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A lack of psychiatric care beds and rising homelessness are fueling a dramatic increase in mental competency cases in Los Angeles County, a new study has found. The county launched a review after The Times reported on a surge in the number of competency cases in Los Angeles’ mental health court over the last five years. The number of cases referred to the mental health court’s Department 95 to determine defendants' competency had swelled from 944 in 2010 to 3,528 in 2015. (Sewell, 9/8)

Allina Health says the number of nurses crossing the picket line "continues to climb by the hour," with more than 413 now signed up to work just four days into an open-ended strike. The company said Thursday that 20 percent of its union nurses at Unity Hospital in Fridley have agreed to work. At Mercy Hospital in Coon Rapids 13 percent of nurses have signed up for shifts, according to a company spokesman. (9/8)

Reynolds American Inc., Altria Group Inc. and other tobacco companies are steering millions of dollars to defeating a $2 cigarette-tax increase in California, a high-stakes effort and the third such fight in a decade in the most populous U.S. state. The tobacco industry’s outlay of $35.6 million so far means that it has outspent supporters 2-to-1 in donations to defeat the measure, which starting in April would boost the levy to $2.87 a pack. The initiative would generate from $1 billion to $1.4 billion in revenue in fiscal 2018 for cancer treatment and smoking prevention. (Vekshin, 9/9)

Health regulators have sued nursing-home chain Vanguard Healthcare LLC, accusing it of providing poor patient care at some of its 13 locations, costing government insurance programs tens of millions of dollars. In their lawsuit, officials from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said the Brentwood, Tenn., company provided a level of patient care “that caused serious physical and emotional harm to highly vulnerable elderly, disabled and low-income residents at [its] facilities.” (Stech, 9/8)

As many as 80 percent of donor lungs are damaged by lifestyle or as a result of the manner of death, such as drowning or asphyxiation, which typically would make them bad candidates for transplant.But now, surgeons at Ohio State University’s Wexner Medical Center are using a procedure called ex-vivo lung perfusion to expand the pool by restoring lungs that would have been rejected in the past. (Ferenchik, 9/9)

Dr. Bob Sears, an Orange County pediatrician and nationally known critic of vaccination laws, faces the loss of his medical license after the state medical board accused him of improperly excusing a toddler from immunization and endangering both the child and the public. The Medical Board of California contends in legal documents released Thursday that Sears committed “gross negligence” and deviated from standard practice when he issued a letter in 2014 prescribing no more vaccines for the child. (Hamilton, 9/8)

About 2,500 OhioHealth employees — some new hires and others working in offices across central Ohio — can look forward to working in new digs near Riverside Methodist Hospital in a couple of years. (Rose, 9/9)

Over the objections of unions opposed to a further consolidation of the hospital industry, state health regulators Thursday approved an affiliation agreement that makes Yale New Haven Health Services Corporation the owner of the struggling Lawrence + Memorial Hospital in New London. (Pazniokas, 9/8)

A federal appeals court on Thursday rejected a woman's appeal in a lawsuit that alleged a Roman Catholic hospital in Michigan denied her adequate treatment during a painful miscarriage because of a policy banning even the discussion of abortion as an option. Tamesha Means said she went to a Mercy Health Partners facility in Muskegon, Michigan, the only hospital within 30 minutes of her home, when her water broke after only 18 weeks of pregnancy, according to the lawsuit filed against the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in 2013. (Skinner, 9/8)

A state administrative judge has recommended permanently revoking the license of a Houston dentist whose care culminated in a 4-year-old girl sustaining brain damage. In a strongly worded opinion, Holly Vandrovec ruled that Dr. Bethaniel Jefferson failed to meet a minimum standard of care in her treatment of Navaeh Hall, including not "recognizing and responding to the emergency situation," when the girl had a seizure and went into shock. (Ackerman, 9/8)