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

Iowa News

Legislators discuss mental health, education, tax reform at CR forum
Less than two weeks into this year’s legislative session, roughly 100 locals confronted lawmakers on major issues facing the state, particularly how they’ll fund mental health reform. The 11 legislators at the League of Women Voters Cedar Rapids/Marion Legislative Forum Saturday morning at Mercy Medical Center fielded written questions about mental health redesign, property tax reform, and education reform. The panel included Senators Bob Dvorsky, D-Coralville, Wally Horn, D-Cedar Rapids, Liz Mathis, D-Cedar Rapids, and Rob Hogg, D-Cedar Rapids. (Eastern Iowa Government)

Shuttle service planned to Iowa City hospitals
North Iowans will soon be able to use a shuttle service between Mason City and the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics in Iowa City. Beginning Feb. 1, the shuttle will be available every Wednesday and Thursday through a program sponsored by Region 2 Transit and United Way of North Central Iowa. Region 2 Transit is a multi-county transportation service provided by the North Iowa Area Council of Governments. Cost is $20 per person round trip and is open to the public. The buses are wheelchair accessible. (Mason City Globe Gazette)

Medical team goes on church mission trip
Angie Hedges, a registered nurse at Great River Medical Center, participated in a weeklong mission trip to Haiti last month, joining 15 other charity-minded individuals who wanted to do what they could to help the citizens of the recovering country. January marks the two-year anniversary of a 7.0-magnitude earthquake that hit near the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince. The earthquake killed more than 316,000 people and left more than a million homeless. “There’s so much to be done there,” Hedges said. “I know it’s a huge country, but you can make a difference.” (Burlington Hawkeye)

Emergency workers use past natural disasters as training tools
The conference room in the Floyd Valley Hospital in Le Mars, Iowa was filled with firefighters, EMT’s and other emergency personnel. But there were no fires, accidents, or disasters for them to rush to the rescue. This was only a test. “This is why we concentrate on doing exercises, so that we all get up to speed. It lets us basically test our emergency folks, our equipment, and our system,” said Randy Ross, Monona County Emergency Coordinator. (KTIV)

National News

Big issues: health care, 2012
In this special section, the Wall Street Journal examines several of the most pressing issues in health care, including mandatory insurance, physicians using e-mail to communicate with patients, electronic health records and unique patient identifiers, Accountable Care Organizations and pharmaceutical patents. (Wall Street Journal)

Health overhaul lags in states
This is the year that will make or break the health care law. States were supposed to be partners in carrying out the biggest safety net expansion since Medicare and Medicaid, and the White House claims they’re making steady progress. But an analysis by The Associated Press shows that states are moving in fits and starts. Combined with new insurance coverage estimates from the nonpartisan Urban Institute, it reveals a patchwork nation. (Associated Press)

Chefs, butlers, marble baths: hospitals vie for the affluent
The feverish patient had spent hours in a crowded emergency room. When she opened her eyes in her Manhattan hospital room last winter, she recalled later, she wondered if she could be hallucinating: “This is like the Four Seasons — where am I?” The bed linens were by Frette, Italian purveyors of high-thread-count sheets to popes and princes. The bathroom gleamed with polished marble. Huge windows displayed panoramic East River views. And in the hush of her $2,400 suite, a man in a black vest and tie proffered an elaborate menu and told her, “I’ll be your butler.” (New York Times)

Texas doc pushing to revamp Medicare, Medicaid payment rules
As a family medicine physician at the JPS Health Network, Dr. Richard Young often sees patients with a list of heath ailments they want checked out at appointments. But under Medicare and Medicaid payment rules, he says that before the patients get very far into their lists, he’ll hit the point at which he’ll stop being paid for his time, and essentially will be donating his services. It’s a system that leads to rushed appointments and frustrations at times for both patients and medical professionals. (Fort Worth Star-Telegram)