Innovation, influence and business in America's medical cities.

Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland called financially troubled Forum Health in Youngstown “a critically urgent situation,” while three federal legislators appealed to President Obama for financial assistance for the bankrupt health-care agency.

The Cleveland Clinic Medical Innovation Summit is the health system’s signature event, but it was among five must-read subjects over the past week.

The company unveiled its redesigned site last week, which highlights Within3′s transformation from creating a LinkedIn for doctors to a Ning for health-care interests. Instead of building a physicians-only social network for all doctors to commiserate around any subject, it creates customized members-only social networks on specific subjects such as clinical trials, hospital alumni or medical specialties. It plans to double its 25 member staff by the end of 2010, and recent deals end “the speculation about will social media take off in health care,” said Lance Hill, president and chief executive officer at Within3.

The elite athletes of Ohio’s medical industry are ready to participate in MedCity News’ First Annual Medical Cornhole Tournament at 4 p.m. Aug. 27 at Upper Edgewater Park Pavilion in Cleveland.

MedCity News’ Medical Cornhole Tournament will feature 32 teams from throughout the medical industry Aug. 27 at Edgewater Park. Competitors include members of hospital systems like Cleveland Clinic, MetroHealth Medical Center and University Hospitals Case Medical Center; organizations like BioEnterprise, TeamNEO and the Ohio State Medical Association; medical companies like Steris, NDI Medical and Within3; as well as medical venture capitalists and media participants.

Even the medical industry gets to have a little fun every now and then. MedCity News is proud to sponsor its first annual cornhole tournament and picnic. Teams already include members of BioEnterprise, Cleveland Clinic Innovations, Within3, MetroHealth Medical Center, Invacare and Calfee Halter & Griswold.

Scattered from Cleveland and Seattle to Virginia and Massachusetts are companies still trying to prove out a winning model to gather physicians in a Facebook — or is it a LinkedIn, or is it a Ning? — type of environment reserved solely for the medical community. The perceived reward is worth the pursuit, though. The leaders of these medical social networks say that their sites, if done right, are the new place pharmaceutical companies can come (and spend their marketing dollars) to connect with doctors now that ethics policies and gift bans are keeping drug representatives away.

Cleveland Clinic oncologist Roger Macklis has for some time supported the owners of the underachieving drug Zevalin as a fresh way to treat lymphatic cancer: Piggyback that drug on other chemotherapy drugs to increase the effectiveness of initial treatments. A regulatory change could happen in July that fulfills Macklis’ mission for greater use of drugs like Zevalin.