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

Iowa News

Iowa licensing board skeptical about requiring hospital error reports
The Iowa Hospital Licensing Board expressed reservations Tuesday about requiring hospitals to report certain types of medical errors to regulators and the public. The Iowa Department of Inspections and Appeals wants hospitals to begin reporting to the agency all unusual occurrences that threaten the health of patients. (Des Moines Register)

Sioux Center hospital building plan advances
Plans for a new hospital and medical clinic here took another step forward with formation of a steering committee that will play an advisory role in the project’s design and construction. Sioux Center Community Hospital and Health Center Avera’s building committee formed the 13-member committee to study evidence-based design practices. (Sioux City Journal)

New technology helps hospital keep quiet
A Des Moines hospital is just one of 20 facilities in the country to use a new high-tech paging system to help keep hallways and the hospital quiet. The new touch-screen system installed in every patient’s room at Methodist West Hospital connects patients to their nurse and other staff. (KCCI)

60,000 more Iowa kids have health insurance
About 60,000 more Iowa children are covered by government-based health care now than three years ago, according to an analysis issued by the Iowa Fiscal Partnership on Tuesday. According to partnership documents, the percentage of Iowa children covered by the Medicaid or HAWK-I programs increased from 29 percent to 37 percent from April 2007 to April of this year. (Mason City Globe Gazette)

Ambulance with patient sprayed by crop duster
An ambulance was sprayed with chemicals while responding to a medical call Tuesday. The Parkersburg ambulance was dispatched shortly after noon to a church in Parkersburg, located in Butler County. The ambulance reportedly was sprayed while traveling through Grundy County en route to Sartori Memorial Hospital in Cedar Falls. (Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier)

New reports says Culver’s I-JOBS employed 7,079 people in June
A telephone survey conducted this month of contractors and subcontractors doing work for Gov. Chet Culver’s I-JOBS program shows that at least 7,079 people were employed in June because of the public works program, a new report shows. Jobs were created or retained in every single county, according to the report, which was released by the Iowa Department of Management. (Des Moines Register)

U.S. News

Health care law has more doctors teaming up
Something unexpected has happened since President Obama signed the legislation in March. Spurred in part by the law, many independent providers across the country are racing to mold themselves into the kind of coordinated teams held up as models for improving care. In some places, the scramble is so intense that physician groups and hospitals are putting aside rivalries and signing new partnerships almost daily. (Los Angeles Times)

Census data reveal broad differences among states in rates of uninsured
The 2007 snapshot shows that Massachusetts, which has achieved near-universal coverage, had the lowest rate of uninsured people under age 65, about 7.8 percent. States with the highest rates of uninsured were in the South and West: Texas was at the top, with 26.8 percent, followed by New Mexico (26.7 percent) and Florida (24.2 percent). (Washington Post)

Texas battles health law even as it follows it
There are more uninsured residents of Texas — 6.1 million and counting — than there are people in 33 states. The state’s elected officials might be expected, therefore, to cheer a federal health care law that is likely to deliver billions of dollars from Washington to Austin and cover millions of low-income Texans. (New York Times)

Can CMS be a venture capitalist?
Regarding the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation: I don’t want to be a stick in the mud, particularly as my able friend Don Berwick takes charge of CMS, but I want to point out that previous efforts by the government to be innovative in other fields have failed. (The Health Care Blog)

Tobacco funds shrink as obesity fight intensifies
The steep drop-off in private funds illustrates the competition under way for money as public health priorities shift. In the race for preventive health care dollars, from charities and from federal and state government sources, the tobacco warriors have become a big loser. And the nation’s battle to shed pounds has in its corner the White House, with Michelle Obama leading a new campaign against childhood obesity. (New York Times)