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The American Medical Association, Brigham and Women's Hospital and the Joint Commission are joining forces on a pilot program to help health systems integrate equity into care delivery, the groups said Thursday. The year-long mentorship and networking initiative, called Advancing Equity through Quality and Safety Peer Network, is meant to improve health outcomes for marginalized patient populations and work toward racial justice for staff and surrounding communities. Experts will work with health systems to remove social and structural barriers to patient-centered care. (Devereaux, 5/19)

Detroit Medical Center's Detroit Receiving Hospital and University Health Center are in danger of losing Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement after regulators determined its nurses did not provide adequate care. A May inspection by the Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs found that the hospital was not in compliance with Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services rules around nursing after a 52-year-old patient developed bedsores during an emergency room visit in January. The Detroit News first reported the situation. Representatives from DMC did not immediately respond to queries on the matter. (Walsh, 5/19)

Virginia is the latest state to earn approval for a reinsurance program, which will reimburse certain insurers for high-cost claims. With the decision on Virginia by federal regulators Wednesday, 16 states have been approved for reinsurance programs. Virginia expects the program to decrease premiums by an average of 15.6% across the state in 2023. Individual market enrollment is projected to be 2.9% higher next year as well. (Goldman, 5/19)

The backlog of cases in the understaffed Maryland medical examiner’s office has been resolved, according to a state audit released last week. The office had amassed a backlog of 217 autopsies as of February, because of staffing shortages, which forced state officials to seek help from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Within a month, the backlog was resolved, auditors found. (Portnoy, 5/19)

Billionaire businessman Tilman Fertitta said he has always been a strong believer in the University of Houston medical school’s mission to improve health care equity in Texas. Now he’s donating $50 million to help make that vision a reality. Fertitta and his family on Thursday announced what UH leaders say is a “transformational” donation for the fledgling medical school, which welcomed its first group of students just two years ago. In recognition, the school has been named the Tilman J. Fertitta Family College of Medicine, as it prepares to open a state-of-the-art, $80 million building this summer. (MacDonald, 5/19)

Vanderbilt University School of Nursing is accepting applications for a new master of nursing program to launch in January. The new degree was announced by the school on Thursday. (5/20)

In the five months that Jennifer Anne Hall was a respiratory therapist at Hedrick Medical Center, the rural Missouri hospital experienced 18 “code blue” incidents — an alarming increase in sudden cardiac arrest events for a hospital that historically averaged one of them a year, according to a police investigator. Nine of those patients died, and nine recovered. Twenty years later, Hall was charged this month with first-degree murder in one of the deaths — that of 75-year-old Fern Franco. (Salter, 5/19)

KHN: Watch: Going Beyond The Script Of ‘The G Word’ And How Government Responds To Disease (Or Not) 

KHN Editor-in-Chief Elisabeth Rosenthal joined comedian Adam Conover to discuss his new Netflix series, “The G Word With Adam Conover,” created in partnership with Barack and Michelle Obama's Higher Ground Productions. In the hybrid docu-comedy series, Conover pulls back the curtain on the surprising ways the federal government affects our everyday lives, from the mundane to the life-changing. In a roughly 25-minute conversation, Rosenthal and Conover take a deep dive into Episode 5, “Disease,” which examines the government’s approach to illness and other health threats. (5/20)