San Gabriel Valley Tribune: Cedars-Sinai Marina Del Rey Nurses Vote To Authorize Strike 
They are represented by the California Nurses Association/National Nurses United; their labor contract expired Feb. 28. They say the hospital has refused to address the issue of nurse recruitment and retention. (Smith, 8/1)

The (Santa Rosa) Press Democrat: Sonoma County Appoints Former State Public Health Director As Interim Health Officer
A former director of the California Department of Public Health has been named Sonoma County’s interim health officer and is expected to serve while a national search for a permanent replacement is conducted. (Espinoza, 8/1)

San Diego Union-Tribune: To Resolve $110 Million In Borrego Health Debt, State Regulators Agree To Accept $20 Million
California regulators have agreed to write off more than $90 million in debt owed by Borrego Health, the nonprofit medical provider that was the subject of a long-running state and federal fraud investigation that has yet to result in any criminal charges. (McDonald, 8/2)

Becker's Hospital Review: DAP Health Completes Acquisition Of Bankrupt California Clinics
DAP Health's acquisition of bankrupt Borrego Springs, Calif.-based clinic chain Borrego has received final approvals, and the two will now operate as one integrated system. Palm Springs, Calif.-based DAP Health — which, like Borrego Health, is a federally qualified health center — was selected by the Borrego Health board of trustees in February as the winning bidder to acquire the clinic chain. The acquisition needed approval from a bankruptcy court — which signed off on the deal March 1 — and the California Health Resources and Services Administration. The HRSA has now also approved the acquisition, according to a July 31 DAP Health news release. (Cass, 8/1)

Fresno Bee: Bankrupt Madera Hospital Granted Financial 'Life Raft', But Needs Millions More To Reopen
Bankrupt Madera Community Hospital has just under a month to figure out how to reopen and secure state funding, following an extension granted Tuesday by a federal bankruptcy judge and a half-million dollar lifeline approved by Madera County supervisors. (Montalvo, 8/1)

Sacramento Bee: UC Davis Medical Center Ranks Seventh In California Hospitals
Whether you’ve had a heart attack or you’re heading in for a hip replacement, it’s probably going to matter a lot to you which hospitals are the best at what they do — the U.S. News & World Report’s 2023-24 rankings are meant to tell you just that. This year’s U.S. News report ranked Sacramento’s UC Davis Medical Center as the seventh-best hospital in California and the top hospital in the Sacramento region in its annual evaluation of more than 4,700 hospitals nationwide. The publication also included the seven Sacramento-area hospitals that met U.S. News’ criteria to be ranked among the region’s best. (Slater, 8/1)

KVPR: Timeline: How A Secretive Medical Lab In Fresno County Was Unraveled
Fresno County health officials began raising concern over an unauthorized medical lab operating in Reedley long before the lab became widely known by the public in recent weeks. Court records show the Fresno County Department of Public Health began requesting warrants in March this year to enter the warehouse in downtown Reedley where the medical lab was operating. (Hok and Rodriguez-Delgado, 8/1)

Modern Healthcare: CMS To Boost Medicare Pay For Inpatient, Long-Term Care Hospitals
Inpatient hospitals will see a larger Medicare payment hike next fiscal year than first proposed, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced Tuesday. Acute care hospitals complying with quality reporting rules and electronic health record guidelines will get a 3.1% net increase in Medicare reimbursements in fiscal 2024 under the hospital inpatient prospective payment system final rule. In April, CMS issued a proposed rule that would have boosted reimbursements 2.8%. CMS also set a 0.2% reimbursement increase for long-term care hospitals. (Berryman, 8/1)

Bay Area News Group: 'We May Be The Last Maskers': Covid Cases Area Rising. Here's Why Health Experts Are Masking Indoors
While much of the world has moved on from the COVID-19 pandemic, Santa Clara County Public Health Officer Dr. Sara Cody and her colleagues still wear protective masks to work and in other crowded indoor settings. And if you’ve noticed a lot of people you know coming down with COVID lately, you’ll understand why. (Woolfolk and Rowan, 8/2)

San Francisco Chronicle: San Francisco’s Summer COVID Surge: How Bad Is It?
San Francisco’s COVID-19 indicators may be on the rise, but experts say this summer it’s more of a swell than a full-blown wave. “It’s definitely spiking in the last month or so, compared to earlier in the summer or late spring,” said Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious disease expert with UCSF. “There seems to be a lot of COVID going around now — but less so than we have seen in the past three years.” (Vaziri, 8/1)

NBC News: Updated Covid Boosters Could Be Authorized By End Of Month, Pfizer Says
The Food and Drug Administration could authorize Pfizer's updated Covid boosters by the end of August, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said during an investor call Tuesday. The drugmaker asked the FDA in June to authorize an updated version of its Covid booster that is designed to target the XBB.1.5 subvariant, a coronavirus strain that began circulating widely last winter. Moderna made a similar request that same month. (Lovelace Jr., 8/1)

CIDRAP: Long-COVID Patients Have Altered Metabolite Levels 2 Years After Infection 
Levels of metabolites were altered in long-COVID patients 2 years after infection, suggests a study published today in Scientific Reports. Metabolites are products of metabolism, or the process of changing food and drink into energy, that have cell-level roles, such as providing fuel, structure, or defense. (Van Beusekom, 8/1)

NPR: After COVID, The New CDC Director Is Focused On Building Trust With The Public
The pandemic was a chance for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to do what it does best. Instead, that public health crisis left the CDC marred by political interference and criticism of confusing messaging — and the agency lost trust among Americans. Trust is clearly one issue on the mind of the agency's new director, Dr. Mandy Cohen. She mentioned the word more than 50 times at a commencement speech she delivered earlier this year. (Pfeiffer, Lim and Intagliata, 8/2)

San Francisco Chronicle: S.F. Supervisor Matt Dorsey Compares Fentanyl Crisis To AIDS Epidemic
Supervisor Matt Dorsey likened San Francisco’s fentanyl crisis to the 1980s AIDS epidemic during a televised town hall Monday and pledged to work on “jail health” and intervention strategies to combat the deadly emergency that has already claimed more than 300 lives this year. Hosted by former CNN host Chris Cuomo, the News Nation town hall brought together leaders from across the country to talk with live studio audiences in New York, Illinois and Texas about the worsening perceptions on crime in American cities. (Toledo, 8/1)

San Francisco Chronicle: Man Dies Of Drug Overdose On BART Train
A man found unresponsive onboard a BART train at Embarcadero Station on Monday night died after an apparent drug overdose, officials said. According to a BART police log, fare inspectors found the man aboard the train while conducting an inspection at 9:32 p.m. One of the inspectors administered a dose of Narcan to the man, but medical personnel declared him dead at the scene.  (Parker, 8/1)

Sacramento Bee: Sacramento Council Gives City Manager Power To Open Homeless Sites
Sacramento City Council narrowly voted Tuesday to give City Manager Howard Chan a controversial power — the ability to open new sanctioned homeless campgrounds without council approval. It’s an atypical way for the city to open homeless shelter projects, which can include months of public meetings, controversial City Council votes and sometimes vocal opposition from neighbors of proposed sites. (Clift, 8/2)

The (Santa Rosa) Press Democrat: Sonoma County’s Elected Finance Chief Says DEMA Audit Will Be Thorough And Independent
Sonoma County’s elected financial watchdog will review three years of records for a company that billed $26 million through county contracts to run temporary housing sites during and after the pandemic, auditor Erick Roeser told The Press Democrat on Monday. His office’s investigation will be independent from a review by the Department of Health Services, which made DEMA Consulting and Management one if its principal emergency contractors through the pandemic. (Graham, 7/31)

Marin Independent Journal: San Rafael Evicts Homeless Campers Amid Crime Spike
Citing a recent shooting and other criminal activity, San Rafael cleared a small camp of homeless people about a block from City Hall on Tuesday. City Manager Cristine Alilovich signed an administrative order prohibiting camping through Aug. 31 at the Falkirk Cultural Center and the Menzies parking lot on Mission Avenue. Officials estimated eight campers were living at the site. (Rodriguez, 8/2)

Bay Area News Group: Do Homelessness Prevention Programs Work? Santa Clara-Based Study Says Yes
A new study suggests that relatively modest financial efforts to prevent homelessness have been remarkably successful at keeping people off the streets. Specifically, it found the delivery of emergency financial assistance to at-risk families in Santa Clara County reduced the risk of homelessness: vulnerable residents receiving such assistance were 81% less likely to become homeless within six months and 73% less likely within 12 months. (Mehta, 8/2)

Sacramento Bee: California Ballot Measure Proposed For Psychedelic Treatment
Psychedelics such as LSD, ketamine and psilocybin, used by therapists to assist in the treatment of certain mental illnesses, could receive billions for state-funded research under a newly proposed bond initiative. Dr. Jeannie Fontana, a Los Angeles internal medicine physician, filed paperwork last month to place a $5 billion measure on the November 2024 ballot to create a new state agency for studying the effects of psychedelic-assisted therapy for people diagnosed with PTSD, substance abuse and other mental health issues. (Angst, 8/1)

CalMatters: The Debate Over Flavored Medicine For CA Kids
If you’re a parent, you know how difficult it can be to get your kids to take medicine that tastes bad. Parents can remedy this by requesting their children’s prescription medicine to be flavored at the 3,000 pharmacies in California that are able to do so. But an unintended consequence of a 2019 law may make this long-standing practice run afoul with not only a nationwide standard, but also with the federal government. (La, 8/2)

Axios: Giving Birth In America Continues To Get Deadlier
It's becoming ever more dangerous to give birth in America, especially for Black women, older women and those living in rural areas, according to a pair of new reports from March of Dimes and Milken Institute. The dismal U.S. maternal health statistics are usually a sidebar in the abortion wars, but many experts believe that increasing the number of births by further restricting access to abortion will only worsen the situation. (Owens, 8/2)

USA Today: Maternity Care Deserts: March Of Dimes Report Shows Worsening Access
The number of women struggling to access to maternal care in the U.S. continues to grow, with nearly 7 million women affected by areas of no to low access, according to a new report released Tuesday by March of Dimes. The nonprofit organization's 2022 report shows 1,119 counties qualify as maternity care deserts, marking a 2% increase from the 2020 report or an additional 15,933 women who have no maternity care. (DeLetter, 8/1)

The Bakersfield Californian: CBCC To Offer Free Blood Tests To Detect Prostate Cancer Through September 
With a new prostate cancer diagnosis every two minutes across America, the Comprehensive Blood and Cancer Center is seeking to protect men by offering a free blood test throughout September to detect the illness early. (8/1)

CBS News: Weather Conditions Cause Valley Fever Fears To Increase In Northern California
Fears over Valley fever are ramping up as the California Department of Public Health warns our historically wet winter, followed by dry and dusty conditions could be the perfect storm for increased risk of contracting the virus. Valley fever, also known as coccidioidomycosis, is a disease caused by a fungus that grows in the soil and dirt. Hotbed areas are typically the Central Valley, but Dr. Stuart Cohen, the co-director for the Center for Valley Fever, said an upward trend in temperatures in recent years is contributing to a rise in Sacramento and the Northern California region. (Sowards, 8/1)