San Diego Union-Tribune: Sharp Healthcare Workers Vote To Authorize A Five-Day Strike 
Roughly 5,000 Sharp Healthcare workers approved a five-day strike Friday after discussions over a labor contract broke down. (Molnar, 11/2)

Times of San Diego: Frontline Healthcare Workers Vote To Approve Unfair Labor Practice Strike At Sharp HealthCare
Nearly 5,000 frontline healthcare workers who are part of SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West have voted to authorize a five-day strike. The effort, to protest what workers describe as unfair labor practices at Sharp Healthcare, passed with an overwhelming 92% of the vote. The union members work at at Sharp Grossmont Hospital, Sharp HospiceCare, Chula Vista Medical Center, Memorial Hospital, Mesa Vista Hospital and Mary Birch Hospital for Women and Newborns. (Sklar, 11/3)

Becker's Hospital Review: California Hospital Joins Safety-Net System
Oakland, Calif.-based Alameda Health System will assume governance of St. Rose Hospital in Hayward, Calif., amid financial pressures. (Kuchno, 11/1)

Becker's Hospital Review: California Hospital Property Returns To Community Ownership
Watsonville (Calif.) Community Hospital's property has been returned to the Pajaro Valley Health Care District. Residents of Pajaro Valley Health Care District passed Measure N in a March 2024 election, enabling the hospital property transaction to occur. Measure N bonds helped make the property payment possible, according to a Nov. 1 news release shared with Becker's. (Ashley, 11/1)

Becker's Hospital Review: The Project Putting Stanford Nurses Into Development Roles
Stanford (Calif.) Health Care is collaborating with Microsoft and Epic to develop an AI tool for ambient listening in clinical settings to streamline nursing documentation. "When Microsoft approached us for the opportunity to partner with Epic to improve the work of nursing, we jumped right in," Gretchen Brown, MSN, RN, chief nursing information officer at Stanford Health Care, told Becker's. "As a Magnet facility, that's what we should be doing. We should be leaning in and helping to develop with the resources that we have to better the experience for nurses." (Diaz, 11/1)

Becker's Hospital Review: How UC Davis Is Supporting Medical School Admission Reform
The American Medical Association has awarded Sacramento-based UC Davis School of Medicine a two-year grant to create a medical school admission toolkit to help other schools boost the number of historically underrepresented medical students. (Taylor, 11/1)

Reuters: US FDA Warns Against California Facility Making Compounded Weight-Loss Drugs
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Friday warned against the use of compounded drugs, including versions of popular weight-loss treatments, made by a California-based facility over concerns that they could be contaminated. The facility, Fullerton Wellness, makes compounded versions of Novo Nordisk's and Eli Lilly's weight-loss drugs, among others. It distributes them to patients by medical offices and clinics. (11/1)

Fox News: Parents Trust AI More Than Doctors For Children’s Health Advice, Study Finds
Artificial intelligence is gaining more of parents' trust than actual doctors. That's according to a new study from the University of Kansas Life Span Institute, which found that parents seeking information on their children’s health are turning to AI more than human health care professionals.The research, published in the Journal of Pediatric Psychology, also revealed that parents rate AI-generated text as "credible, moral and trustworthy." (Stabile, 11/1)

The New York Times: 1 In 4 Child Deaths After E.R. Visits Are Preventable, Study Finds
If every emergency room in the United States were fully prepared to treat children, thousands of lives would be saved and the cost would be $11.84 or less per child, researchers found. (Baumgaertner, 11/1)

Modern Healthcare: Medicare Physician Pay Cut Finalized For 2025
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has gone ahead with a 2.9% cut to Medicare physician reimbursements for 2025, setting up a lobbying fight when Congress gets back to Washington after the elections. CMS published the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule final rule Friday, which retains the payment reduction the agency proposed in July. The American Medical Association and other physician societies are pleading with Congress to stop the cut from taking effect or blunt its impact— as it did for 2024 and prior years. (Early, 11/1)

Modern Healthcare: Outpatient Hospitals To Get 2.9% Medicare Pay Bump In 2025
Hospital outpatient departments and ambulatory surgical centers will receive a 2.9% Medicare pay boost next year under a final rule the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services issued Friday. The reimbursement increase is up from the 2.6% hike CMS proposed in July. The hospital outpatient payment update reflects a 3.4% hospital market basket increase offset by a -0.5% productivity adjustment. (Kacik, 11/1)

Modern Healthcare: Medicare Pay Bumps Given To Home Health, ESRD Providers In 2025
Home health and dialysis providers will get modest Medicare reimbursement increases in 2025 under final rules the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services issued Friday. Medicare home health payments will rise 0.5% next year after the agency proposed a 1.7% cut in June. Dialysis providers treating end-stage renal disease patients are set for a 2.7% reimbursement hike, higher than the 2.2% CMS proposed in June. (Young, 11/1)

Stat: Key Senators Propose Using ‘Site-Neutral’ Pay To Boost Rural Hospitals
The hospital industry has pushed back against Medicare payment reforms for years, arguing that the policies would financially hurt rural hospitals. Two key senators on Friday released a plan to get around that issue by reinvesting some of the money saved from payment reforms to help rural and safety-net hospitals. Hospitals that keep providing services like trauma centers, labor and delivery units, and burn units would get financial bonuses, too. (Zhang, 11/1)

Modern Healthcare: Rural Home Care Deserts Caused By Low Medicare Pay, Providers Say
Home health deserts are increasing at an alarming rate across some rural states as home health companies close or reduce services due to financial challenges. Home health companies in Maine, Nebraska and Minnesota say a proposed Medicare rate cut, low Medicare Advantage reimbursements and workforce shortages are forcing them to make difficult business decisions — leaving many communities with limited access or no access to post-acute care in the home. (Eastabrook, 11/1)

Times of San Diego: For The First Time, DACA Recipients Eligible To Enroll In Covered California Plans
Open enrollment season has begun statewide for people who need health insurance — and this year, even more Californians can get insured. Nearly 6 million people have received health insurance through Covered California since the healthcare exchange program first began in 2014. Currently, nearly 1.8 million are enrolled. This year, thanks to funding through the Inflation Reduction Act, health care is expected to be more accessible and affordable to Californians, thanks to increased and expanded financial aid that will be available in 2025. (Binkowski, 11/3)

Los Angeles Times: ‘It’s Close’: Half Of Voters Polled Favor L.A. County Measure A Sales Tax For Homeless Services
In the final weeks before the Nov. 5 election, a measure that would double the county’s quarter-percent homeless sales tax was closing in on the majority it needs to pass, a new poll of likely Los Angeles County voters found. Half of those surveyed said they would vote for Measure A, or already had done so, in the poll taken by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies and co-sponsored by The Times. (Smith, 11/2)

San Diego Union-Tribune: A Homeless Veteran Was Denied A Housing Voucher For Being Too Sick. But He Believes Healing Isn’t Possible Without Housing. 
San Diego County has sometimes struggled to use all of its available vouchers, and local leaders have partially blamed the region’s brutal housing market. But the local VA, under pressure from members of Congress, has recently increased how many veterans are screened for the program. (Nelson, 11/3)

Los Angeles Times: RFK Jr. Says Trump Would Push To Remove Fluoride From Drinking Water
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a prominent proponent of debunked public health claims whom Donald Trump has promised to put in charge of health initiatives, said that Trump would push to remove fluoride from drinking water on his first day in office if elected president. Fluoride strengthens teeth and reduces cavities by replacing minerals lost during normal wear and tear, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The addition of low levels of fluoride to drinking water has long been considered one of the greatest public health achievements of the last century. (Cooper, 11/3)

The Hill: Trump Expresses Tentative Support For RFK Jr.’s Plan To Remove Fluoride From Water Supply
Former President Trump expressed tentative support for former independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s plan to remove fluoride from water. “Well, I haven’t talked to him about it yet, but it sounds OK to me,” Trump told NBC News on Sunday. “You know, it’s possible.” (Irwin, 11/3)

NBC News: Trump Doesn't Rule Out Banning Vaccines If He Becomes President
Former President Donald Trump said Robert F. Kennedy Jr. would have a “big role in the administration” if he wins Tuesday, telling NBC News in a phone interview that he is open to some of his more controversial ideas. Kennedy, who ran for president as an independent this year before he dropped his bid and endorsed Trump, has long spread conspiracies and falsehoods about vaccines and other public health matters. (Burns and Marquez, 11/3)

Los Angeles Times: RFK Jr. Wants Fed Health Data For His Antivaccine Clams, Trump Transition Co-Chair Says
A co-chair of Donald Trump’s transition team said Trump supporter Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wants access to federal health data so he can try to show vaccines are unsafe and lead to them being pulled from the market in a second Trump administration. The comments by Howard Lutnick are raising concerns among public health experts that giving influence to one of the most prominent antivaccine activists in the world could lead to what one said would be “severe health consequences” for Americans, especially children. (Smith, 11/1)

The Washington Post: GOP's Closing Campaign Message On Health Baffles Strategists, Worries Experts
First came GOP House Speaker Mike Johnson’s pledge last Monday to overhaul the Affordable Care Act if Donald Trump wins the presidential election. Then Howard Lutnick, the co-chair of Trump’s transition team, on Wednesday endorsed Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s vaccine skepticism and suggested that a future Trump administration would empower Kennedy to help oversee vaccine data. Three days later, Kennedy announced that Trump would seek to remove fluoride from Americans’ drinking water as a Day 1 priority. The statements add up to a surreal final week of campaigning for Republicans in which several of Trump’s top surrogates are introducing unconventional — and generally unpopular — ideas that pit them against the health-policy establishment ahead of Election Day on Tuesday. The assorted proposals also add up to an agenda that would likely damage public health. (Diamond, 11/4)

San Francisco Chronicle: S.F.’s Prop B Bond Funds $390M Seismic Upgrades At Public Hospitals
Proposition B, one of 15 ballot measures going before San Francisco voters on Tuesday, would raise up to $390 million to fund infrastructure and public hospital improvements that health leaders say are critical for preparing facilities for the next big earthquake or emergency. If passed, the 30-year general obligation bond would allocate up to $99 million to seismically retrofit and renovate Chinatown Public Health Center and City Clinic, and up to $66 million to repair and upgrade Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Laguna Honda Hospital. It would double the capacity of S.F. General Hospital’s psychiatric emergency services department, and raise up to $50 million toward providing shelter or temporary housing for homeless families. (Ho, 11/1)

Capital & Main: Trump’s Final Battleground Rallies Slated For States Where Number Of People Without Health Insurance Soared During His Presidency​
The contentious issue of health care coverage was thrust back into the election spotlight this week when House Speaker Mike Johnson told supporters there would be “no Obamacare” if Donald Trump and congressional Republicans prevail on Nov. 5. Johnson’s comment cast attention on a potential liability for Trump, who as president led an unsuccessful effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act — and then proceeded to weaken the popular health care law. His actions contributed to an increase of more than 2.2 million in the number of uninsured U.S. residents during the first three years of his term. (Feingold and Lindenfeld, 11/1)

Stateline: Election Results Could Mean Major Changes In Medicaid
A decade ago, an old work injury put Fred Blackman II in the hospital with a slipped spinal disc that threatened to paralyze him. ... After discharge, he returned to a life he didn’t recognize. He’d lost his job at an insurance company, his health coverage and his house, and his marriage was falling apart. He could barely walk and owed more than $500,000 in medical bills. He got emergency Medicaid coverage with the hospital’s help, but it lapsed after a few months. (Krisberg, Public Health Watch, 11/1)

Roll Call: Election Could Move Fight Over Trans Care From States To DC 
While the legislative fight over transgender care has been largely limited to states to date, a spate of campaign ads from Republicans and worried trans advocates both indicate that could change if Republicans take control of Congress and the White House. (Cohen, 11/1)

Bay Area News Group: Conservative Parental Rights Group Targets Bay Area School Board Elections
As hot-button topics like gender, sexuality and race ignite culture wars in California classrooms, a rise in conservative, parental-rights advocacy groups has taken matters into their own hands — and to the polls. In response, some teachers have begun canvassing neighborhoods in support of candidates they say are more inclusive. (Gibbs, 11/4)

Reuters: Biden Administration Seeks To Toss States' Abortion Pill Lawsuit From Texas Court
The Biden administration on Friday urged a federal judge in Amarillo, Texas, to dismiss a bid by Missouri, Kansas and Idaho to restrict access to the abortion pill mifepristone nationwide, saying the three Republican-controlled states have no basis for bringing their claims in the Texas court. The states brought their lawsuit against the U.S. Food and Drug Administration by intervening in a case that was started by anti-abortion doctors and medical groups. By filing in Amarillo, the original plaintiffs had ensured that the case would go to U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, a staunch conservative and former Christian activist. (Pierson, 11/1)

CBS News: How Strict Abortion Bans Threaten Health Care For All Women
The Supreme Court's landmark 2022 overturning of Roe v. Wade has had an impact on women's health beyond abortion, accelerating a gap in obstetrics and gynecological care in some states across the country. In Texas, the first state to implement more restrictive abortion laws, a fear of discussing abortion has impacted doctors practicing there and the medical students and OB-GYN residents looking to learn there. (McCandless Farmer, 11/3)

Los Angeles Times: 'Always A Member': A Hollywood Hangout For People With Mental Illness
When Georgette Darby has one of her bad days, she knows what will rouse her from her Hollywood apartment. ... At Fountain House Hollywood, the 61-year-old has a job to do. ... Behind its glassy doors is something rare: A community run by people with serious mental health conditions such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and major depressive disorder. Above the front desk at Fountain House Hollywood are emblazoned the words: “You Are Not Alone.” (Alpert Reyes, 11/2)

San Francisco Chronicle: Stanford’s New Robotics Lab Aims To Bring Helpful Robots Into The Home
Industrial robots are sometimes kept away from humans and behind cages for fear of their mindless iron grip and bone-crunching power. But in the gleaming corridors of the new Stanford Robotics Center, researchers are working to bring an array of softer bots into our lives. “We’re trying to bridge research to the real world,” said Steven Cousins, the director of the center, located on the subterranean level of Stanford’s David Packard building at the School of Engineering. (DiFeliciantonio, 11/1)

San Francisco Chronicle: Secret To Healthy Aging? Scientists Say ‘Superagers’ May Hold Answer
When 97-year-old Charlotte Goode is asked about her age, she throws up her hands and laughs. ... Scientists, though, are very interested in how Goode has been able to reach such an advanced age in good health. And they think the answer may lie in her genes. Goode and about 500 other so-called “superagers” — those 95 and older who are generally healthy — are part of an ongoing nationwide study seeking to better understand the role of genetics in healthy aging. (Ho, 11/2)