Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
State Highlights: St. Louis Nurses Protest Unsafe Staffing Levels; San Diego Methamphetamine Deaths Spike
Dozens of nurses gathered for a picket Monday morning to protest what they say are unsafe staffing levels at St. Louis University Hospital. In advance of contract negotiations, the hospital鈥檚 chapter of National Nurses United conducted a staffing survey in 2015 and compared the data collected to staffing guidelines set by the hospital鈥檚 management. Overall, optimal staffing levels were not met on 58 percent of shifts in a 21-day period. (Bouscaren, 7/11)
Methamphetamine is dangerous. If you want proof, just go to the San Diego County morgue. In 2014, county records show 262 deaths from meth-related causes. That鈥檚 more than the number of people who died from the flu and homicides combined that year. (Goldberg, 7/11)
A subsidiary of healthcare giant Kaiser Permanente has filed a lawsuit in California accusing a former employee responsible for investigating insurance fraud claims of embezzling $7 million. The suit by Kaiser Foundation Health Plan accuses Michael Albert Quinn of submitting invoices for investigative services that were not performed or were not justified over a 16-year span after he joined the company in 1998. (7/11)
Gov. Greg Abbott was admitted to Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio for treatment of burns on Monday, and will not attend an interfaith memorial service on Tuesday in Dallas honoring the five police officers slain during a peaceful protest last week. First lady Cecilia Abbott will attend the ceremony, which will include speeches by President Barack Obama and former President George W. Bush. (Atkinson, 7/11)
A mobile mental health unit that was to open in Manchester in July is now on track for October, according to the winning vendor for the project, the Mental Health Center of Greater Manchester...The organization hopes to build office space and two apartments for the program in the former Hoitt鈥檚 Furniture building on Wilson Street, which already provides space for Families in Transition homeless services and Hope for New Hampshire Recovery addiction services. (Solomon, 7/11)
BeniComp Insurance Co., a supplemental group health insurance company, has relocated its headquarters from Fort Wayne, Ind., to downtown Tampa. Initially, nine members of the firm's executive team will move to the new headquarters at 501 E Kennedy Blvd. The company plans to add at least three more full-time employees over the next year. (Harrington, 7/11)
As the landscape of concussion-related lawsuits continues to grow, Stanford finds itself in the crosshairs after David Burns -- an ex-football player with the Cardinal in the 1970s -- was listed as the main plaintiff on class-action litigation filed last week against the university, the NCAA and the Pac-12, as reported by CBS San Francisco. The complaint was filed on behalf of Stanford football players from 1959 and 2010. It's one of more than a dozen lawsuits filed since May by Chicago-based law firm Edelson PC. (Daily News Dispatches, 7/11)
The Seton Prenatal Clinic, which for nearly a century helped poor and uninsured women bring healthy babies into the world, has stopped accepting patients and will close its doors in early August. Like many charitable clinics across the nation, Seton has seen a sharp drop in patient admissions since the rollout of the Affordable Care Act, which has dramatically reduced the number of uninsured. (Serres, 7/11)
