The Oaklandside: Why Was A Billboard Van Parked At Oakland’s Highland Hospital?
Patients and workers who showed up at Highland Hospital this morning were presented with a strange sight: a van with a giant digital billboard. The van, parked in front of the hospital’s main gate, flashed a message: “Warning: You may be treated by a pro-Hamas physician.” Its billboard also flashed an image of the medical resident, labeling them a “violent antisemite.” (Wolfe and BondGraham, 6/13)

Becker's Hospital Review: 16K Hours Saved: Ambient AI Scribes At Kaiser Permanente
Ambient AI helped the Permanente Medical Group, part of Oakland, Calif.-based Kaiser Permanente, save nearly 16,000 hours in documentation time over a 15-month period, the health system found. Between October 2023 and December 2024, 7,260 Permanente Medical Group physicians used the technology, which transcribes medical visits and generates EHR notes, for about 2.5 million patient encounters, according to a June 10 news release. (Bruce, 6/13)

Los Angeles Times: How L.A. General Finds Names For Its John Doe Patients
He had a buzz cut and brown eyes, a stubbly beard and a wrestler’s build. He did not have a wallet or phone; he could not state his name. He arrived at Los Angeles General Medical Center one cloudy day this winter just as thousands of people do every year: alone and unknown. Some 130,000 people are brought each year to L.A. General’s emergency room. Many are unconscious, incapacitated or too unwell to tell staff who they are. (Purtill, 6/15)

Modern Healthcare: Amazon Restructures Leadership At One Medical, Health Services
Amazon is restructuring its healthcare division and another high-profile executive is departing the company. As part of the restructuring, Amazon’s Vice President of Health Partnerships and Marketing Aaron Martin is planning to leave the company later this summer after assisting with the transition, according to a person familiar with the situation. (Turner, 6/13)

Los Angeles Times: How Undocumented Families Are Talking To Kids About ICE, Deportation
Conversations like the one in Josefina’s dining room are unfolding across the Los Angeles region, as families with undocumented members grapple with fraught questions pushed to the fore by the Trump administration’s chaotic crackdown on what he has called a “Migrant Invasion.” Could mom be arrested? What happens if dad can’t go to work? These and other queries are sparking excruciating — and potentially life-altering — discussions centered on planning for the possible deportation of a family member. (Sequeira and Miller, 6/15)

Los Angeles Blade: Williams Institute Reports Impact Of Deportations On LGBTQ Immigrants
Williams Institute at UCLA has released its latest report, highlighting the intersection between LGBTQ and immigration issues and the impact of the U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement (ICE) raids across Los Angeles on LGBTQ people. According to the brief, LGBTQ immigrants who hold legal status, but who are not naturalized citizens may also face challenges to their legal right to reside in the U.S. (Palomera, 6/13)

AP: Trump Gives Data Of Immigrant Medicaid Enrollees To Deportation Officials 
President Donald Trump’s administration this week provided deportation officials with personal data -- including the immigration status -- on millions of Medicaid enrollees, a move that could make it easier to locate people as part of his sweeping immigration crackdown. An internal memo and emails obtained by The Associated Press show that Medicaid officials unsuccessfully sought to block the data transfer, citing legal and ethical concerns. (Kindy and Seitz, 6/14)

Los Angeles Times: A Border Patrol Agent Died In 2009. His Widow Is Still Fighting For Benefits
When her husband died after a grueling U.S. Border Patrol training program for new agents, Lisa Afolayan applied for the federal benefits promised to families of first responders whose lives are cut short in the line of duty. Sixteen years later, Afolayan and her two daughters haven’t seen a penny, and program officials are defending their decisions to deny them compensation. She calls it a nightmare that too many grieving families experience. (Foley, 6/15)

San Francisco Chronicle: He Took Over A Trans Health Group. Trump, Newsom Made His Job Harder
There is a room inside the Gender Health Center where the dead kick it with the living. It’s in the back, on the two-story building’s first floor, in a high-ceilinged common area that holds harm-reduction offices, racks of donated clothes, a curtained fitting area and cubbies stocked with free makeup, bra inserts, tucking underwear and skin-color swatches. Against a wall facing some well-worn couches is the altar, where about 30 people who have died, including the center’s founder, are memorialized in pictures, words, paper flowers, flags and unlit candles. (Hosseini, 6/14)

CalMatters: Where Is California's Homelessness Funding Going?
State leaders have been talking a lot lately about cleaning up California’s homeless encampments and moving people indoors. But the tentative budget they’ve drawn up for the upcoming year has many asking: With what money? Both Gov. Gavin Newsom and the Legislature have proposed gutting the state’s main source of homelessness funding in the 2025-26 budget, sending a wave of panic through the cities, counties and service providers that have been relying on that money for years. Now, those critics warn that thousands of Californians could end up back on the streets, undoing the tenuous progress the state has made in addressing the problem. (Kendall, 6/16)

Politico Pro: Tax Portion Of Senate Megabill Expected Monday
Text of the Senate GOP's tax package won’t be out until Monday, according to four people with knowledge of the plans. The slipped timing for text, first reported by POLITICO [last] week, comes as the Senate Finance Committee is trying to finalize the biggest pieces left to resolve in President Donald Trump's megabill. (Hill, Carney and Guggenheim, 6/13)

Stat: GOP Tax Bill Would Severely Cut Hospitals' Medicaid Payments: Report 
Hospitals would bear the brunt of federal health care funding cuts in the Republicans’ tax bill, and they’d be hurt hard in states with both predominantly Democratic- and Republican-led governments, according to an analysis by the Urban Institute and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. (Wilkerson, 6/14)

AP: The GOP's Big Bill Would Bring Changes To Medicaid For Millions
Republican Sen. Josh Hawley has been clear about his red line as the Senate takes up the GOP’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act: no Medicaid cuts. But what, exactly, would be a cut? Hawley and other Republicans acknowledge that the main cost-saving provision in the bill – new work requirements on able-bodied adults who receive health care through the Medicaid program -- would cause millions of people to lose their coverage. All told, estimates are 10.9 million fewer people would have health coverage under the bill’s proposed changes to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act. That includes some 8 million fewer in the Medicaid program, including 5.2 million dropping off because of the new eligibility requirements. (Askarinam, 6/15)

AP: Medicaid Enrollees Fear Losing Benefits Under Work Requirements
It took Crystal Strickland years to qualify for Medicaid, which she needs for a heart condition. Strickland, who’s unable to work due to her condition, chafed when she learned that the U.S. House has passed a bill that would impose a work requirement for many able-bodied people to get health insurance coverage through the low-cost, government-run plan for lower-income people. “What sense does that make?” she asked. “What about the people who can’t work but can’t afford a doctor?” (Mulvihill, 6/15)

Stat: NIH Indirect Cost Reforms Are Proposed By Coalition Of Universities 
Facing billions of dollars in proposed cuts to research overhead payments from the Trump administration, a coalition of academic groups has devised plans it believes could be more sensible, measured ways to revamp how the federal government pays for scientific research. (Wosen, 6/13)

Stat: RFK Jr. To Link Ultra-Processed Food To Diabetes In HHS Ad Campaign
The links between ultra-processed food and higher risk of diabetes will be the focus of the first wave of health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s national “Take Back Your Health” campaign, according to a notice posted on a government site for contractors. The notice invites public relations agencies to pitch strategies for the launch of the ad campaign, “a wake-up call to Americans that eating processed foods dramatically increases the risk of diabetes and chronic disease.” (Todd, 6/13)

Times of San Diego: Report: NASA Technology Detects Tijuana River Pollutants
NASA technology originally intended for mapping minerals in desert regions can analyze pollutants present in the Tijuana River sewage plume near Imperial Beach, scientists said. A paper published in the journal Science of the Total Environment says that satellite images have shown a large wastewater plume at the mouth of the river. Contaminated water can harm people, marine ecosystems and local wildlife, and the environmental issues unfolding in the Tijuana River Valley are associated with ongoing health concerns for its residents. (Wallace, 5/15)

Los Angeles Times: COVID 'Razor Blade Throat' Rises As New Subvariant Spreads In California
COVID-19 appears to be on the rise in some parts of California as a new, highly contagious subvariant — featuring “razor blade throat” symptoms overseas — is becoming increasingly dominant. Nicknamed “Nimbus,” the new subvariant NB.1.8.1 has been described in news reports in China as having more obvious signs of “razor blade throat” — what patients describe as feeling like their throats are studded with razor blades. (Lin II, 6/16)

CBS News: CDC Urges Summer Camps To Check For Measles Immunity, As U.S. Nears Record
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is now urging summer camp operators to check for documentation of immunity from measles through vaccination or prior infection for all children, staff and volunteers, amid a deadly year of outbreaks that is now near record levels. "Measles can spread quickly in summer camps because campers and staff spend a lot of time together in close contact with each other. Measles is more than just a rash — it can cause serious complications or even death," the CDC warned in a "checklist" for operators of summer camps published this week. (Tin, 6/13)

Los Angeles Times: 'Gas Station Heroin' Is Technically Illegal And Widely Available
Health officials want you to think twice before buying one of those brightly colored little bottles often sold at gas stations, convenience stores and smoke shops. Sometimes called “gas station heroin,” the products are usually marketed as energy shots or cognitive supplements but actually contain tianeptine, an unapproved drug that can be addictive and carries risks of serious side effects. (Perrone, 6/14)

San Francisco Chronicle: UCSF Study Finds That Small Joyful Moments Can Make A Difference
The simplest tasks of joy and awe — listening to laughter, admiring a flower on a neighborhood walk, doing a nice thing for a friend — can measurably improve people’s emotional well-being and attitudes toward life, according to a new UCSF study. So-called micro-acts of joy can have remarkably outsize effects on people’s moods, and in particular on their belief that they can control their own happiness, said Elissa Epel, a UCSF professor who has long studied the effects of stress on aging and overall health. (Allday, 6/14)