The Sacramento Bee: California’s Health Exchange Bent Own Rules In Awarding Big Contracts
A new audit slams Covered California, the agency tasked with enrolling state residents in Obamacare, for not following rules when awarding lucrative contracts without a competitive-bidding process. The report discovered nine out of 40 justifications given for the sole-source contracts were insufficient based on the agency’s own standards. Covered California’s policy at the time allowed sole-source contracts, but generally only when timeliness or unique expertise were required for the job. (Cadelago, 2/16)

The Associated Press: Auditor Questions No-Bid Contracts At Covered California
While the agency has significantly reduced its reliance on no-bid contracts, State Auditor Elaine Howle found it waited until January to comply with a bill passed last summer requiring tighter contracting rules at the agency. Covered California says it needed no-bid contracts to rapidly prepare for enrollment under the federal health overhaul and is relying less on them now. (Cooper, 2/16)

Capital Public Radio: Audit: Covered California Remains "High-Risk"
California’s state-run health insurance marketplace continues to be rated “high-risk” by the state auditor. A new audit released Tuesday expresses uncertainties about the sustainability of Covered California. (Bradford, 2/16)

San Francisco Business Times: State Lawmakers To Vote On Major Health Care Plan Tax Hike
The California Legislature is likely to pass a health care plan tax this week that will raise $1.27 billion annually, replacing an existing tax that is set to expire in July and raises $270 million less, the Contra Costa Times reports. Gov. Jerry Brown proposed the tax hike last month. (McDermid, 2/16)

The Atlantic: A Hospital Paralyzed By Hackers
A hospital in Los Angeles has been operating without access to email or electronic health records for more than a week, after hackers took over its computer systems and demanded millions of dollars in ransom to return it. The hackers that broke into the Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center’s servers are asking for $3.6 million in Bitcoin, a local Fox News affiliate reported. Hospital staff are working with investigators from the Los Angeles Police Department and the FBI to find the intruders’ identities. (Waddell, 2/17)

BBC News: Hollywood Hospital Held To Ransom By Hackers
Computer systems at Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center have been offline for more than a week following a ransomware attack. According to local news sources, hackers were said to have demanded $3.4M to provide the codes to unlock the stolen data. The hospital has confirmed the attack took place, but has not commented on the ransom. (Lee, 2/15)

Tech Times: Hackers Hold Hollywood Hospital’s Computer System Hostage, Demand $3.6 Million As Patients Transferred
Hackers have taken the computer system of the Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center hostage, demanding 9,000 Bitcoin or $3.6 million. The Southern California hospital is a victim of ransomware, and it has been down for over one week as it recovers from the attack. According to NBC, the damage has caused the hospital to be unable to continue day-to-day operations. To keep up activity at the medical center, the staff has turned to manual documentation using pen and paper to take down patient information and jammed fax lines and telephones to communicate from one department to another. (Lanaria, 2/16)

The Associated Press: Report: 3 of 5 Californians May Have Had Data Stolen in 2015
California's attorney general says as many as three in five Californians may have had electronic records stolen last year. Attorney General Kamala Harris said Tuesday that there were 178 data breaches in California endangering 24 million records. Her report blames a few large breaches for most of the thefts. That includes records exposed by health insurer Anthem Inc. affecting more than 10 million Californians. (2/16)

Bloomberg: California Reports 49 Million Records Breached In Four Years
The retail sector accounted for 24 percent of companies whose data was breached, while 18 percent of intrusions were reported by financial firms, according to the report. Social Security numbers, payment card data and medical information were the top three types of data stolen over the past four years, according to Harris. (Rosenblatt, 2/16)

Sacramento Business Journal: Cesca Therapeutics Lowers Losses By Cutting Costs
Rancho Cordova-based Cesca Therapeutics Inc. on Tuesday reported lower losses in its fiscal half as the company cut costs. Cesca lost $623,000 in the three months ended Dec. 31, down from a loss of $4.4 million in the same period the previous year. The company had revenue of $3.3 million in its fiscal second quarter, down from $4.6 million the previous year. (Anderson, 2/16)

The Los Angeles Times: After San Bernardino Shooting, One Doctor Seeks Ways To Turn The 'Golden Hour' Of Treatment Into Minutes
The mass shooting by Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, at the Inland Regional Center caused Neeki to reflect, sometimes with frustration, on whether more lives could have been saved. Since the Dec. 2 attack, much thought has gone into what could have been done better. San Bernardino police were widely commended for their quick response. But even the department's chief, Jarrod Burguan, said not everything went smoothly. (Parvini, 2/16)

KPCC: New Research Finds Surprising Type 2 Diabetes Links
UCLA researchers mined patients' electronic health records to uncover some surprising risk factors for Type 2 diabetes. First, the good news: being prone to migraines reduces your risk for diabetes by the same amount as being 29 years younger. But having a history of viral infections and chlamydia increases your risk for diabetes by almost as much as having a high body mass index. (Plevin, 2/16)

Ventura County Star: Stroke Patients To Get Quick Treatment Under New Program
Specially trained physicians will treat stroke patients quickly and remotely under terms of a program starting in April at county hospitals in Ventura and Santa Paula. Ventura County supervisors last week approved a three-year, $253,750 contract with Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital to provide assessment of suspected strokes within 15 minutes. (Wilson, 2/16)

Sacramento Business Journal: State Report Names Two Local Hospitals With High Infection Rates
A new report says California hospitals face a rising threat from an intestinal bacterium. (Anderson, 2/16)

The Wall Street Journal: New Drug Ads Tout Serious Conditions, Costly Treatments
TV audiences have grown accustomed to ads for treatments for erectile dysfunction, overactive bladder and a host of common or “lifestyle” conditions. But viewers of the Jan. 31 Fox broadcast of “Grease Live” caught a glimpse of the industry’s newest marketing tack: a clip promoting a lung-cancer drug. The spot is one of several hitting the airwaves for drugs treating serious, life-threatening conditions or those with relatively small patient populations—often expensive medicines prescribed by specialist doctors. For example, Opdivo costs about $12,500 a month for the average U.S. patient. (Loftus, 2/16)

The Associated Press: A Step Forward For Measuring Health Care Quality
The government, doctors' groups, insurers and patient advocates say they're coming together on a common set of measurements for what constitutes quality health care. A collaborative representing the various players Tuesday released quality measures for seven broad areas: primary care, cardiology, digestive system, HIV and hepatitis C, medical oncology, orthopedics, and obstetrics and gynecology. (2/16)

The Wall Street Journal: Pfizer To Pay $785 Million To Settle Medicaid Claims
Drugmaker Pfizer Inc. on Tuesday said it reached an agreement in principle to pay $784.6 million to settle a long-running U.S. government investigation of allegations that its Wyeth unit overcharged government Medicaid health programs for the heartburn drug Protonix. Pfizer said the agreement doesn’t include any admission of liability by Wyeth. The deal is subject to negotiation of a final agreement and court approval. A trial in the case had been scheduled to begin March 7 in federal court in Boston. (Loftus, 2/16)

The Wall Street Journal: Bosses Harness Big Data To Predict Which Workers Might Get Sick
Employee wellness firms and insurers are working with companies to mine data about the prescription drugs workers use, how they shop and even whether they vote, to predict their individual health needs and recommend treatments. Trying to stem rising health-care costs, some companies, including retailer Wal-Mart Stores Inc., are paying firms like Castlight Healthcare Inc. to collect and crunch employee data to identify, for example, which workers are at risk for diabetes, and target them with personalized messages nudging them toward a doctor or services such as weight-loss programs. Companies say the goal is to get employees to improve their own health as a way to cut corporate health-care bills. (Silverman, 2/16)