Latest California Healthline Stories
Loma Linda Veterans Hospital Woos Nurses With ‘Generous’ Benefits
Using “generous benefit packages, a stable work environment and slightly higher salaries than those offered at some private hospitals,” the Loma Linda-based Jerry L. Pettis Memorial VA Medical Center has managed to fill all of its nurse positions and “even has hired extra nurses for some busy departments” at a time when hospitals nationwide are facing a nursing shortage, the Riverside Press-Enterprise reports.
Bill Would Allow Doctors, Dentists from Mexico to Practice in Not-for-Profit Clinics
Hoping to “tackle a statewide medical care shortage [and] target the health needs of poor and uninsured Latinos in California,” state Assembly member Marco Firebaugh (D-Los Angeles) has introduced a bill (AB 1045) that would alter California’s medical licensing requirements to allow about 70 doctors and 50 dentists from Mexico to practice at not-for-profit clinics, the Los Angeles Times reports.
Los Angeles County Officials Fear New Proposition 36 Cases will ‘Swamp’ System
With two weeks remaining until the July 1 deadline to implement Proposition 36, the ballot initiative approved by voters last November that calls for non-violent drug offenders to receive treatment instead of jail time, Los Angeles County judges, attorneys and other officials say the county could “find itself without enough courtrooms, treatment centers or counselors to handle an estimated 20,000 or more defendants a year who will be eligible for drug treatment,” the Los Angeles Times reports.
Asthma Research Death at Johns Hopkins Under Investigation
HHS’ Office for Human Research Protections, which “oversees the safety of federally funded research studies,” launched an investigation last week into the death of a Johns Hopkins School of Medicine lab technician who died earlier this month while participating in an asthma study, the Baltimore Sun reports.
Senate Set to Debate Kennedy-McCain Patients’ Rights Bill
The Senate is set to open debate this week on “long-stalled” patients’ rights legislation, the New York Times reports.
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors has not developed a plan to help the 2.7 million county residents without health insurance, and “time is running out,” Dr. Raymond Schultze, president of the Venice Family Clinic, writes in a Los Angeles Times opinion piece.
Doctors Often Block Information Technology Reforms
While information technology has “enormous potential” to revolutionize the American health care system, many health care providers have not embraced new advances, according to a panel of experts who spoke at an eHealth policy briefing last Friday in Washington, D.C.
AMA Considers Asking FDA for DTC Advertising Ban
At the urging of many doctors who say that patients are being “misinformed” about prescription drugs, an American Medical Association committee is considering a proposal that would call on the FDA to ban direct-to-consumer advertising by drug makers, the AP/Nando Times reports.
While “scrambling” for an “infusion” of city money to “stave off service cuts,” San Francisco General Hospital has stopped treating patients with private insurance in order to return to its “core mission” of caring for the indigent, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.
Nurses Ratify New Contract with Sharp Hospital System
Nurses at San Diego-based Sharp HealthCare’s hospital system last week ratified a new three-year contract that will provide “across-the-board” wage increases and more authority in staffing level decisions, the San Diego Union-Tribune reports.