State Highlights: Urgent Care Centers Meet Growing Need For Convenience In Mass. Suburbs; Colorado Doctors Will Know If You Take This Hep C Pill

Boston Globe: Hospitals Branch Out In The Suburbs With More Urgent Care Centers
For many people looking for non-emergency medical treatment, choices are as close as their local shopping center. Hospitals and other health care providers are striving to bring medical care nearer to where people live, with less cost and wait. (Lang, 5/10)

Boston Globe: On The Road To Health, Leaving The Hospital Is Only The Start
Boston and its environs are internationally renowned for their medical facilities, which are considered among the best in the world for treating illness, injuries and chronic conditions. But increasingly, medical care goes beyond the examination room or the surgical ward. Through initiatives ranging from mentoring programs to smartphone apps to mindfulness groups, hospitals are finding innovative ways to put the “health” in health care, not only making patients well but helping them to stay that way and providing support for patients far beyond their primary mode of treatment. (Shohet West, 5/10)

Denver Post: Hepatitis C In Denver Is Booming, But A Pill That Tells Doctors Whether You’ve Taken It Could Change That
As cases of hepatitis C boom across Colorado and doctors work furiously to guide patients from diagnosis to cure, there is one challenge that can be surprisingly difficult. Patients have to take their medicine. So now, as part of three ambitious studies that could radically improve the detection of hepatitis C and care for people who have it, researchers at Denver Health are trying something futuristic: a pill that will tell doctors whether a patient took it. (Ingold, 5/10)

KQED: Lead Paint Makers Balk At Huge Toxic Cleanup Bill — They Want You To Pick Up The Tab
Three companies found to have sold toxic lead paint for decades -- despite knowing it posed health hazards for children -- are waging a major battle to avoid paying the several hundred millions of dollars in liability that California courts have slapped on them. ...The companies have hired a slew of lobbyists to push their agenda in the state Legislature and poured $6 million into a campaign to put an initiative on the November ballot that would shift clean-up costs to taxpayers. (Rosenhall, 5/10)

St. Louis Public Radio: 'Handmaids' Protest Planned Parenthood Bills At Missouri Capitol
The group, organized by Planned Parenthood Advocates in Missouri, was protesting two House budget bills that would restrict care at Planned Parenthood health centers. The bills would prevent patients insured through MO HealthNet, Missouri’s Medicaid program, from using their insurance at Planned Parenthood or other health facilities that provide abortion services. (Achenbach, 5/10)

The Associated Press: Scientist Gets $9M To Further Animal-Human Organ Research
An Indiana University scientist is getting a $9 million boost from a biotech company to further his research into ways to use animal organs in humans. The IU School of Medicine says Dr. Burcin Ekser’s four-year grant comes from Silver Springs, Maryland-based Lung Biotechnology PBC. That company was founded in 2015 by United Therapeutics Corp. to address the acute national shortage of transplantable lungs and other organs. About 20 Americans die every day awaiting organ transplants. (5/11)

Health News Florida: Florida Health Report Card Comes Back With Failing Grades
Commonwealth Fund’s Chief Scientist David Radley who collected the data, says the state scores lowest when it comes to patients’ access to affordable care. ...Florida outperformed only three other states, including Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Mississippi. More than 270,000 people enrolled in Medicaid in Orange County alone this past year. (Prieur, 5/10)

St. Louis Public Radio: Lawmakers Cut Health Department Funds Following Bourbon Virus Showdown
The Missouri Legislature has retaliated against the state health department by including what some called drastic cuts to the agency in next year’s budget. Lawmakers approved the cuts, totaling in eight eliminated positions, after the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services refused to reveal the number of state parks employees who had tested positive for antibodies for a mysterious virus. (Fentem, 5/10)

The Oregonian: Advocacy Group Finds Improvements In Multnomah County's Downtown Jail
In the past year, changes at Multnomah County's downtown jail have improved inmate access to health care and the amount of time prisoners assigned to the mental health unit are allowed out of their cells, a new report has found. The report by Disability Rights Oregon follows a year after the advocacy group released a scorching assessment of the jail, highlighting rampant use of solitary confinement, punitive use of restraints and routine use of force against people with mental illness. (Bernstein, 5/10)  

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Day 7 On Hunger Strike: MPS Union Organizer Demands Health Care For Substitute Teachers
Seven days into a hunger strike to protest the lack of health care coverage for full-time substitute teachers in Milwaukee Public Schools, Alex Brower said Thursday that he'll continue his fast until the district adds the benefit into the 2018-'19 budget. (Johnson, 5/10)

Des Moines Register: Broadlawns' Drab Courtroom Is Where Magistrates Decide Whom To Commit
Four mornings a week, Broadlawns Medical Center doubles as a courthouse. The Polk County hospital has a courtroom, where magistrates determine whether people with mental illnesses or addictions are such threats to themselves or others that they need to be held for treatment. ... Iowa and other states passed laws saying that officials wanting to lock up patients for mental health care had to show that the patients would pose significant dangers to themselves or others if left in the community. State laws now guarantee each patient has legal representation. The laws also say medical authorities must make regular, specific reports on why they continue to keep patients committed. (Leys, 5/10)

Wyoming Public Radio: Family Services And Schools Collaborate To Support Students In Foster Care
A focus on the educational needs of foster kids increased with the implementation of Every Student Succeeds: the federal act that replaced No Child Left Behind. The new guidelines required Wyoming school districts to implement foster care plans. (Watson, 5/10)

New Orleans Times-Picayune: University Medical Center Won't Send Layoff Warnings 
University Medical Center in New Orleans said Thursday (May 10) its 2,400 employees will not yet receive notices warning of layoffs in July, despite not being happy with the money it's expected to receive in the most recent version of the state budget. Hospital officials previously threatened to send such notices in early May if not satisfied with the funding level set by lawmakers. That doesn't mean those notices couldn't go out at some point in the next few weeks, if the hospital operator doesn't think it will get the support it needs from the Louisiana Legislature. (O'Donoghue, 5/10)

Boston Globe: Typhoid Fever Case Reported At Quincy Day Care Center
A young child who attended a Quincy day-care center came down with typhoid fever, forcing the center to close temporarily while teachers get tested. Parents were advised to have their children tested if they were in the same classroom as the child who became ill at Bright Horizons day care. (Takahama and Freyer, 5/10)

Arizona Republic: Hansen's Disease Clinics For Patients With Leprosy Will Secure Funding
The Trump administration has reversed cuts that jeopardized operations of all but a handful of leprosy clinics nationwide, restoring funding to clinics in Arizona and six other states for Americans afflicted with the centuries-old disease. The federal agency that oversees the leprosy program had paid for only six of 17 regional clinics this year. (Alltucker, 5/10)

Orlando Sentinel: Carlton Palms Facility For Severely Disabled To Close After State Moves To Yank License
he owner of the Carlton Palms Educational Center, where two autistic clients have died in the past five years, told state authorities they plan to close the facility in rural Lake County May 31 “to the extent possible” without leaving about 130 severely disabled people with nowhere to live. The state Agency for Persons with Disabilities said Thursday it filed for a receivership of the business to “ensure a safe transition of all residents” when parent Bellwether Behavioral Health shutters the facility outside Mount Dora along with two other smaller, six-bed homes in Central Florida. (Fallstrom, 5/10)

The Associated Press: Nurse Charged In Death Of Former Trump Adviser’s Father
A nurse was charged Thursday in the death of the father of President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser after authorities said she failed to give him a series of neurological exams following his fall at a Philadelphia senior care facility. Christann Shyvin Gainey, 30, was charged with involuntary manslaughter, neglect and records tampering in the death of H.R. McMaster Sr. (Villarreal and Rubinkam, 5/10)

Boston Globe: Infinity Family Care
Direct Primary Care is a model of healthcare in which patients pay a monthly fee to get direct, basic medical services without making insurance claims. There are more than 70 DPC practices nationwide in 32 states, according to the Direct Primary Care Coalition, including Infinity Family Care in Mansfield, founded in 2016 by business partners Dr. Wendy Cohen of Foxborough and Dr. David Cunningham of Sharon. (Kandarian, 5/11)