Featuring hospital and health care headlines from the media and Web from November 14-November 20.

Iowa Headlines

A passion for rural medicine
Even before he began assisting family medicine residency physicians at Broadlawns Medical Center, Dr. Larry Severidt had been working with and hosting medical students in his private practice and at home. He was a rural family physician for 24 years in Manchester and Pella, where his patients at times included five generations of families.  (November 18, Des Moines Register)

Decision on new hospital name tabled
The new hospital facility under construction east of the Hamilton County Courthouse has no name yet, but the Hamilton Hospital board of trustees voted Tuesday night to name the street on which it will be located as Hospital Drive.  (November 18, Webster City Daily Freeman-Journal)

Carver Charitable Trust endows DNA Facility at UI Carver College of Medicine
Leaders of the Roy J. Carver Charitable Trust of Muscatine, Iowa, University of Iowa Health Care and the UI Foundation have announced a $2 million gift from the Carver Charitable Trust that will establish an operational endowment for the DNA Facility in the University of Iowa Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine.  (November 18, Media Newswire)

New technology helps expand hospital services in county
Clarke County Public Hospital will hold its first telemedicine clinic Nov. 24 when cardiologist Dr. John Pargulski helps the local health care facility embark on a new era. The first telemedicine clinic has been a work in progress at Clarke County Hospital since 2006 and is the result of hundreds of hours of meetings and planning.  (November 18, Osceola Sentinel-Tribune)

Krogmeier targets mental health system change
A tight budget will give the state’s Department of Human Services a unique opportunity to open a conversation with the Iowa Legislature during the 2010 session.  (November 18, Burlington Hawk Eye)

Families look for care, hope
Toni Gonnerman doesn’t know what exactly needs to change to help North Iowa families cope better with mental illness in their children.  “But from my experience what we have isn’t working,” she said, from her Mason City home.  (November 14, Mason City Globe Gazette)

U.S.  Headlines

Medicare paid $47 billion in suspect claims
The government paid more than $47 billion in questionable Medicare claims including medical treatment showing little relation to a patient’s condition, wasting taxpayer dollars at a rate nearly three times the previous year. (November 15, Associated Press)

Why this Wisconsin city is the best place to die
There’s a proposal — it’s in the health bill passed by the House of Representatives — that would pay for the kind of periodic and continued end-of-life discussions with patients that are routine in La Crosse. Gundersen Lutheran is pushing for it.  (November 16, National Public Radio)

Major Minnesota safety net hospital to cut jobs, charity care
Facing a crippling loss of state health care funds, Hennepin County Medical Center plans to stop seeing uninsured, nonemergency patients from other counties, cut 150 to 200 jobs and close two clinics on its downtown campus.  (November 19, Minneapolis Start Tribune)

Medical schools quizzed on ghostwriting
Senator Charles E. Grassley wrote to 10 top medical schools this week to ask what they are doing about professors who put their names on ghostwritten articles in medical journals — and why that practice was any different from plagiarism by students.  (November 18, New York Times)

Germany strains to provide health care for all
Germany’s century-old universal healthcare system is buckling under the weight of a growing deficit that has forced the government to explore an overhaul. Under the German system, everyone is obliged to pay into the system and all who need care can get it. Costs are shared between employers and workers, whose premiums are staggered according to income.  (November 19, Wall Street Journal)

U.S. medical workers balk at mandatory flu vaccines
Even as they are forced to wait like everyone else for swine flu vaccines in short supply, thousands of nurses and other front-line health care workers are fighting mandatory flu immunization policies being put in place by some U.S. hospitals.  (November 14, Reuters)

Florida Senators: Let’s drop out of Medicaid
Top Florida senators said the state should consider dropping out of the federal-state Medicaid program to avoid a planned expansion and create its own health care system for low-income residents.  (November 17, Miami Herald)

Business foes of health care reform ramp up opposition
Business foes of healthcare overhaul legislation are outspending supporters at a rate of 2-to-1 for TV ads as they grow increasingly nervous about a final bill. Led by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, opponents of the Democratic health care drive have spent $24 million on TV commercials over the past month to $12 million spent by labor unions and other backers.  (November 17, Associated Press)