Becker's Hospital Review: Medical Staff Members Sue California Hospital
Members of Los Angeles-based Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center's medical staff filed a lawsuit against the hospital Feb. 24 for alleged misconduct. The physicians described the medical staff as "self-governing" in the complaint and alleged hospital administration ignored medical staff bylaws by interfering in the peer review process and medical executive committee elections. The hospital administration refutes claims in the complaint. (Dyrda, 2/26)

Becker's Hospital Review: The ROI On AI For Nurses At Cedars-Sinai
The financial return on investment on an AI assistant for nurses being tested at Los Angeles-based Cedars Sinai has been reduced overtime, while the main focus has been improved clinician well-being, an executive told Becker's. Cedars-Sinai is the first health system to try out the Nurse Assistant app from tech startup Aiva Health, which transcribes nurses' voice dictation of patient encounters then uses the information to fill out fields in the Epic EHR. Becker's caught up with Rachel Coren, vice president and associate CIO at Cedars-Sinai, about how the tool has been working so far. (Bruce, 2/25)

San Francisco Chronicle: Investigation: Chaos At California For-Profit Psychiatric Hospitals
With California engulfed in a mental health crisis, the Chronicle set out to examine a critical and rapidly expanding part of the health care system: for-profit psychiatric hospitals. Reporters Joaquin Palomino and Cynthia Dizikes spent over a year investigating the facilities where tens of thousands of people routed by depression, drug addiction and psychosis are sent for stabilizing treatment every year, including a 15-year-old girl who died in San Francisco after being subjected to chaotic conditions and deficient care in several of these for-profits. (Dizikes and Palomino, 2/26)

San Francisco Chronicle: What Led To The Death Of A 15-Year-Old Girl Found In A San Francisco Driveway
The death of an adolescent girl in the Oceanview neighborhood was a mystery that shocked the city. But even before local authorities examined her body, Jázmin’s mother knew the underlying cause. Severe mental illness had ravaged Jázmin for the last two years of her life. Depression and trauma from early childhood sexual abuse drove Jázmin to self-medicate, run away and intentionally hurt herself. She was repeatedly detained in locked psychiatric hospitals operated by for-profit companies. These facilities are intended to stabilize children and adults in mental health crises while keeping them safe. (Palomino and Dizikes, 2/26)

Bay Area News Group: Medical Tech Heart Health Company Expands With South Bay Office Deal
A medical tech company that has embarked on a quest to combat heart problems has struck a deal to lease space in Santa Clara in an expansion move. (Avalos, 2/26)

Fierce Healthcare: Providers 'Wasted' Almost $18B In 2023 Overturning Claims Denials
Hospitals and health systems spent an estimated $25.7 billion in 2023 contesting insurers’ claims denials, translating to just over $57 in additional administrative costs per claim, according to a report from provider group purchasing organization Premier. That report, which surveyed 280 of the organization’s member hospitals, suggests a 23% increase in spending over a similar analysis of 2022 data Premier had conducted a year prior. (Muoio, 2/26)

Modern Healthcare: Inpatient Capacity Can't Keep Up With Demand, Hospital Execs Say
Health systems are treating sicker patients, straining already full emergency departments and inpatient units. Many health systems are struggling to keep up with the increasingly complex healthcare needs of an aging population, leading to overcrowded emergency rooms and delays in care. Providers are ramping up strategies to treat patients more efficiently and keep those who aren't as sick out of emergency departments. These strategies are critical as capacity wanes and providers face a potential decline in federal healthcare funding, executives said. (Kacik, 2/25)

San Diego Union-Tribune: California Gives San Diego $25M For Homelessness Services, A Decrease From Previous Years
The city of San Diego is expected to receive about $25.8 million from the state to support local homelessness services amid broad uncertainty about what funds the region can continue to rely on. (Nelson, 2/25)

KQED: San José Adopts Controversial Plan To Bus Homeless People Out Of The City
As San José Mayor Matt Mahan continues to champion a drastic shift toward shorter-term solutions to ending street homelessness, the city is rolling out another avenue to that end: busing people who are unhoused to family members or friends who will take them in. Mahan and city housing officials say the pilot program, called Homeward Bound, will serve as another tool in the city’s kit to help bring thousands of people who currently have nowhere else to go into a managed living situation. It is set to start as soon as this week and will provide up to $1,000 for bus and train tickets as far away as the East Coast. (Geha, 2/26)

KQED: This Bay Area Woman's Legal Victory Challenges California's Homeless Encampment Crackdown
Over the course of two years, Evelyn Alfred built a home on vacant city-owned land in Vallejo. Using wooden beams, insulation, tarps and some experience in construction, she built a two-room structure, complete with windows and blinds, a shower, leather couches and a raised bed. For Alfred, who is 64 years old, has several disabilities, and has been unhoused for more than two decades, her makeshift home provided shelter and stability. (Rancaño, 2/26)

North Bay Business Journal: Marin County Nonprofit Begins Mobile Van Service For Vulnerable Population
Ritter Center, a San Rafael-based nonprofit that provides services to low-income and homeless populations, will hold a community event Friday with Anthem Blue Cross Foundation to introduce Ritter’s new Behavioral Health Outreach Van, the companies announced Tuesday in a joint press release. (Sarfaty, 2/25)

CalMatters: ‘A Volunteer Jail:’ Inside The Scandals And Abuse Pushing California’s Homeless Out Of Shelters 
In Salinas, internal emails say the staff at one brand-new shelter grabbed the best donations for themselves and helped friends and family jump the line for housing. In Los Angeles, court records show a leading nonprofit hired a man who was convicted of attempted murder to work security at a shelter, where he committed three sex crimes in one day. (Hepler, 2/25)

CalMatters: 7 Takeaways From CalMatters’ Investigation Into California Homeless Shelters
All across California, temporary homeless shelters have become the foundation of taxpayer-funded efforts to get people off the street. (Hepler, 2/25)

Los Angeles Times: L.A. County Agrees To Let Calabasas Landfill Accept More Fire Debris
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted 5 to 0 Tuesday to allow Calabasas Landfill to accept potentially toxic wildfire debris outside its typical service area and increase the tonnage limits at two other Southern California landfills to accommodate the fire-related waste. Calabasas Landfill, a county-owned landfill in the unincorporated community of Agoura, is authorized to receive waste only from within a roughly 350-square-mile area, which includes about 70% of the fire-damaged area affected by the Palisades fire. The board unanimously voted to waive that restriction for six months, permitting Calabasas Landfill to receive ash and debris from the entire Palisades fire burn scar — and potentially from the Eaton fire and others. (Briscoe, 2/25)

The Desert Sun: Californians Sickened In Listeria Outbreak Linked To These Shakes
A multi-state listeria outbreak spanning several years that was linked to supplement shakes has sickened four people in California, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Barraza, 2/25)

Los Angeles Times: Mass Culling Of Poultry Hasn’t Contained H5N1 Bird Flu
Poultry producers, infectious disease experts and government officials now concede that H5N1 is likely here to stay. That recognition is prompting some of them to question whether the long-standing practice of culling every single bird on an infected farm is sustainable over the long-term. Instead, they are discussing such strategies as targeted depopulation, vaccinations, and even the relocation of wetlands and bodies of water to lure virus-carrying wild birds away from poultry farms. (Rust and Kaplan, 2/26)

KQED: Can SF's New Triage Centers Help Solve The Addiction Crisis?
A new “triage center” in San Francisco’s South of Market neighborhood opened in early February. It’s one of Mayor Daniel Lurie’s first tangible initiatives to address the city’s fentanyl crisis as he embarks on his first year in office. A second center is also planned in the Tenderloin. KQED’s Sydney Johnson visited the new center and tells us what she saw. (Montecillo, Johnson, Velasquez, and Kariisa, 2/26)

Politico: Gavin Newsom Is Launching His Own Podcast — And Inviting MAGA Favorites 
Gavin Newsom will soon host his own podcast where the California governor will mix it up with MAGA personalities, open his vast Rolodex for frank conversations with Democrats about how to come back from the wilderness and break news on consequential policy decisions. (Cadelago, 2/26)

Stat: Budget Bill Passes In House, But Clashes Over Spending And Medicaid Cuts Still Loom
House Republicans passed a budget bill Tuesday that is the first step toward extending Trump’s tax cuts and reducing spending on Medicaid. But Republicans nearly failed, and the two hours of messiness that led to its passage is an early sign of how difficult it will be to enact President Trump’s agenda. (Wilkerson, 2/25)

The New York Times: What Can House Republicans Cut Instead Of Medicaid? Not Much. 
The House passed a budget resolution Tuesday night after the speaker, Mike Johnson, persuaded several Republican lawmakers, including those who have expressed reservations about possible Medicaid cuts, to support the bill. In theory, the budget, which kicks off the process of passing an extension of tax cuts enacted in 2017 and up to $2 trillion in spending cuts meant to partly offset them, could become law without significant cuts to Medicaid. But it won’t be easy. (Sanger-Katz and Parlapiano, 2/25)

Center For American Progress: The Republican House Budget Resolution's Potential $880 Billion In Medicaid Cuts By Congressional District 
All states rely on federal matching funds to finance their state Medicaid and CHIP programs. A new analysis from the Center for American Progress explores the potential reach of these cuts by congressional district. Table 1 shows potential federal funding losses by district if the $880 billion in cuts were to be proportional to current Medicaid and CHIP enrollment using 2023 American Community Survey data from the U.S. Census Bureau. On average, each congressional district would lose $2 billion in federal funding over nine years. (Estep, Murphy, and Ducas, 2/24)

Fierce Healthcare: Trump Issues Executive Order To Crack Down On Price Transparency
President Donald Trump signed an executive order Tuesday to reinforce rules, put into place during his first term, that push hospitals and payers to make healthcare prices more transparent for patients. The order directs the Departments of the Treasury, Labor, and Health and Human Services to rapidly implement and enforce the Trump healthcare price transparency regulations, which were first issued in 2019. These rules were "slow walked" by the Biden administration, the White House said in a fact sheet explaining the executive order. (Landi, 2/25)

The New York Times: C.D.C. Suggests Terms Like ‘Health Equity’ Are Off-Limits, Then Backtracks 
The latest battle erupted on Monday, inside the domain of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., when employees of the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention received an email instructing them to avoid using more than a dozen “key words" when writing annual goals for performance evaluations. The disfavored terms, according to copies of the email reviewed by The New York Times, included “health equity,” “race,” “bias,” “disparity,” “culturally appropriate” and “stereotype.” (2/26)

Stat: CDC Will No Longer Process Transgender Data 
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will no longer process transgender identity data in order to comply with President Trump’s executive order, agency representative Melissa Dibble told STAT on Tuesday. Sexual orientation data is unaffected and “will be processed per usual protocols,” Dibble added. (Gaffney, 2/25)

AP: Judge Gives Trump Administration Two Days To Release Billions Of Dollars In Blocked Foreign Aid
A federal judge on Tuesday gave the Trump administration less than two days to release billions of dollars in U.S. foreign aid, saying the administration had given no sign of complying with his nearly two-week-old court order to ease its funding freeze. The lawsuit was filed by nonprofit organizations over the cutoff of foreign assistance through the U.S. Agency for International Development and State Department, which followed a Jan. 20 executive order by President Donald Trump targeting what he portrayed as wasteful programs that do not correspond to his foreign policy goals. (Knickmeyer and Kunzelman, 2/26)

The Washington Post: Trump Administration Says Undocumented Migrants Must Register
The Trump administration will require all unauthorized immigrants in the United States who are 14 and older to register with the federal government or face civil and criminal penalties, including up to $1,000 in fines and up to six months in prison. (Sacchetti, 2/25)