Becker's Hospital Review: $30M Gift Fuels New Sutter Health Cancer Center
Sacramento, Calif.-based Sutter Health has received a $30 million gift to establish a new cancer center in Santa Cruz, Calif. The Jean and E. Floyd Kvamme Advanced Cancer Center, expected to open in 2030, is part of a larger $50 million effort to “revolutionize cancer care and research” for Sutter Health’s community, according to an Aug. 14 news release from the health system. (Gregerson, 8/19)

Becker's Hospital Review: Sutter Medical Center Taps Nurse CEO
Megan Gillespie, DNP, RN, has been named CEO of Sacramento, Calif.-based Sutter Medical Center. Dr. Gillespie has spent nearly 25 years in healthcare leadership roles, most recently as CEO of Sutter Santa Rosa (Calif.) Regional Hospital. She stepped into that position in October 2023, where she led measurable improvements in patient satisfaction and safety outcomes. (Cerutti, 8/19)

Becker's Hospital Review: Is Keck Medicine's Chief Post-Acute Officer The 1st Of His Kind?
In September, CMS selected 741 hospitals to participate in a new reimbursement framework, the Transforming Episode Accountability Model. Under TEAM, participating hospitals are responsible for the cost and quality of care associated with five surgical procedures — lower extremity joint replacement, hip femur fracture treatment, spinal fusion, coronary artery bypass graft and major bowel procedures — for 30 days after patient discharge. ... As health systems prepare for the TEAM’s implementation in 2026, one industry leader whom they might want to call is Felipe Osorno, chief post-acute care officer at Los Angeles-based Keck Medicine of USC. (Gregerson, 8/19)

Times of San Diego: North SD Caregivers Nominated For National “Spirit Of Caring” Award
Griswold Home Care for North San Diego said that two of its care partners, Sanjay Patel and Fidelia Underwood, have been nominated for the Home Care Association of America’s 2025 Caregiver of the Year – Spirit of Caring Award. Both have earned perfect client satisfaction ratings and are recognized for helping prevent caregiver burnout, reduce family stress, and avoid unnecessary out-of-home placements — work that supports the mission of the San Diego Regional Center, according to a news release. (Sklar, 8/19)

Becker's Hospital Review: RN Median Hourly Pay, By State
Median hourly base pay for registered nurses varies across states, with RNs in California earning the most, according to SullivanCotter’s “2025 Health Care Staff Compensation Survey Report.” The survey, released in July, covers nearly 2.5 million healthcare employees across over 2,660 participating organizations, including more than 800,000 individual RNs, licensed practical nurses and nursing managers. (Gooch, 8/19)

Becker's Hospital Review: The Clinical Workflows CNIOs Say Are Overdue For Tech Change
Clinical workflows continue to be a major source of inefficiency and frustration for nurses. Documentation, admissions, and medication reconciliation often remain manual, time-consuming and prone to error, even as technology advances in other parts of care delivery. Chief nursing informatics officers told Becker’s that rethinking these processes with tools such as AI, automation and ambient listening could reduce administrative burden, improve accuracy and give time back to the bedside. (Jeffries, 8/19)

Modern Healthcare: Employer Healthcare Costs To Increase By 9% In 2026: Report 
Employers are renegotiating vendor contracts, paring back benefits and implementing new pharmacy models to offset the largest projected rise in healthcare costs in at least a decade. Large companies’ median healthcare costs will grow by an estimated 9% in 2026, up from 8% this year, and the highest increase since at least 2017, according to a report the Business Group on Health published Tuesday. Employers plan to use a variety of strategies to combat rising expenses. Making changes to the health insurance they offer employees could reduce the anticipated increase in costs to 7.6% next year, the report said. (Tepper, 8/19)

Stat: That AI Scribe Your Doctor Is Using? It May Make Your Bill Go Up 
Like any conscientious health policy PhD student, Paige Nong went to the doctor for her free annual well visit. But as she checked in, the person at the front desk said something that made her anxious. “Just so you know, don’t discuss any problems while you’re in the room,” she recalled the receptionist saying. “Because if you do, we’ll change the visit to an office visit and you’ll get charged for it.” (Trang, 8/20)

Bay Area News Group: Alameda Health System Confronts ‘Nuclear Option’ Budget After Medicaid Cuts
When congressional Republicans finalized the details of President Donald Trump’s budget bill in July, Alameda Health System CEO James Jackson’s worst fears were realized — the bill called for a $1 trillion cut to Medicaid that would undermine the hospital’s primary revenue stream. (Hunter, 8/19)

MedPage Today: CMS Announces Plan To Disenroll Noncitizens From Medicaid And CHIP
The Trump administration announced a new initiative Tuesday aimed at getting noncitizens disenrolled from the Medicaid program and the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP). "CMS will begin providing states with monthly enrollment reports identifying individuals whose citizenship or immigration status could not be confirmed through federal databases," the agency said in a press release. "States are responsible for reviewing cases, verifying the citizenship or immigration status of identified individuals, requesting additional documentation if needed, and taking appropriate actions when necessary, including adjusting coverage or enforcing noncitizen eligibility rules." (Frieden, 8/19)

Politico: Looming Medicaid Cuts Could Hurt Black Children, Advocates Warn 
Advocates are warning the Medicaid cuts in President Donald Trump’s tax and spending law will disproportionately harm Black women and children who depend on the program, worsening already disparate health outcomes among Black Americans. Although Black people represent about 14 percent of the U.S. population, they account for more than 20 percent of Medicaid enrollees, according to Pew Research Center — and almost 60 percent of all Black children are enrolled in Medicaid, according to a recent analysis from the NAACP and other advocacy organizations. (Daniels, 8/19)

Fierce Healthcare: Young Medicaid Patients Seeking ED Psych Care Face Boarding
More than 1 in 10 psychiatric emergency department visits by young Medicaid patients lead to boarding, with rates of boarding varying widely from state to state, according to a recent analysis. Boarding, or a delay in the time until an ED patient is given an inpatient bed, has been cited as an increasing issue across the country’s EDs. The longer wait for appropriate care not only imposes a potential physical and emotional toll on patients but can increase the costs of care delivery while increasing stress and personal safety risks for staff. (Muoio, 8/19)

Voice of OC: OC Supervisors Reject Fire Authority Ambulance Plan, Pick Private Contractor
Orange County Supervisors opted to keep their ambulance contractor despite calls from the OC Fire Authority’s Fire Chief and firefighters union to give the county’s largest firefighting agency the chance to handle more medical calls. It’s the second debate county supervisors have had in two months over how their staff review contracts after they rejected their executives’ recommendation and picked a different therapy contractor onboard last month. (Biesiada, 8/19)

KVPR: Kern County Supervisors Agree To Investigate CPS Following Genesis Mata’s Death
Kern County supervisors on Tuesday unanimously agreed to launch an investigation into the county’s child protective services (CPS) agency. The resolution follows the gruesome death of 8-year-old Genesis Mata earlier this month, which her family says could have been prevented if CPS had taken action earlier. Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting included nearly an hour of public comment about CPS. Many residents claimed the agency failed to act on abuse, while others claimed it wrongly tore children away from safe families. (Klein, 8/19)

Los Angeles Times: As Southland Heat Wave Hits, Union Says Safety Rules Being Ignored
The season’s most dangerous heat wave has arrived in Southern California, and yet many workplaces are not prepared. So says a new report by job safety advocacy nonprofit Worksafe that surveyed about 340 fast-food workers at roughly 200 chain restaurants across California. The report, released this week, found that 58% of fast-food workers surveyed in July said they had worked in excessive heat conditions in the last year. And nearly half, or 48%, reported experiencing heat illness symptoms including headaches, fatigue, dizziness, confusion, muscle pain or nausea. (Hussain, 8/20)

The Guardian: Community Rallies Around LA Teen Detained By Ice While Walking Dog 
A southern California community is calling for the release of a high school student whom US immigration agents arrested earlier this month while he was walking his dog. Benjamin Marcelo Guerrero-Cruz was supposed to be starting his senior year of high school at Reseda charter high school this month. But just days after his 18th birthday, masked Ice agents detained him as he walking his dog in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Van Nuys in what his family described as a kidnapping. (Anguiano and Clayton, 8/19)

Military Times: VA Needs More Oversight Of Health Care Options To Prevent Waste: Study
Veterans Affairs leaders are working with Medicare officials to cut down on duplicative billing for veterans medical services, but outside experts say fully fixing the problem will require better record-keeping and patient monitoring by both agencies. Last month, VA administrators launched a partnership with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to recover improper payments to medical providers who billed both agencies for patient services. An initial review found roughly $106 million in duplicate billings over a six-year period. (Shane III, 8/19)

The New York Times: Trump’s Get-Tough Approach On Homelessness May Sweep Up Veterans 
Midway through Donald J. Trump’s first administration, his top Veterans Affairs officials hailed an extraordinary achievement. A government housing program had reduced homelessness among veterans by nearly one-half since 2010. The program, known as HUD-VASH, provided homeless veterans with housing vouchers and case management, asking them to chip in about one-third of whatever income they received as rent. The rental assistance came with no preconditions, and drug treatment and mental health care were offered, but not required, an approach known as Housing First. But that approach is being swept aside by the new Trump administration. (Barry, 8/19)

Military.com: Pentagon Drops Coverage Of GLP-1 Weight Loss Meds For Medicare-Eligible Retirees
Military retirees and family members on Tricare for Life, and civilians with access to military hospitals and clinics, will lose coverage for weight loss drugs like Wegovy and Zepbound starting Aug. 31, according to the Defense Health Agency. Military health officials said earlier this month that Medicare-eligible retirees -- those who use Tricare for Life -- and Defense Department civilians and others with access to military hospitals but who aren't on Tricare will no longer be able to get these popular medications through the DoD health system. (Kime, 8/19)

Politico: RFK Jr. Attacks Pediatricians’ Group Over Vaccine Recommendations
The gloves are off in Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s feud with American doctors. Hours after the American Academy of Pediatrics, the professional society for doctors who care for children, issued Covid-19 vaccine guidance contradicting that of the health secretary, Kennedy accused the group of engaging in a “pay-to-play scheme to promote commercial ambitions of AAP’s Big Pharma benefactors” in a post on social media platform X. (Friedman, 8/19)

MedPage Today: No New Evidence To Support HHS Vaccine Changes, 'Shadow' Group Says
A sweeping review by the Vaccine Integrity Project (VIP) suggests no new evidence that would prompt the recent changes to fall COVID vaccine recommendations made by HHS. During a livestreamed meeting, members of the project presented evidence reviews for vaccination against three respiratory viruses in three specific populations: pregnant people, children, and those who are immunocompromised. (Fiore, 8/19)

CNBC: New Study Casts Doubts On RFK Jr.'s Reasons For Gutting Vaccine Panel
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recently gutted a key government vaccine panel, saying it was necessary to eliminate what he called “persistent conflicts of interest” on the committee. But new research from the USC Schaeffer Center for Health Policy & Economics appears to challenge that argument. Conflicts on that Centers for Disease Control and Prevention panel had been at “historic lows for years” before Kennedy restacked it with new members, some of whom are widely known vaccine critics, the researchers found. (Constantino, Coombs and Capoot, 8/19)

Los Angeles Times: Kidney Disease Is Killing Calif. Sea Lions: The Danger To Humans, Pets
As summer heats up and tourists flock to the California coast, beachgoers should be on the lookout for sea lions sickened by a recent outbreak of leptospirosis — a kidney disease that can result in severe symptoms in both humans and animals. ... Humans can get leptospirosis, contracting the illness through water or soil contaminated by the urine of infected animals. Symptoms in humans may include fever, headache, muscle aches, jaundice, vomiting, diarrhea and skin rash. The disease is typically treated with antibiotics. (Lin, 8/19)

The Hill: HHS Will Allow Emergency Use Of Animal Drugs In New World Screwworm Fight
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) became authorized Tuesday to allow the use of animal drugs to treat or prevent infestations caused by the New World screwworm, a flesh-eating parasite that has recently disrupted the cattle industry. A declaration from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will allow the FDA to issue emergency use authorizations for animal drugs to treat the insect. A spokesperson for the HHS did not specify what medicines have been greenlighted to combat the parasite. (O’Connell-Domenech, 8/19)

San Francisco Chronicle: FDA Warns About Possibly Radioactive Shrimp Sold At Walmart
The Food and Drug Administration is warning consumers not to eat certain frozen shrimp sold at Walmart after tests raised concerns about possible radioactive contamination. The agency said the shrimp, marketed under Walmart’s Great Value brand, was imported from Indonesian seafood processor PT. Bahari Makmur Sejati, also known as BMS Foods. (Vaziri, 8/19)