With more than 605,000 dead of COVID-19 in the U.S. and nearly 4 million worldwide, thousands or more could be experiencing prolonged grief, the kind of mourning that experts say can prevent people from moving beyond a death and functioning normally again.
The total includes about 13% of the health system's employees overall.
For the first quarter of 2021, Cleveland Clinic and University Hospitals each posted operating incomes close to their projections as the health systems emerge from the financial challenges of COVID-19, per recently released financial disclosures.
In rural America, it’s increasingly difficult for ambulance services to respond to emergencies. One factor is that emergency medical services are struggling to find young volunteers to replace retiring EMTs. Another is a growing financial crisis among rural volunteer EMS agencies: A third of them are at risk because they can’t cover their operating costs.
The number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients jumped by nearly 27% over the Fourth of July weekend in a hard-hit area of Missouri where immunization rates are low, leading to a temporary ventilator shortfall and a public call for help from respiratory therapists.
"Those who got J&J should be less worried than they may have been before about delta," said Dr. David Diemert, a professor of medicine at George Washington University who was not involved in J&J's research. "It is reassuring."
Hospitals, local officials and academics united to create a novel system to monitor hospital capacity in Austin, Texas, that helped the capital city keep COVID-19 deaths lower than in other Texas cities.
A key part of teletherapy companies’ value proposition is their ability to increase access. But some experts wonder if these startups will eventually make it harder for individuals to see mental health providers in person.
According to a 2021 RAND Corp. study, drug prices on average in the U.S. are 2.5 times those paid by 32 other nations in the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development.
As the healthcare delivery system continues its slow march toward value-based care, improving health equity is quickly becoming a business imperative for governing boards.
Since Jan. 1 to deadline, 21,624 people have died from gun injuries in the U.S. More than 1,100 of those deaths were suicides. Gunshot wounds have killed 143 children under the age of 11 and 596 teens between the ages of 12 and 17.
Payers face some critical considerations as they work to scale up access to mental health services.
Physicians, who typically see cost-of-living pay increases each year, generally experienced much more modest salary gains last year.
As more mental health and digital therapeutics startups enter the market, experts say payers must demand that these businesses compete to be in their networks based on patient outcomes and return on investment.
"During the opening and closing of our COVID hospital (we were open for 12 months), we learned a new level of agility. We took the lessons we had been learning from Lean around continuous improvement and letting the people who do the work design the work. We put that into action at a higher level."
Well before the pandemic, many of America’s 4 million nurses had physical and mental health burdens tied to their jobs while the institutions that employ and train them overlooked or failed to prioritize these problems.
