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

Iowa News

FMCH to expand with rehab center
About a year from now, a new outpatient rehabilitation center will be serving patients of Fort Madison Community Hospital. FMCH has approved the construction of a 23,500-square-foot building, to be attached to the current northeast side of the hospital. (Fort Madison Daily Democrat)

Honoree Garcia-Padial followed father into medicine
The Alegent Health Foundation will honor four individuals from southwest Iowa for their professional and personal contributions to the community during the 2010 Heritage Dinner March 20 at Harrah’s Council Bluffs Casino & Hotel, 1 Harrah’s Blvd. Jorge Garcia-Padial, M.D., will be honored in the category of health and medicine. (Council Bluffs Daily Nonpareil)

Professor leads probe into rare eye disease
Vinit Mahajan has one very ambitious aspiration. “My mentors have invested their efforts into training me for one goal,” said the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics doctor. “Cure the blind.” (University of Iowa Daily Iowan)

Mercy Brain & Spine Center concentrates on complex cases
Mirza Baig, a neurosurgeon at the recently formed Mercy Brain & Spine Center, can easily rattle off three recent cases where the new team of surgeons, physical therapists, pain managers and other support personnel sprang into action to treat an injured or seriously ill patient with speed and efficiency. (Des Moines Register)

WHC offers sports enhancement program
Waverly Health Center Physical Therapy will offer a unique Sports Performance Enhancement Program for area athletes in conjunction with Wartburg College. (Waverly Democrat)

GRMC shows positive financial report
While many aspects of the economy continue to struggle and fall, the finances at Greater Regional Medical Center are looking up. The hospital’s financial report, which was updated by Greater Regional Healthcare Foundation and released last month, showed a good fiscal year for 2009. (Creston News Adverstiser)

U.S. News

Obama takes health care overhaul push to Missouri
The nation’s top health official challenged insurers on Wednesday to join President Barack Obama’s push to overhaul the medical system, arguing that if the effort fails it will hurt them as well as other Americans. Obama is to speak Wednesday in suburban St. Louis and then travel to northeastern Ohio on Monday, his third health care event in a week. (Associated Press)

Parliamentary hurdle could thwart latest health care overhaul strategy
The White House and Democratic Congressional leaders said Tuesday that they were bracing for a key procedural ruling that could complicate their effort to approve major health care legislation, by requiring President Obama to sign the bill into law before Congress could revise it through an expedited budget process. (New York Times)

Health care ad cyclorama to clog airwaves
It’s not quite election season, but President Obama is on the stump, pushing his health care bill. Now, millions of dollars in political ads aimed at swaying Congress are hitting the airwaves. (USA Today)

New tool lets patients call the shots at end of their lives
The document has an awkward name — Provider Orders for Life Sustaining Treatment, or POLST — but it seems to work. Where it is standard practice, most notably Oregon and La Crosse, Wis., far fewer people die in intensive care units hooked up to machines they didn’t want. (Minneapolis Star Tribune)

Group appointments give patients better access to physicians
Caring for multiple patients simultaneously has gotten a new boost as the nation urgently searches for sustainable models of health care. The group visit was cited as one of 10 trends to take seriously by the Future of Family Medicine Project, a national effort headed by the American Academy of Family Physicians looking for ways to improve the delivery of health care for both patients and their doctors. (Washington Post)

Mayors want health costs on ballot
A group of Massachusetts mayors, fed up with what they say is legislative inaction on skyrocketing municipal health care costs, has launched a ballot initiative for 2012 aimed at giving cities and towns more flexibility in reducing expensive benefits for employees, retirees, and elected officials. (Boston Globe)

Cost of medical school rises in recession
A family is struggling to pay for their daughter’s medical school education. They know that the average doctor graduates with about $150,000 of student loans, and wonder how they’re ever going to pay it. (National Public Radio)