The new health insurance reform package took a few steps toward increasing access to insurance and controlling costs, argues National Nurses United spokesman Chuck Idelson, but it did little to improve quality of care, one of the major challenges facing would-be reformers. But research published today in the journal HSR (Health Services Research) concludes that increasing the number of nurses in a hospital can do a lot to boost the chances that patients will survive–and to encourage experienced nurses to stick with the job at a time when many hospitals suffer from nurse shortages and high turnover.

California’s nurse-to-patient staffing law reduces deaths from common surgeries, allows nurses to spend more time with patients and helps hospitals retain nurses, a study by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania concludes. California’s landmark law requires minimum nurse-to-patient ratios for specific units in all general acute-care hospitals. It was signed in 1999, but ratios were phased in from 2004 through 2008

California's law limiting the number of patients that can be assigned to a nurse has resulted in fewer deaths and a belief among the state's nurses that they were able to provide better care, according to the first comprehensive evaluation of the landmark legislation. The study by the University of Pennsylvania, published today in the policy journal Health Services Research, compared deaths from common surgeries in California in 2006, two years after the law was enacted, to surgical deaths in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

Ten to 13 percent fewer surgical patients in New Jersey and Pennsylvania would die if hospitals in those states had as many nurses as California law requires, according to a University of Pennsylvania study published Tuesday.

Giant paydays are back at UnitedHealth Group. Chief executive Stephen Hemsley pulled in $102 million in 2009, with $98.6 million coming from exercised stock options, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission Wednesday. That’s the biggest payday at the Minnetonka-based health insurer since 2006, when former chief Dr. William McGuire collected $127 million.

"Take me to General" is a reference to San Joaquin General Hospital that a local police officer or firefighter might make if they were critically injured. The facility's reputation is that strong, according to nurses who work there. But that slogan could become a distant memory in a few months if county officials and hospital administrators move forward with a recommendation to eliminate its emergency neurotrauma center for head and spinal injuries.

Candidate Meg Whitman touts her experience at eBay, the online auction house that made her rich, but her career and personal fortune are entwined with another company: the Goldman Sachs investment bank, a major player in public finance in the state she wants to lead. Whitman’s relationship with the giant Wall Street firm — as investor, corporate director and recipient of both insider stock deals and campaign donations — could pose conflicts of interest if the Republican front-runner is elected governor of California, critics say.