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

Iowa News

Clarinda demonstrates support for MHI during public hearing
“We entered the third and fourth quarters of the game,” Jason Bridie, director of marketing for Clarinda Regional Health Center and a member of the Clarinda delegation working to save the institute, said. “There is still a lot that can happen, so we have to keep the pressure on about the need for mental health services in Southwest Iowa.” (Clarinda Herald)

FVH and clinics roll out new mission statement
“Our mission is to be a progressive health care partner serving you with compassion, integrity and excellence.” That’s the new mission statement for Floyd Valley Hospital (FVH) and its Family Medicine Clinics in Le Mars, Remsen and Marcus. The FVH Board of Trustees approved it during its meeting this week. (Le Mars Daily Sentinel)

Woman spent years helping others
Carmen Rutherford, soon to be 105 years old, got started making cloth dolls somewhere along the line and continued to sew them for more than 50 years. Many were sold to raise money for Mercy Hospital in Council Bluffs. (Omaha World-Herald)

Grassley, Boswell listed among 10 quirkiest Congressional Twitter users
One of the most remarkable aspects of Twitter is how its users manage to pack so much personality (or lack thereof) into 140 characters. Some Congressional tweeters are strictly business and post legislative updates and partisan talking points, while others try to cast themselves as the peoples’ politician by tweeting casual encounters with constituents or personal updates on their families. (OhMyGov.com)

U.S. News

Democrats skeptical health care summit is answer
First he called congressional Democrats’ yearlong march toward health care overhaul an ugly process. Now President Barack Obama wants to talk directly with Republicans, the very people his Capitol Hill allies call obstinate and uncooperative. It’s no wonder Democratic lawmakers are less than enthusiastic about Obama’s overture to the GOP. (Associated Press)

Anthem’s parent company defends health insurance rate hike
WellPoint says the increases of as much as 39 percent reflect rising medical costs and that its profit margin in California is ‘in line with and below that’ of competitors. (Los Angeles Times)

Defying odds, 8 quake victims arrive in Mass.
“If you let emotions prevail, you would want to take every single kid you meet there,’’ said Dr. Ian Goodman, a fellow in pediatric emergency medicine at Baystate Medical Center. “So you just kind of have to go on autopilot and take your emotions out of it. You have to find the ones who you can make the biggest difference in their outcomes.” (Boston Globe)

Costs on rise, nurses protest staffing changes
Tufts Medical Center says it has found a way to trim the high cost of nursing while improving care, but the plan prompted a protest yesterday outside the Boston hospital by nurses, who say it is an example of the intense cost-cutting pressure on hospitals statewide. (Boston Globe)

Indian Health Service Director Roubideaux: ‘We have a lot to teach the country’
A member of the Rosebud Sioux tribe who grew up in South Dakota, Dr. Yvette Roubideaux often waited five to six hours to see a doctor—and the physician was rarely a Native American. But she also has seen the pinnacle of American medicine. Determined to improve health care for American Indian communities, she opted to become a doctor and attended Harvard Medical School. (Kaiser Health News)

Health IT jobs outlook bright
Fully 96 percent of the IT professionals who were surveyed believed that the number of new health IT jobs that will be created between now and 2015 will fall between 50,000 and 200,000. Asked which jobs would fill the majority of the positions in the next five years, 63 percent of the respondents said consultants in electronic health and medical records and 61 percent said application trainers. (Information Week)