Featuring hospital and health care headlines from the media and Web.

Iowa News

Grassley fields questions at Town Hall meeting
When citizens expressed concern about the House and Senate not listening to the concerns of citizens on the health bill now being considered, Sen. Grassley said that you have to realize that “Washington, D.C. is an island surrounded by reality.” (Kalona News)

Braley downplays impact of Massachusetts Senate race
“Well, I think you can’t take a single senate race and try to make strong judgments about what that means for the rest of the country, or you could look at the house race that we won in upstate New York that we won recently and try to turn that into a referendum on the Obama agenda,” Braley said. (Radio Iowa)

Trinity part of statewide Haitian relief effort through Project C.U.R.E.
Iowa Health System and its affiliates, including Trinity Regional Health System in the Quad-Cities, have donated more than $30,000 in medical supplies and goods to the Haitian relief efforts. These supplies will be delivered Friday to Project Commission on Urgent Relief & Equipment (CURE) to its depot in Denver. From there, the supplies will be shipped to Haiti as quickly as possible. (Trinity Regional Health System Press Release)

Dedicated doctor saving lives in Haiti
A powerful 6.1 magnitude aftershock rocked Haiti Wednesday, a week after the first deadly earthquake. Still, St. Luke’s emergency room physician Rick Colwell is packing his bags for the island. The dedicated doctor who goes in as everyone else gets out; Haiti will be his third trip abroad to help victims of devastation. (KPTH)

Mercy selling homes for a dollar
Mercy Medical Center-North Iowa is expanding next spring. As part of that expansion, the hospital is hoping to turn a block of homes into more parking spaces. While buying one of the thirteen homes will only cost you a dollar, the buyer is responsible for what happens after the sale is done. (KIMT)

U.S. News

Pelosi says House cannot pass Senate’s health-care bill without changes
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday that the Senate will have to amend its version of a health-care reform bill before Democrats in her chamber would be willing to vote for it. “I don’t think it’s possible to pass the Senate bill in the House,” Pelosi told reporters after a morning meeting with her caucus. “I don’t see the votes for it at this time.” (Washington Post)

Why public support for health care faltered
The health care proposals in Congress that supporters were touting a year ago lack many of the easy-to-sell benefits, which became victims of the lengthy process of trying to win over wavering lawmakers, appeasing powerful special-interest groups and addressing concerns about the heavily burdened Treasury. (Kaiser Health News)

Another health care obstacle awaits in states
Republican attorneys general and governors in more than a dozen states are threatening to file suit to block a particular provision of the Senate bill that gives a special financial deal to Nebraska. Several have expressed interest in a broader legal challenge to the overhaul even if that provision is removed. (Wall Street Journal)

Resources few, urgency constant for N.E. trauma doctors in Haiti
It is a world apart from the exacting standards of the high temples of modern medicine in Boston and other US cities where members of two disaster teams now working in a Port-au-Prince school yard usually ply their trade. Here, they conduct surgery inside a sweltering tent without high-beam surgical lights or stools for the surgeons. Supplies dangle from the walls, and what passes for an operating table doesn’t move up and down. (Boston Globe)

How wasteful is your health care delivery?
Some doctors bristle at pay-for-performance metrics. Other doctors, however, jump at the chance to find out how they measure up to their peers. The competitive instincts that got them into and out of medical school and residencies kick in, and they try to improve areas where they may be lagging behind the norms. (HealthLeaders News)

Health IT czar rethinks national data exchange
David Blumenthal talks about making national network accessible to small health care providers and also shares thoughts on the Massachusetts election, e-medical records use and the health IT workforce. (InformationWeek)