Roundup: Mass. health costs may start accelerating again; Review questions Minn. HMO payment rates; Calif. lawmakers approve health care bills

Stateline: New York Takes The Lead On Palliative Care
The palliative care team at Mount Sinai Hospital gathers on a Thursday morning to exchange the latest information on the patients in their ward. It is a raw, unforgiving day outside, but the weather, the news, most everything beyond these walls are concerns that patients on this ward do not have the luxury to worry about. Theirs is a shrunken world measured in degrees of pain, blood pressure, heart rate, and a set of poor options -- none of which any healthy person would welcome. The simplest definition for palliative care is that it is treatment designed to reduce the pain, discomfort and stress associated with a serious disease. But it also entails eliciting from patients and families in dire circumstances their priorities and wishes to make sure the treatment conforms to those desires (Ollove, 3/4).

North Carolina Health News: Telepsychiatry Project Delivers Mental Health Care To Remote Corners Of NC
A pilot program to provide psychiatric assessments to patients in the emergency department is proving so successful that it will be rolled out statewide. … Mental health patients presenting to these rural emergency departments have long experienced excessive wait times, unnecessary involuntary commitments and admissions, extended lengths of stay and disjointed care (Ellis, 3/1).

Los Angeles Times: Motion Picture Home Ranks Among California's Best Nursing Homes
The long-term care facility operated by the Motion Picture & Television Fund, which in previous years faced criticism from nursing home advocates over quality of care issues and staffing levels, got some good news this week. U.S. News & World Report placed the fund's nursing home, which caters to entertainment industry workers and was once slated for closure, on its 2013 list of "Best Nursing Homes in California" (Verrier, 3/2).