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

Iowa News

Our neighbor: a tireless advocate
Ken Petersen has been telling legislators what to do for more than 25 years. Petersen, 86, has served as a volunteer advocate for several organizations and was one of more than 100 southwest Iowa hospital volunteers who attended the Iowa Hospital Association Legislative Day Wednesday in Des Moines. (Council Bluffs Daily Nonpareil)

Waukee nurse finds tough, grateful patients in Haiti
Brenda McGraw is a registered nurse who works as the Des Moines emergency management coordinator for Mercy Medical Center. She also is a member of federal and state disaster medical assistance teams, which provide emergency medical assistance wherever help is needed. (Des Moines Register)

Law may open door to clinical trials
University of Iowa Health Care cancer experts are hopeful a new Iowa law, signed by Gov. Culver on Tuesday, will encourage more cancer patients to take part in clinical trials. The law requires private health insurance companies in Iowa to cover the cost of routine medical care for people with cancer who wish to take part in clinical trials. (Iowa City Press-Citizen)

The Sammy Project helps families remember lost little ones
Torri Jenn and a few other photographers create photo albums for families of stillborns at St. Luke’s Hospital in Cedar Rapids. A stillbirth occurs when a baby dies more than five months into the pregnancy, but the mother still gives birth to her child. (KCRG)

U.S. News

At health care session, Obama stresses areas of agreement
Mr. Obama, speaking to lawmakers from his seat at the table they shared, not from a podium or with a teleprompter, used his opening remarks to make the case that reforming the health care system is critical to the nation’s economy. He made no opening bids, but instead called on the two parties to abandon their talking points and engage in a real unscripted discussion, even as he conceded that it might not result in a bridging of the deep philosophical divide between them. (New York Times)

Poll: Health care provisions popular but overall bills unpopular
Although the overall health care reform bills passed by the House of Representatives and the Senate are unpopular, many of the provisions in the existing bills are extremely popular, even among Republicans, according to a new national poll. A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Wednesday also indicates that only a quarter of the public want Congress to stop all work on health care, with nearly three quarters saying lawmakers should pass some kind of reform. (CNN)

Lawmakers lay into Wellpoint over rates
The issue of sharp price jumps isn’t going away, as evidence mounts that double-digit percentage increases aren’t unique to California. On Tuesday, Sen. Charles Grassley (R., Iowa) asked Wellmark Blue Cross Blue Shield, a nonprofit in Iowa and South Dakota, to explain premium jumps of up to 22%. A spokesman said the company recognized the increases were difficult for customers but that rising medical costs necessitated them. (Wall Street Journal)

Rising health care premiums prompt calls for more regulations in state, Washington
A typical family plan in Connecticut sold through an employer costs about $14,500 — an estimate based on the Kaiser Family Foundation’s report on 2009 prices and this year’s rates of growth. That’s fueling outrage here and elsewhere, especially since rates for individuals — people who buy coverage on their own rather than through employers or other groups — have seen their rates explode by 50 percent over three years, in many cases. (Hartford Courant)

Doctors group to focus on one hospital
Massachusetts’ largest independent doctors group is curtailing referrals to Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, a move it says is designed to better coordinate care of patients and reduce costs. (Boston Globe)

Snow day at the hospital
For hospital staff, snow day rules are the opposite of what they are for most people. The focus is not on an unexpected vacation but on work: getting to the hospital and doing our jobs despite linen shortages, short staffing in the cafeteria, slow-moving ambulances, dwindling supplies and doctors and nurses unable to show up at all. (New York Times)