State Highlights: California Governor Sees Health Care As Route To Resistance To Trump; Consolidation Of N.H. Hospitals Sparks Concerns About Oversight

Politico: Newsom Makes Health Care The Centerpiece Of California’s Resistance To Trump
For California under Gov. Gavin Newsom, the resistance to President Donald Trump is about health care. Much as his predecessor Jerry Brown made climate change the state’s big challenge to Trump, Newsom has embarked on a health agenda that includes extending care to undocumented adults and direct government negotiation of drug prices. (Colliver, 1/27)

Concord (N.H.) Monitor: As N.H. Hospitals Combine Forces, Some Wonder If More State Oversight Is Needed
New Hampshire hospitals continue to join forces at a dizzying pace with two huge transactions announced last week, adding fire to a long-running debate about whether more oversight of sweeping health care changes is needed. …As if to emphasize the matter, the first hearing on the bill was held Thursday at almost exactly the same time that the parent organizations of Dartmouth-Hitchcock and Catholic Medical Center hospitals announced their plans to join operations. (Brooks, 1/26)

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: DFCS Vows Policy Change After Children Are Found Buried
The Georgia Division of Family and Children Services is changing how it responds to some reports of abuse following the deaths of two children in South Georgia who had extensive histories with the agency. DFCS said it is accepting “shared responsibility” with others and trying to improve after declining to act on warning signs that Elwyn “JR” Crocker Jr. and his younger sister Mary Crocker could be in danger. (Sharpe, 1/25)

Arizona Republic: Ducey Calls For Removal Of Hacienda Board, Slams Ex-CEO Bill Timmons
Gov. Doug Ducey on Friday called for the removal of Hacienda HealthCare’s board of directors, saying he had no confidence in the leadership at an institution where an incapacitated woman was raped and went into labor before staff members knew she was pregnant. Ducey’s comments came the day after an Arizona Republic investigation detailed how Hacienda’s former CEO kept his job despite years of sexual harassment and bullying complaints. (Anglen, 1/25)

The Baltimore Sun: Johns Hopkins University Buys Newseum Building To Consolidate D.C. Presence 
Johns Hopkins University is acquiring the building that houses the Newseum in Washington, D.C., where it plans to consolidate its presence in the nation’s capital, provide more opportunities for students and better inform policymakers, officials announced Friday. Hopkins is buying the building at 555 Pennsylvania Ave. NW for $372.5 million under an agreement with the Freedom Forum, which owns the Newseum. The university aims to broaden the practical impacts of its research and position itself to influence national and international decision-making from its new home. (Meehan, 1/25)

Arizona Republic: MANA House Is A Place Where Homeless Veterans Can Find Help
Online at the library, Rex found the MANA House in Phoenix, a transitional living program for homeless veterans, staffed mostly by veterans. The men live like they did in the barracks, four men to each tidy room, assigned to squadrons. An adviser helps them find work and housing and apply for services and health care, difficult systems to navigate and harder if you are homeless. (Bland, 1/25)

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: New Program Ensures Vets Can Get VA Care In Emergencies
Staff at the Milwaukee VA Medical Center’s emergency room were aware of the baffling trend: Veterans suffering heart attacks and strokes would drive themselves to the ER.Why not just call 911 and come by ambulance? The veterans worried that ambulance crews would take them to another hospital. (Jones, 1/25)

Kansas City Star: Centers Health Care Struggles With KC-Area Nursing Homes
State inspections continue to turn up problems at the Overland Park Center. Both facilities were formerly known as Serenity Rehabilitation and Nursing, when they were owned by Serenity Care Group. The facilities still rank poorly in the Nursing Home Compare ratings, updated in December by the federal agency that runs Medicare. (Marso, 1/27)

Kansas City Star: Best And Worst Nursing Homes In KC Area: Medicare List
These are the nursing homes within 25 miles of Kansas City that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services gave the lowest rating, one star, and highest rating, five stars. The agency updated its Nursing Home Compare website in December. (Marso, 1/27)

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Flu Activity Continues To Dip In Georgia But Remains High
The Georgia Department of Public Health said 3.9 percent of patient visits to doctors were for the flu during the week ending Jan. 19. That’s down from 4 percent of visits the week before, according to the most recent report released on Friday. While the steady decline during the past few weeks is encouraging, healthcare experts say flu activity is unpredictable, and the season could tick back up in the coming weeks. (Oliviero, 1/25)

The CT Mirror: New State Data: HIV Diagnoses Up In 2017
The number of people diagnosed with HIV increased in Connecticut from 2016 to 2017, according to new data released by state health officials Friday, but over the long term, new cases of the disease have been on the decline. There were 281 new HIV cases in 2017, up from 266 the year before. It was one of only four year-over-year increases in HIV diagnoses in a decade and a half of state data. (Kara, 1/25)

Nashville Tennessean: Nashville’s New Mental Illness Crisis Treatment Center To Open
Tennessee caregivers, law enforcement officers and state officials have come to agree — when it comes to mental illness, incarceration is not always the best option. The city is taking active steps to help redirect those suffering mental health disorders away from the criminal justice system to community-based treatment and supports. This week, officials will celebrate one of those solutions with the grand opening of the new Crisis Treatment Center operated by Mental Health Cooperative in MetroCenter. (Bliss, 1/28)

Chicago Tribune: Turn Your Head, Cough, Submit Your DNA: Your Next Physical May Include Genetic Testing. 
Starting in April, NorthShore University HealthSystem will offer extensive genetic testing to 10,000 primary care patients to determine whether they’re at higher risk of developing conditions such as breast cancer, colorectal cancer and heart disease. The tests could also help steer patients toward the most effective pain and depression medications based on their genetics. (Schencker, 1/25)

The Star Tribune: Future Doctors Learning To Put Down Charts, Share Personal Stories 
The thinking is that when providers reveal their own vulnerabilities, be it around mental health struggles, weight issues or just their own uncertainty about treatments, doctor-patient walls as immutable as marble tumble down and patient outcomes improve. This is likely why the approach is gaining national momentum. … Still, putting the patient in the driver’s seat of his or her wellness plan can be a tough sell for practitioners eager to, and trained to, take charge, diagnose and heal. The industrialization of medicine in the mid 20th century shifted care from such partnerships to a more hierarchical and paternalistic model. (Rosenblum, 1/25)

Sacramento Bee: Sacramento County Program Cutting Homeless Costs, Officials Say
Marcelous Bell, holding his newborn girl in the crook of his arm and with a roof over his head to call his own, is a new man. By his account, at 18, while he was still a senior in high school in Sacramento, his mother kicked him out of his house after a chaotic upbringing. He was always “different” from his family, he said, but once he was finally “exiled,” and his mother was arrested and sent to jail, Bell was lost – “Where do I go from here?” he wondered. (Yoon-Hendricks, 1/25)

Cleveland Plain Dealer: Cuyahoga County Council Leaders Pledge $3.5 Million To Hire More Corrections Officers, End Lockdowns At County Jail
Cuyahoga County Council has committed to spend about $3.5 million to hire enough corrections officers and jail supervisors to end the practice of locking inmates in their cells for hours at a time, Council President Dan Brady told cleveland.com on Friday. The money would come from the county’s general fund reserve of about $104 million and would pay for 60 additional corrections officers and the supervisors needed to manage them, Brady said. (Astolfi, 1/25)

Concord Monitor: Governor’s Commission On Alcohol And Drugs Against N.H. Pot Legalization
A panel of state officials and opioid treatment specialists have recommended against legalizing marijuana in the state of New Hampshire, arguing that the long term health effects aren’t yet known and it could worsen the state’s addiction crisis. In an unopposed voice vote Friday, the Governor’s Commission on Alcohol and Other Drugs took the unusual step to oppose House Bill 481, which would legalize and tax the drug in the state for those over 21 and provide a framework to regulate sales. (DeWitt, 1/25)

Kansas City Star: Medical Marijuana’s Secondary Economic Benefits In Missouri
Missourians approved medical marijuana with 65 percent of the vote in November. And while there may be some disagreement about the wisdom of that vote and whether cannabis in its raw form should be considered medicine, there’s no argument over the business opportunity. (Marso, 1/27)