NPR: To Keep Women From Dying In Childbirth, Look To California
The state is leading the charge to reverse the nationwide trend: Since 2006, California has cut its rate of women dying in childbirth by more than half. And it's a state whose impact could make a big difference: One in eight infants born in the United States is born there. (Montagne, 7/29)

In other maternal health news —

San Francisco Chronicle: SF’s Newest Hospital To Expand Maternity Care, End Long-Term Nursing 
When California Pacific Medical Center opens the doors to its new $538 million hospital in San Francisco’s Mission neighborhood next month, its services will fall in line with what health economists say has been trending in the hospital business for years. The new Sutter-owned acute-care hospital, to be called CPMC Mission Bernal, will expand maternity and orthopedic care, two sources of hospital revenue that experts say are increasingly profitable industrywide. (Ho, 7/29)

The San Diego Union-Tribune: $99 Million Heart Center Targets Stroke Care At Grossmont Hospital 
More than a decade in the making, Sharp Grossmont Hospital’s new Heart and Vascular Center provides much-needed breathing room for a facility that handles the largest workload of severe heart attacks in the state. The 60,000-square-foot, $99 million wing includes four spacious new cardiac catheterization suites and four new operating rooms, all with features tailored to cardiac surgery, including a “hybrid” set up that allows doctors to “convert” from non-invasive methods to full open surgery when necessary. (Sisson, 7/27)

In other hospital news —

Santa Rosa Press Democrat: Healdsburg District Hospital To Explore Management Deal With St. Joseph Health
Healdsburg District Hospital has formally opened talks with Sonoma County’s largest hospital operator about a lease agreement that could lead to St. Joseph taking over management of the 43-bed north county facility. The hospital’s North Sonoma County Healthcare District hopes the partnership will help stabilize the 113-year-old hospital’s finances by giving it access to more financial resources and cost-saving strategies. Like many rural and critical access hospitals, Healdsburg District Hospital has struggled financially in recent years. (Espinoza, 7/27)

The Mercury News: Golden Gate Bridge Suicide Barrier Work Begins
Work on the Golden Gate Bridge’s suicide barrier has quietly started on the landmark. During the past several weeks, bridge managers have closed lanes late at night to allow the delivery of equipment in massive boxes to begin the construction of the barrier. “This is the beginning of the work on the bridge,” said Priya Clemens, bridge district spokeswoman. (Prado, 7/30)

In other public health news —

The Mercury News: Golden State Killer: Genealogy Matches Spawn Golden Era In Cracking Cold Cases
John and Mei-lian Lin were having dinner and watching the news when the story broke that investigators had used a public genealogy database to help find the 72-year-old man they believe is the Golden State Killer, cracking one of California’s most notorious cold cases in decades. John Lin dropped his fork. Then he picked up the phone.With a direct line to Alameda County Sheriff’s Det. Patrick Smyth, he asked if the same novel technique could help solve the murder of his 14-year-old daughter, Jenny. In 1994, she was stabbed to death in their Castro Valley home. (Sulek, 7/28)

Los Angeles Times: 'Marijuana Is A Gift From God.' A Battle Over Pot Pits The Mormon Church Against An Unlikely Group: Other Mormons
Brian Stoll faced a dilemma as his wedding day approached. For more than a year, he had been smoking marijuana to treat severe back pain, but to remain in good standing with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and get married in the temple, he had to stop using pot. Since marijuana was illegal under Utah law, church leaders told him, it was forbidden. Stoll turned to an opioid painkiller and has continued using it since his marriage three years ago, despite unpleasant side effects and its inability to match the soothing qualities of marijuana. (Lee, 7/29)

Sacramento Bee: Health Care Workers Report To Duty Despite Losing Homes In Redding Fire
At least eight doctors and other health care workers at Redding’s Shasta Regional Medical Centers lost their homes in the Carr fire, but they reported for work as scheduled. ... Hundreds of health care workers in the Redding area also can’t return to their homes because of orders to evacuate. (Anderson, 7/28)

The Wall Street Journal: Inside The Trump Administration’s Chaotic Effort To Reunite Migrant Families
For months, federal immigration officials along the 268-mile stretch of border that separates New Mexico and West Texas from Mexico had been testing a policy of separating migrant parents from their children. What they didn’t plan for was how to reunite them.When a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to reconnect more than 2,600 children separated from their families after a national outcry, the two government agencies in charge—the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Health and Human Services—didn’t have a firm grip on the number of children involved or exactly where they were. (Malas and Caldwell, 7/27)

The New York Times: ‘Why Did You Leave Me?’ The Migrant Children Left Behind As Parents Are Deported
Adayanci Perez Chavez, who was separated from her father when they crossed the border from Guatemala more than two months ago, has watched as one playmate after another has checked out of the migrant children’s center in Michigan where they have spent their days studying, playing and meeting with their case managers. One by one over the past few weeks, 90 percent of the children at the center, managed by Bethany Christian Services in Kalamazoo, have been put on planes and reunited with parents who had been held at immigration detention centers across the country. (Jordan, 7/27)

The New York Times: Meet The Rebate, The New Villain Of High Drug Prices
An increasingly popular culprit in the debate over high drug prices is the pharmaceutical rebate, the after-the-fact discounts that form the heart of the nation’s arcane — many would say broken — market for prescription drugs. Now, a growing chorus wants to get rid of them, or at least change the way they are applied after drug companies have already set their prices. Rebates, critics say, have pushed up the list price of brand-name drugs, which consumers are increasingly responsible for paying. Insurers generally get to keep the rebates without passing them along to their members. (Thomas, 7/27)

In other national health care news —

The Associated Press: Study: 'Medicare For All' Bill Estimated At $32.6 Trillion
Sen. Bernie Sanders' "Medicare for all" plan would increase government health care spending by $32.6 trillion over 10 years, according to a study by a university-based libertarian policy center. That's trillion with a "T." The latest plan from the Vermont independent would require historic tax increases as government replaces what employers and consumers now pay for health care, according to the analysis being released Monday by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University in Virginia. It would deliver significant savings on administration and drug costs, but increased demand for care would drive up spending, the analysis found. (7/30)

The Washington Post: New Veterans Affairs Chief Plans To Reassign, Sideline Trump Loyalists Now In Power
In one of his first acts as President Trump’s Veterans Affairs secretary, Robert Wilkie intends to reassign several high-ranking political appointees at the center of the agency’s ongoing morale crisis and staffing exodus, according to three people familiar with his plans. Wilkie, who will be sworn in Monday, wants to form his own leadership team, these people say, and to ease lawmakers’ continued concern that VA, historically a nonpartisan corner of the government, has become highly politicized. He discussed the proposed personnel moves with Trump in recent days aboard Air Force One, while en route to a veterans convention in Kansas City, Mo., said an official close to the White House who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters. (Rein, 7/29)

Politico: Trump Policy Shop Filters Facts To Fit His Message
President Donald Trump’s appointees in the health department have deleted positive references to Obamacare, altered a report that undermined the administration’s positions on refugees and added anti-abortion language to the strategic plan — part of an ideological overhaul of the agency’s research office. While every administration puts its imprint on the executive branch and promotes ideas that advance its own agenda, this one has ventured several steps further — from scrubbing links to climate change studies from an Environmental Protection Agency website to canceling an Interior Department study on coal mining risks and suppressing reports on water contamination and the dangers of formaldehyde. (Diamond, 7/28)

Politico: HHS Official Who Spread Conspiracy Theories Forced Out
Ximena Barreto — a Donald Trump political appointee who used social media to spread conspiracy theories about a supposed pizza shop sex ring and made other inflammatory remarks — was escorted from Health and Human Services Department headquarters Friday, according to an individual with knowledge of the situation. Barreto resigned, the individual said. HHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment. An email sent to Barreto’s HHS account Friday night produced a bounce-back message that the message was “undeliverable.” (Diamond, 7/27)

Politico: How Technology Could Preserve Abortion Rights
Abortion rights advocates are exploring how technology might preserve or even expand women’s access to abortion if the Supreme Court scales back Roe v. Wade. A nonprofit group is testing whether it's safe to let women take abortion pills in their own homes after taking screening tests and consulting with a doctor on their phones or computers. Because the study is part of an FDA clinical trial, the group isn’t bound by current rules requiring the drugs be administered in a doctor’s office or clinic. (Ravindranath and Rayasam, 7/29)

Stat: VCs Are Pouring Money Into Digital Health. Are They Making Smart Bets?
One of the hottest fields in health care investing is digital health. Companies in the space collectively raised $3.4 billion in venture capital in the first half of this year, spread across 193 deals, according to a count from the venture firm Rock Health. If that pace continues, the sector will set a new record this year — both in terms of number of deals and VC money invested overall. But is all that cash being invested wisely? To tease out that question, STAT sat down to chat with veteran health care VC Lisa Suennen, who works as the lead health care investor for General Electric’s corporate venture arm. (Robbins and Feuerstein, 7/30)

The Washington Post: A Quarter Of Adults With Sprained Ankles Were Prescribed Opioids In The ER, Study Shows
A quarter of the adults who went to hospital emergency departments with sprained ankles were prescribed opioid painkillers, a study shows, in another sign of how commonly physicians turn to narcotics for even minor injuries. The state-by-state review revealed wide variation in the use of opioids for the sprains, from 40 percent in Arkansas to 2.8 percent in North Dakota. All but one of the nine states that recorded above-average opioid prescribing are in the South or Southwest. None is in the parts of Appalachia or New England that have been hit hardest by the opioid epidemic. (Bernstein, 7/27)

The Hill: House Passes 'Menstrual Equality' Measure To Allow Tampon, Pad Purchases With Health Spending Accounts
The House on Friday passed a bill allowing women to buy menstrual hygiene products with pre-tax money from health flexible spending accounts. Rep. Grace Meng (D-N.Y.) pushed for the legislation as part of her ongoing "fight for menstrual equality." ...Meng’s provision to the Restoring Access to Medication and Modernizing Health Savings Accounts Act established health flexible spending account funds that can be used on all products related to menstruation, including tampons, pads, liners, cups, sponges and other similar products. (Gstalter, 7/28)