JoNel Aleccia

Officials for the state program that sent a nurse to Summer Phelps' home the day she died will meet with Spokane health-care providers next week to review the case. At issue will be whether changes need to be made in the First Steps program, which sent staff to monitor an 8-month-old baby boy, but not his 4-year-old half-sister, whose bruised and battered body alarmed hospital emergency room workers.

Even as members of the Spokane Regional Health District Board grappled with whether to revamp her old job, former health officer Dr. Kim Thorburn revealed Thursday she has a new one: medical director for Planned Parenthood of the Inland Northwest. Thorburn, 56, said she'll start the half-time position with the nonprofit agency on April 5.

A Spokane doctor who performs 200 angioplasties a year urged patients Monday to read beyond headlines about a new study casting doubt on the procedure. "The public is going to hear that stents are bad," said Dr. Michael Ring, medical director cardiac services at Sacred Heart Medical Center.

Spokane Regional Health District board members remain undecided about whether to restructure the agency in the wake of the firing of health officer Dr. Kim Thorburn. In the four months since Thorburn's contract was terminated, board members have questioned state health leaders, surveyed employees and reviewed an urgent recommendation by the region's doctors to retain a single strong, professional public health official.

A Chewelah, Wash.-area group working to combat prescription drug deaths among rural young people will be among speakers Thursday and Friday at the 20th annual Northwest Regional Rural Health Conference in Spokane. Sherry Tilla, co-founder of the group Prescriptions for Life, will discuss the need for stricter monitoring of prescription medications and other steps to stem growing drug use among teens and young adults.

The management team credited with rescuing Empire Health Services from insolvency and putting its troubled hospitals into a position for possible sale earned $1 million for the effort in 2005. That is an amount equal to nearly half the company's $2.4 million profits that year.

Empire Health Services officials fretting about their future were forced to recast their past after admitting they wrongly claimed fame for establishing Spokane's oldest hospital. A company Web site that said Deaconess Medical Center "was the first hospital in Spokane" was corrected quickly Monday and apologies were proffered to Sacred Heart Medical Center, whose presence predated Deaconess by a decade.

A team of researchers from Washington State University has been awarded $1.5 million from the W.M. Keck Foundation to study the source of sleep. The award will allow a team of sleep and neuroscience researchers on campuses in Pullman and Spokane to test a theory that sleep is not imposed on the brain, but instead develops from within it according to need.

Spokane Valley's Itron Inc. is poised to become a world leader in utility meters and meter reading equipment after the announcement Sunday that it will acquire a Luxembourg-based company in a $1.6 billion deal. Itron officials will sell more than 4 million shares of stock for about $235 million to help finance the purchase of Actaris Metering Systems.

People interested in helping with the Spokane March of Dimes annual WalkAmerica project aimed at preventing premature births can join a kick-off breakfast Thursday. Connie Mutton, neonatal intensive care nurse at Sacred Heart Medical Center, will be the featured speaker at the event, held at the Red Lion Hotel at the Park, 303 W. North River Drive. For starting time and other information, contact Darah Poffenroth at (509) 328-1920 or by e-mail at dpoffenroth@ marchofdimes.com.

It would be a tricky proposition for the most skilled marketing whiz: Raise awareness of a potentially deadly public health problem without scaring the bejesus out of the audience or alienating them with false alarms. Starting this week, the state Department of Health is tackling just such a challenge as it launches a new advertising campaign focusing on a potential pandemic influenza outbreak.

Twice since June, practitioners at Sacred Heart Medical Center in Spokane left objects inside patients after surgery. At Coulee Community Hospital in Grand Coulee, someone operated on the wrong body part.

Volunteers for the American Cancer Society will continue to contact friends and family members from now through February , offering daffodil bouquets that brighten drab winter days – and raise money for cancer care. The annual fundraiser sends out crews now to peddle 10-stem bouquets for delivery on March 19. Cost is $10 for the flowers alone, and $15 with a bright blue acrylic vase. Gifts of Hope, a bouquet and vase, can be hand-delivered to cancer patients in area hospitals, treatment centers and nursing homes for $15.