The Desert Sun: 31 Hospitals In California Have A One Star Rating From A Federal Health Agency
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has assigned an Overall Hospital Quality Star Rating to over 200 hospitals in California, revealing how health care facilities perform across key metrics related to mortality, readmission, and more. (Barraza, 8/20)

Becker's Hospital Review: UC San Diego CMO, Oncologist Named President-Elect Of Medical Society
UC San Diego (Calif.) Health’s chief medical officer, and breast and gynecologic cancer radiation oncologist, Catheryn Yashar, MD, has been appointed president-elect of the American Society for Radiation Oncology. Dr. Yashar currently serves as health policy council chair for ASTRO, a medical professional organization representing more than 10,000 physicians, medical physicists, biologists and radiation therapists internationally, according to an Aug. 19 news release from UC San Diego Health. (Gregerson, 8/20)

Becker's Hospital Review: Apella Launches Ambient AI Tool For OR Scheduling
San Francisco-based Apella launched Apella Horizon on Aug. 20, expanding its real-time AI platform to include surgical scheduling and capacity optimization. The system integrates predictive algorithms and ambient sensing to improve preoperative planning, real-time OR coordination and retrospective performance analysis. Apella said Horizon unifies real-time OR management, case scheduling forecasts and workflow efficiency data. (Dyrda, 8/20)

Modern Healthcare: CVS Caremark To Pay $289M In Medicare Part D Overbilling Lawsuit
CVS Caremark, the pharmacy benefit management arm of CVS Health, has been ordered to pay more than $289 million in damages stemming from a 2014 false claims lawsuit. Judge Mitchell Goldberg issued the final judgment Tuesday in the Eastern District Court of Pennsylvania, according to a court filing. He initially set damages at $95 million in June when the court ruled in favor of whistleblower Sarah Behnke in her suit accusing CVS Caremark of overbilling the Medicare Part D program. (DeSilva, 8/20)

Becker's Hospital Review: How Front-Line Teams Are Shaping Health System Strategy
CEOs are turning to front-line employees for insights shaping systemwide strategies. ... At Fairfield, Calif.-based NorthBay Health, front-line voices also helped shape system strategy. President and CEO Mark Behl said teams guided efforts to improve efficiencies amid financial pressures and anticipated reimbursement changes tied to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. (Kuchno, 8/20)

Modern Healthcare: Hospital Inpatient Costs Rise As ERs See Sicker Patients
Hospital costs are growing as an increasing number of sicker patients visit the emergency department, according to a new report. The average cost of an inpatient stay rose 4.8% from mid-2023 to early 2025, according to the latest national data from Sg2, a data analytics company owned by group purchasing organization Vizient. At academic medical centers, per-case cost growth nearly doubled the rate of expense inflation at community hospitals between the first quarters of 2022 and 2025. (Kacik and Broderick, 8/20)

Modern Healthcare: Hospitals Lease Post-Acute Beds, Embed Staff To Move Patients
Health systems are teaming up with skilled nursing facilities on bed space and staffing to quickly move patients to post-acute care and avoid readmissions. Stanford Health Care, Scripps Health, Cone Health and others say leasing beds within nursing homes and embedding hospital staff at those facilities frees up hospital capacity. These strategies can also help the systems avoid millions of dollars in penalties and tee up partnerships ahead of the Transforming Episode Accountability Model or TEAM. But providers warn the collaborations must be carefully choreographed to work effectively. (Eastabrook, 8/20)

KVPR: Non-Profits Worry As Trump White House Cuts Public Spending
Nearly 400 non-profits in the San Joaquin Valley received funding from local, state or federal government agencies in 2023. More than 60% of those same organizations would be operating in the red if all that funding were to disappear. That’s based on new analysis by the Urban Institute and the Associated Press, which have revealed the scale of the impact as the federal government moves away from supporting nonprofit organizations nationally. (Klein, 8/20)

The Washington Post: Hundreds Of CDC Employees Receive Permanent Layoff Notices
Hundreds of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention employees have received permanent termination notices, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter, marking the latest blow in the Trump administration’s sweeping purge of the agencies that oversee government health programs. Between 500 and 600 employees at the agency were terminated as of Monday, said one CDC employee, who spoke anonymously for fear of retaliation. A federal health official confirmed that these notices were sent, but declined to provide a number. (Sun and Moon, 8/21)

ABC News: 750 HHS Employees Send Signed Letter To RFK Jr. Asking Him To Stop Spreading Misinformation
More than 750 employees across the Department of Health and Human Services sent a signed letter to members of Congress and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Wednesday morning, calling on the secretary to stop spreading misinformation. The letter states the deadly shooting that occurred at the Atlanta headquarters of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Aug. 8 was "not random" and was driven by "politicized rhetoric." (Kekatos, 8/20)

ProPublica: Gutted: How Deeply Trump Has Cut Federal Health Agencies
When the Trump administration announced massive cuts to federal health agencies earlier this year, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said he was getting rid of excess administrators who were larding the government with bureaucratic bloat. But a groundbreaking data analysis by ProPublica shows the administration has cut deeper than it has acknowledged. Though Kennedy said he would add scientists to the workforce, agencies have lost thousands of them, along with colleagues who those scientists depended on to dispatch checks, fix computers and order lab supplies, enabling them to do their jobs. (Roberts, Waldman and Rebala, 8/21)

CNN: This Man Wants You To Know The Truth About Vaccines 
Dr. Jake Scott is on the front line of his second pandemic in five years and he is not getting much sleep. Scott works full-time as an infectious disease physician at Stanford Health Care’s Tri-Valley hospital in Pleasanton, California. When he is done taking care of his patients and his two grade-school aged kids, he often stays up past midnight writing — furiously penning op-eds, collecting studies, leading evidence reviews and posting meaty threads on social media, most of them correcting the record on vaccines. (Goodman, 8/20)

The Washington Post: Government’s Demand For Trans Care Info Sought Addresses, Doctors’ Notes, Texts
The Justice Department is demanding that hospitals turn over a wide range of sensitive information related to medical care for young transgender patients, including billing documents, communication with drug manufacturers and data such as patient dates of birth, Social Security numbers and addresses, according to a copy of a subpoena made public in a court filing this week. The June subpoena to Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia requests emails, Zoom recordings, “every writing or record of whatever type” doctors have made, voicemails and text messages on encrypted platforms dating to January 2020 — before hormone therapy, puberty blockers and gender transition surgery had been banned anywhere in the United States. (Parks and Ovalle, 8/20)

Bloomberg Law: Coverage Of Gender-Affirming Care Banned For Federal Workers
Gender-affirming care will no longer be covered for federal workers in 2026, according to a letter the Trump administration sent to insurance carriers. The notice from the Office of Personnel Management informs insurers participating in the Federal Employees Health Benefits or Postal Service Health Benefits programs that “chemical and surgical modification of an individual’s sex traits” will no longer be covered. The announcement, dated Aug. 15, cements the administration’s expected move to halt gender-affirming care following President Donald Trump’s January executive order to enforce laws based on a person’s biological sex. (Clason, 8/19)

CalMatters: California Cities Lack Unified Response On Homeless Encampments
Clearing an encampment is one of the most complicated and fraught tasks any California city can take on when responding to homelessness. How they handle that challenge varies widely. CalMatters asked nearly three-dozen cities and counties throughout California for copies of their encampment management policies. Responses spanned a wide range, highlighting the lack of a unified strategy to address street homelessness across the state, even as Gov. Gavin Newsom is pushing for more cohesive rules. (Kendall, 8/21)

Voice of San Diego: Can We Keep People From Falling Into Homelessness?
San Diego’s homelessness crisis has spiked over the past decade as hundreds of San Diegans lose their homes each month. The region could step up preventive measures over the next two decades and significantly reduce that suffering. What the region likely can’t do: fully stem the tide of people falling into homelessness without drastic changes to the housing market and federal policies outside the bounds of local control. (Halverstadt, 8/21)

San Diego Union-Tribune: Teachers Volunteer To Patrol Around Schools Watching For Immigration Officers
Shortly before classes began Tuesday morning at Lincoln High School, Dawn Miller hopped into the passenger seat of a pickup truck, two-way radio in hand. She was on patrol, part of a volunteer group of educators on the lookout for Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations around the school and its surrounding neighborhoods. (Mendoza, 8/20)

The Washington Post: FTC Sues LA Fitness Operators Over Difficult-To-Cancel Memberships 
The Federal Trade Commission sued LA Fitness and other gym franchises on Wednesday over memberships that it said are “exceedingly difficult” to cancel — the agency’s latest effort to force companies to make cancellations more straightforward. The lawsuit filed in a California district court accuses Fitness International and subsidiary Fitness & Sports Clubs — which operate gym franchises including LA Fitness, Esporta Fitness, City Sports Club and Club Studio — of unfair practices. Their gyms have more than 600 locations and over 3.7 million members nationwide, according to the FTC. (Vinall, 8/21)

The (Santa Rosa) Press Democrat: 1st Heat Advisory Since May Issued For Sonoma, Napa Counties. Here’s How Hot It’ll Get 
A heat wave later this week is expected to push temperatures near or above 100 degrees in parts of Sonoma and Napa counties, prompting the National Weather Service to issue the region’s first heat advisory since May. (Smalstig, 8/20)

Los Angeles Times: This Supplement Is Being Banned Across The U.S. What To Know About Synthetic Kratom
An herbal supplement that’s marketed as a cure-all for chronic pain and sold in gas stations and smoke shops is getting banned in communities across Southern California and the nation. ... Researchers say in the United States people are using kratom to alleviate anxiety, treat chronic pain or as a remedy for the symptoms associated with quitting opioids, among other uses. But recently, public health officials have raised alarms about a component of the leaf called hydroxymitragynine, also known as 7-OH, an alkaloid which has the potential for abuse because of its ability to bind to opioid receptors in the body. (Garcia, 8/20)

Newsweek: Parents Warned Against Deadly Bacteria In Infant Formula
Parents of newborns are being urged to take extra care when preparing powdered infant formula after new research revealed that the ambiguity of many current instructions may leave babies vulnerable to a deadly foodborne bacteria. The study, published in the Journal of Food Protection by Cornell University researchers, highlights dangerous gaps in the guidelines printed on formula packaging. (Gray, 8/20)

NBC News: New Study Reveals How Fat Cells Can Fuel Cancer Tumors
Being overweight or obese has long been linked to a greater risk of developing or dying from breast cancer. New research suggests a reason: Certain breast cancer tumors may feed on neighboring fat cells. The findings may help scientists find ways to treat triple-negative breast cancer, which is notoriously aggressive and has lower survival rates. Moreover, the results may apply to any cancer that uses fat as an energy source, according to the report, published Wednesday in Nature Communications. (Carroll, 8/20)

Newsweek: Alzheimer's: Omega-3 Fatty Acids May Protect Women From Disease
Omega-3 fatty acids could help to protect women against Alzheimer's—with women "disproportionately impacted" by the disease compared to men. It seems there is a noticeable loss of unsaturated fats, like those that contain omega fatty acids, in the blood of women with Alzheimer's disease compared to healthy women. Scientists from King's College London came to this discovery through analysis of lipids—fat molecules that perform many essential functions in the body. (Millington, 8/20)

KVPR: These Brain Implants Speak Your Mind — Even When You Don't Want To
Surgically implanted devices that allow paralyzed people to speak can also eavesdrop on their inner monologue. That's the conclusion of a study of brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) in the journal Cell. The finding could lead to BCIs that allow paralyzed users to produce synthesized speech more quickly and with less effort. ... "We're recording the signals as they're attempting to speak and translating those neural signals into the words that they're trying to say," says Erin Kunz, a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford University's Neural Prosthetics Translational Laboratory. (Hamilton, 8/20)