The incident occurred in 2010, when eight people were infected with the potentially deadly form of pneumonia. A recently published study found that that all eight people had been infected after simply walking by the decorative water wall-style fountain in a hospital lobby. (None of the people had been admitted to the hospital at the time of their exposure.) All of the patients were workers, visitors or outpatients who were simply passing through the building. But all eight did have pre-existing medical conditions or other factors that made them more prone to infection.

Legionnaires’ is transmitted through inhalation near contaminated water sources.

Water walls and similar decorative touches are popular in hospitals because they’re soothing and calming for patients and their families. But this incident, the second time a water wall has been the vector for disease transmission, is raising questions about how safe these particular decorative flourishes are in a health care setting where people with already compromised immune systems are at additional risk of contracting a variety of illnesses.

The hospital in question, Aurora St. Luke’s South Shore near Milwaukee, shut down the water wall as soon as it was suspected of being involved in the outbreak. It has since been turned into a planter. Although the water wall was cleaned frequently, the fountains make an ideal breeding ground for bacteria since they’re generally at room temperature or slightly higher. In addition, the walls often feature decorative touches such as rocks that provide nooks and crannies that allow bacteria to thrive — and are notoriously hard to keep clean.

The study was published in Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology.

A new study seems to indicate that perfluorinated compounds (PFCs)  keep childrens’ immune systems from getting the full benefit of their vaccines. The chemicals are used to coat the popcorn bags, and are also part of many other products such as non-stick cookware and stain repellants.

Previous studies have demonstrated that PFCs don’t break down easily and can build up to toxic levels in mammals’ blood.

The most recent study, conducted by a research team at Harvard, found that mothers with higher amounts of PFC in their blood had children with less protection from diphtheria at age five. (Specifically, a doubling of PFC levels in the mother’s blood correlated to a 39% reduction in diphtheria antibodies in their children.)

Among the children themselves, those with double the PFC levels were found to be two to four times more likely to have an immune response that was too low to effectively fight off the disease.

The study was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

About 20% of Americans suffer from some sort of mental illness each year. About 5% have a disorder serious enough to disrupt their family, work or social life. Four percent consider suicide.

Those figures come from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, an annual overview of the state of mental health in the country. The survey is overseen by the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

The survey is an intensive undertaking, with data pulled from more than 68,000 interviews of randomly selected Americans.

Those most likely to report mental illness to the survey were women, young adults and lower income people.

Of course, being ill is one thing, having access to treatment is another. And on that score, the health care infrastructure isn’t working. Just under half of those with a mental illness receive treatment in any given year. More troubling, only 60% of those with a serious mental illness receive treatment.

Of those who said they needed mental health care and didn’t get it, the reason they gave was an inability to afford it.

Whites and Native Americans were most likely to receive mental health care. Blacks, Hispanics and Asians were less likely.

Between 2000 and 2010, the number of doctors hospitals employ has increased by 32% — up to 212,000 physicians, according to the latest edition of AHA Hospital Statistics.

Of those, 27.5% are covered by either a group or individual contract, 17.3% are directly employed by the hospitals — the rest, more than half, of all hospital doctors, aren’t employed or under contract.

The report also looks at many other vital areas, including hiring patterns for registered nurses, how hospitals apportion revenue, and various community health measurements.

Many current asthma treatments work in part by using anti-inflammatories to fight eosinophilic airway inflammation. But the researchers found that almost half of the patients in the study don’t have the condition.

Only 17% of those who used the inhaled steroids (an anti-inflammatory) had the condition, while 36% of those not taking inhaled steroids did.

Further study and treatment with inhaled steroids indicated that patients who had the condition responded  and experienced better airflow, but those without the condition saw no improvement. Patient response to treatment with bronchodilators which help open the bronchial tubes were similar in both groups.

Unfortunately, the tests to determine if a particular asthma patient is likely to respond to inhaled steroids isn’t feasible to do in a clinical setting.

The researchers said that many patients with mild to moderate asthma have a type of disease with a mechanism we don’t full understand and that will require new types of treatments.

The report was published by American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

A new report by federal analysts found that the reduced spending in 2010 (the last year for which data is available) was due to a combination of high unemployment, lower household income, a reduction in the number of people with private insurance and some folks opting to skip needed care (or choose cheaper options) because they simply couldn’t afford the preferred treatment.

According to the report by CMS, in 2010, health spending grew just 3.9%, only 0.1 percentage point faster than 2009. Total health spending in 2010 was $2.6 trillion, about $8,402 per person. To date, 2009-2010 had the slowest rate of growth of any two-year period in the 51 years this data has been tracked.

More troubling, although this rate is “slowing,” health spending still grew exceptionally faster than the rest of the economy. About 45% of the spending was shouldered by government agencies at all levels — up from 41% in 2009. That increase is largely the result of growing Medicaid enrollment and enhanced federal matching rates from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

At the household level, spending was up 2.8% in 2010. One-third of such spending was employee contributions to private health insurance. People weren’t necessarily getting more for their money though. A significant portion of the increased spending was due to higher cost-sharing requirements for some employees, a trend toward plans with higher deductibles and/or co-payments, and many people having to pay out-of-pocket for health care after losing their health insurance coverage.

The study, published recently in BMJ, looked at more than 64,000 women pregnant with a single child, who gave birth between April 2008 and April 2010.

For the purposes of the study, planned C-section births, C-sections before the onset of labor and unplanned home births weren’t included. The study compared the location of the birth (at home, a midwifery unit, a hospital, etc.) to see the number of medical interventions needed, as well as outcomes for the mother and child.

Overall, there were no significant differences and all types of birth options were relatively safe. But fewer interventions were done during births that took place outside of an obstetric unit. The mother’s medical history also made a difference: Women giving birth for the first time had a statistically significant jump in poor post-birth outcomes.

However, the study’s authors said a variety of birth environments should still be offered to women with low-risk pregnancies.

• Most organizations (82.3%) reported that all of their medical directors have contracts. Of those contracts, the majority, (72.9%) are for just one year — the fourth year in a row that number has increased.

• Wages are 3.9% higher on average for independently contracted medical directors to account for foregone taxes, benefits and insurance payments.

• The number of organizations offering performance bonuses to medical directors was up 4.3percentage points from 2010, to 26.9%.

Median hourly rates increased by an average 3.0% from 2010 to 2011.

The data is intended to help health care organizations make compensation decisions and learn more about current market trends. For more detail, visit IHS’ survey page.

More young people are entering the profession thanks to a efforts to make nursing a more appealing career option. According to a new study published in Health Affairs, there’s been an 62% increase in the amount of people aged 23-26 who started careers in the field between 2002-2009.

Now, the number of registered nurses is expected to keep pace with population growth through 2030. Previously, the number of nurses was expected to decline over the next 20 years.

The problem isn’t totally resolved though. Several independent reports suggest that key specialties, most notably geriatrics, may not have adequate numbers of well-trained nurses to meet patient needs.

To keep the workforce growing, experts recommended finding ways to make nursing a more mobile career. Right now, more than 52% of nurses work within 40 miles of where they went to high school. In the long-term, that could create regional pockets where there aren’t enough nurses to fill the required positions. To meet long-term needs of those areas, the researchers recommended:

• Expanding the number of educational programs in under-served areas, such as off-campus “registered nurse to bachelor’s degree in nursing” programs or increased use of distance learning
• Targeting educational support such as scholarships and loan forgiveness programs to local students, to encourage them to not only be nurses but also to serve their local area
• Urging state and university leaders to review admission policies for nursing programs and the financial aid they offer, and
• Funding programs and policies such as the National Health Services Corps that offer financial incentives to attract nurses to under-served areas.

Overall, measures of factors, such as wait time and one-on-one time with doctors, show that most patients are satisfied with the care they receive.

A recent study looked at doctor rankings at Dr.Score.com. The data, from nearly 15,000 patients, ranked six years worth of their doctor visits. Doctors were ranked on a 1-10 scale, with 10 being the highest rating.

The verdict: Health care pros are doing a good job of leaving patients satisfied.

The average overall satisfaction rating was an excellent 9.28. About 85% of ratings were a 9 or higher. Less than 2% of ratings were below a 1.

That may seem at odds with common public perception that a doctor’s appointment is little more than a date with frustration. The researchers said that perception is driven mainly by things that are out of doctors’ hands, such as opaque insurance company policies, and bad-news headlines. But most patients realize that their doctors are doing a good job of taking care of them.

The study appeared in Health Outcomes Research and Medicine.