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

Iowa News

Iowa sees slight gains in mental health care spending since 2009
According to a state-by-state study of mental health care spending by the National Alliance on Mental Illness released Thursday, Iowa made very modest gains in mental health care spending, 3.2 percent since 2009. The data in the report were limited to general fund appropriations for state mental health care agencies. In states with modest gains like Iowa, increases may have been entirely offset if mental health funds under the control of other state agencies such as Medicaid agencies, housing authorities, or child and family authorities were reduced. (Ames Tribune)

Mary Greeley Medical Center’s community benefit tops $20 million
Mary Greeley Medical Center provides more than $22 million in community benefits to Ames, Story County and central Iowa residents, according to a study by the Iowa Hospital Association. The amount, based on 2010 statistics, includes a variety of free or discounted health services and programs, in-kind gifts, charity care, bad debt and unpaid costs for Medicaid and Medicare. (Mary Greeley Medical Center)

Schools more careful about concussions
Lewis Central, St. Albert and Council Bluffs’ two high schools implemented the Immediate Post-Concussion Assessment and Cognitive Testing evaluation this year through a partnership between Jennie Edmundson Hospital and Nebraska Orthopedic Hospital. The test evaluates a person’s cognitive abilities, providing information unique to each individual. Beginning in June, football players were tested to establish a baseline, said Jill White, an athletic trainer with Jennie Edmundson Sports Medicine who works with St. Albert athletes. Since then, some have sustained concussions and been re-tested. (Council Bluffs Nonpareil)

Stroke survivors benefit from Sioux City group support
Except for the fact they were meeting in a hospital, the members of Mercy Medical Center’s Stroke Survivors Support Group looked normal. “That’s debatable,” quipped Duane Ott. The stroke group members are testaments to the strides made in stroke prevention and subsequent therapy over the past two decades.  “We’ve come a long way from letting a patient lay in bed and heal,” said co-facilitator Carrie Puetz. “Even when speech has been affected, the therapy is almost instantly started and that makes a difference.” (Sioux City Journal)

When it comes to eating right, Clark knows her stuff
Julie Clark, who had worked as a staff dietitian at Trinity Regional Medical Center since 1992, volunteered to join the Diabetes Center when it opened. A native of Rockwell City, Clark initially studied journalism at the University of Iowa. However, she decided that a career in which she could make people healthier was more her style. She followed up with a new line of study at Iowa State University  and eventually earned a master’s degree from Tufts University of Medford, Mass. (Fort Dodge Messenger)

Iowa joins National Rural Health Day recognition
Governor Branstad will sign a proclamation November 17, 2011, designating that day as Rural Health Day, in conjunction with the national observance. National Rural Health Day is an opportunity to honor small towns, farming communities and rural areas, and also to highlight the unique healthcare challenges the individuals who live in these areas face. In Iowa, 90 percent of the land mass is considered rural, and half of Iowans live in an area that is considered rural. (Iowa Department of Public Health)

National News

Supreme Court to review Obama health care law ahead of election
The Supreme Court agreed today to decide the fate of President Obama’s health care law and its requirement that all Americans have basic health insurance by 2014. The justices said they would rule on constitutional challenges to the entire law brought by top Republican officials from 26 states, who contend the Democratic-controlled Congress overstepped its authority in passing the measure. The high court is likely to rule on the issue by late June as the presidential campaign moves into high gear. (Los Angeles Times)

Deficit panel seeks to defer details on raising taxes
With a little over a week left to reach a deal, members of the Congressional deficit reduction panel are looking for an escape hatch that would let them strike an accord on revenue levels but delay until next year tough decisions about exactly how to raise taxes. Under this approach, the panel would decide on the amount of new revenue to be raised but would leave it to the tax-writing committees of Congress to fill in details next year, well beyond the Nov. 23 deadline for the panel itself to reach an agreement. That would put off painful political decisions but ensure that the debate over deficit reduction stretched into the election year. (New York Times)

Report: Officials struggle to monitor myriad of Medicare fraud contractors
Medicare’s contractor system has morphed into a complicated labyrinth, with one set of contractors paying claims and another combing through those claims in an effort to stop an estimated $60 billion a year in fraud. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services inspector general’s report — obtained by The Associated Press before its official release — found repeated problems among the fraud contractors over a decade and systemic failures by federal health officials to adequately supervise them. (Associated Press/Washington Post)

‘Death is always cheaper’
Conventional health care wisdom says that a less invasive procedure will be less expensive: Fewer days in the hospital and an easier recovery should reduce costs, right? Well, it’s complicated. A new heart valve device and procedure approved by the FDA last week costs less than the standard treatment, but it can’t replace that procedure. Instead, it will allow an estimated 20,000 more patients — who would otherwise be inoperable due to frailty — to get the new valve. So the money that will be spent on these patients is in addition to the dollars already being spent. The new technology shows promise to extend the lives of very sick patients, but it doesn’t save money. (Kaiser Health News)