The Associated Press: Concerns Reported To Kansas Agency Before Toddler's Death
Kansas child welfare officials say they received repeated reports about a Wichita toddler before he was found dead in a motel of a methadone overdose in the latest high-profile tragedy involving the agency responsible for overseeing young children. In response to a records request from The Associated Press, the Kansas Department of Children and Families released a summary Tuesday of its involvement with 2-year-old Zayden JayNesahkluah. (9/4)

Pioneer Press: Lakeville School District Sued Over Asthma Attack That Left Teen In ‘Vegetative State’ 
A Lakeville eighth grader suffered a serious brain injury in April when she was sent back to gym class after an asthma attack, according to a lawsuit filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court. Aaliyah Bowen’s parents are seeking more than $10 million from the Lakeville school district and a McGuire Middle School nurse. According to the complaint, the nurse knew Bowen had a long history of asthma attacks sparked by even minimal physical exertion. They say the nurse administered an albuterol inhaler on April 16 but failed to test her breathing and told Bowen to return to gym class despite an elevated heart beat. (Verges, 9/4)

Modern Healthcare: Dartmouth Study Finds NICU Services Often Misused
The Dartmouth Atlas of Neonatal Intensive Care released a report Wednesday that found the number of neonatal intensive care beds in the U.S. grew by 65% from 1995 to 2013 while the number of neonatologists grew 75% from 1996 to 2013. Babies born at normal birth weight accounted for 48% of all NICU admissions in 2017 while babies with very low birth weight—less than 3lbs, 5 ounces—made up just 12.7% of NICU admissions in 2017. But researchers found regions of the country with a high proportion of premature newborns, low levels of maternal education, and higher rates of cesarean sections that did not have more NICU beds or neonatologists. (Johnson, 9/4)

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Kennesaw State, WellStar Awarded Grant For Health Disparities Research
Kennesaw State University will team up with WellStar Health System to study bioethical issues faced by people experiencing social or economic barriers while trying to manage their care. The project will be funded by a one-year, $113,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health, the university said in a press release. Evelina Sterling, director of research development and strategic initiatives in KSU’s Office of Research, and Jason Lesandrini, assistant vice president of ethics, advance care planning, and spiritual health at WellStar, will conduct the study. (Dixon, 9/4)

Sacramento Bee: Sacramento Mayor Wants Downtown SRO Hotel For Homeless Fixed
Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg and City Council members on Tuesday demanded their housing authority address harsh conditions in downtown’s Capitol Park Hotel “with great urgency” following a Sacramento Bee report that elderly and disabled residents of the historic hotel are living with bedbug infestations and broken elevators. Steinberg on Tuesday directed the Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency to provide a public report by Friday on a myriad of issues that residents of the single-room occupancy hotel are experiencing, including broken elevators, bedbugs, cockroaches and water shutoffs. (Clift, 9/4)

Los Angeles Times: Two Could Face Arson Charges In Eagle Rock Brush Fire Started At Homeless Camp
Prosecutors are still weighing criminal charges against two Los Angeles men who are accused of intentionally setting fire to a homeless encampment late last month, a situation that sparked a brush fire and led to the evacuations of several homes in Eagle Rock and Glendale, authorities said Wednesday. The Los Angeles Police Department announced the arrests of Daniel Nogueira and Brian Araujo Cabrera, both 25, on suspicion of attempted murder late Tuesday afternoon. (Queally, 9/4)

Health News Florida: Doctor’s Panel Eyes Small Number Of Florida Physicians Making Pot Approvals
As the number of Floridians allowed to use medical marijuana continues to grow, new data shows that a relative handful of doctors have been responsible for a majority of the patients approved for pot. Florida had 168,810 patient “certifications” for medical marijuana between Oct. 1 and March 31, and more than half of them came from 89 doctors, according to a new draft state report on medical marijuana. (Sexton, 9/4)