Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Oregon's Largest Health Care Strike Is First To Include Doctors
Some 5,000 hospital health care workers walked off the job Friday as they picketed all eight Providence hospitals in Oregon, in what the state health workers union described as the largest health care strike in Oregon history 鈥 and the first to involve doctors. Most of those participating in the open-ended strike are nurses. But in a rare move, dozens of doctors at a Portland hospital and at six women鈥檚 health clinics are also partaking, making it the state鈥檚 first physicians strike, according to the Oregon Nurses Association union. (Rush, 1/11)
The number of drug overdose deaths in Missouri went down for the first time in nearly a decade in 2023, according to the latest data from the state鈥檚 Department of Health and Senior Services. The number of fatal drug-related deaths, mostly from fentanyl and other synthetic opioids, had been going up for years and peaked in 2021 and 2022. The 1,948 overdose deaths recorded among Missourians in 2023 represented a 10% decrease from the year before. (Fentem, 1/13)
Indiana legislators are considering two bills related to distributing or taking abortion pills, which Indiana University professor of law says amounts to overkill because abortion is already illegal in Indiana. (Kukulka, 1/11)
A Mission Hospital pharmacy program that provides and tracks patients鈥 medications to ensure their safety has been plagued by nearly constant turnover for years,聽Asheville Watchdog聽has learned. Despite warnings from a supervisor about dangerous errors that could result from staff departures, hospital leadership did not take significant action to recruit and retain employees, even during a hospital-wide federal investigation and resulting sanctions. (Jones, 1/11)
Several times a week, teachers at Tiny Images, an early learning program in Fairmont, Nebraska, load up babies and toddlers into four- and six-seater carts and take the children on 鈥渂uggy rides鈥 through the building. They stop first to visit residents in the assisted living wing before continuing on to those in the nursing home. (Sullivan, 1/10)
