Latest California Healthline Stories
Health Affairs Examines 1996 Mental Health Parity Law
With the 1996 Mental Health Parity Act set to expire on Sept. 30, two articles in the July/August issue of Health Affairs discuss whether Congress should extend the law and outline “options for the future.
Judge Orders Pharmacy Linked to Meningitis Deaths to Stop Mixing Drugs
A state administrative judge in Oakland ruled on Friday that the Walnut Creek-based pharmacist “whose drugstore sold medicine linked to the deaths of three people and the hospitalization of 10 more must temporarily stop making and mixing drugs,” Knight-Ridder/San Jose Mercury News reports.
House GOP Leaders Face ‘Stiff Test’ on Patients’ Rights
As Congress returns from the July 4 recess, House Republicans leaders face “stiff tests of their ability to modify or derail” a patients’ rights bill passed in the Senate last month, the Los Angeles Times reports.
HHS Issues Guidelines to Clarify Patient Privacy Rule
The Bush administration, hoping to “calm the fears” of the health care industry, issued guidelines last Friday to clarify a federal medical final privacy rule issued by the Clinton administration earlier this year, the New York Times reports.
County-USC Medical Center Rejected Proposal to Train Nurses to Perform Dialysis
Officials at Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center — where three patients have died in the last 10 months due to a lack of nurses trained to provide emergency dialysis — in May 2000 “turned down thousands of dollars” to supplement the facility’s “chronically understaffed” emergency dialysis unit by training “more specialized” nurses, the Los Angeles Times reports.
Poor Nations to Get Free Online Access to Medical Journals
Six “giant” publishers of medical journals are expected to announce today in London that they will provide free or discounted electronic access to about 1,000 publications for developing countries, the Washington Post reports.
Children ‘Stuck’ In Mental Hospitals, NYT Reports
An “overall crisis” in mental health care has prevented thousands of children from being discharged from psychiatric hospitals and institutions and into community-based treatment, the New York Times reports.
Orange, Riverside Counties Exempt From Mexican Doctors Bill
Orange and Riverside Counties are excluded from a bill designed to bring Mexican providers to underserved Latino areas, the Los Angeles Times reports.
Anti-smoking groups in Contra Costa County want to see more of the county’s share of the 1998 national tobacco settlement spent on tobacco education, the Contra Costa Times reports.
WSJ Examines Florida Medicaid Formulary Program
The Wall Street Journal reports that a “novel pact” between Pfizer Inc. and the state of Florida, in which the drug maker will offer cost-cutting “disease management” services to Medicaid patients in exchange for having its products placed in the state’s new Medicaid formulary without discounts, has begun “reverberating in other states and among other drug makers.”