Second Hospital In Idaho Stops Delivering Babies
Officials at Valor Health — a small, county-owned hospital in Emmett, Idaho — said in their announcement that it has been "unsustainably expensive to recruit and retain" nurses. The announcement comes just weeks after Bonner General Health in Sandpoint said it would stop its labor and delivery services. Bonner blamed staff shortages as well as the state's anti-abortion climate.
Idaho Capital Sun:
Another Idaho Hospital Announces It Can No Longer Deliver Babies
A critical access hospital that serves a rural community northwest of Boise will no longer deliver babies after June 1. Valor Health’s decision to stop offering labor and delivery care in Emmett comes on the heels of a North Idaho hospital shuttering its maternity services. It also comes as the Idaho Legislature is on track to defund research into preventing maternal deaths; as state lawmakers have banned nearly all abortions; and as Idaho chooses not extend its postpartum Medicaid coverage. (Dutton, 3/30)
In nursing home news —
Modern Healthcare:
CMS Proposes Nursing Homes, Psychiatric Facilities Payment Bump
Skilled nursing facilities would get a 3.7% Medicare reimbursement increase in fiscal 2024 under a proposed rule the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services published Tuesday. CMS also pledged that a long-awaited and controversial regulation establishing minimum staffing ratios at nursing homes will debut this spring. President Joe Biden announced that policy, along with other nursing home industry initiatives, during his State of the Union address in 2022, but CMS has yet to take action to implement it. The nursing home industry strongly opposes federal staffing ratios. (Turner and Berryman, 4/4)
NBC News:
Fast Closures Of Nursing Homes In Massachusetts Raise Alarms And Worry Over Patients
Hundreds of elderly residents and people with disabilities from four nursing homes in western Massachusetts are quickly being displaced as the company that owns them appears to be accelerating the pace in which such centers stand to close down. (Acevedo, 4/4)
The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer:
Deadly, Fast-Spreading Fungal Infection Reaches Ohio Hospital, Nursing Home Patients
Candida auris, a drug-resistant fungal infection that spreads easily in hospitals and nursing homes, and can lead to death, is on the rise in Ohio. Cases of Candida auris tripled from 2019 to 2021, and treatment-resistant cases also are rising, according to national surveillance data. (Washington, 4/4)
More health care industry developments —
Modern Healthcare:
Joint Commission Data Show Hospital Falls Up In 2022
Healthcare organizations and patients reported more than 1,400 serious adverse events to the Joint Commission in 2022, an increase from recent years, according to data released Tuesday. Falls, delayed care and wrong-site surgeries continued to be the biggest contributors to severe patient harm and death, the Joint Commission concluded. (Devereaux, 4/4)
Modern Healthcare:
Digital Health Funding In Q1 Buoyed By 6 Deals
A report from Rock Health, a research and digital health venture firm, showed funding for the first three months of 2023 totaled $3.4 billion across 132 total deals. Six mega deals with more than $100 million in funding accounted for 40% of this total. The six deals were from Monogram Health ($375M), ShiftKey ($300M), Paradigm ($203M), ShiftMed ($200M), Gravie ($179M) and Vytalize Health ($100M). (Turner, 4/4)
NPR:
Doctors Are Drowning In Paperwork. Some Companies Claim AI Can Help
When Dereck Paul was training as a doctor at the University of California San Francisco, he couldn't believe how outdated the hospital's records-keeping was. The computer systems looked like they'd time-traveled from the 1990s, and many of the medical records were still kept on paper. "I was just totally shocked by how analog things were," Paul recalls. (Brumfiel, 4/5)
The Boston Globe:
Former CDC Adviser Appointed Head Of Department Of Public Health
Dr. Robbie Goldstein, a senior policy adviser at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has been appointed as the new commissioner for the state’s Department of Public Health. (Bartlett and Lazar, 4/4)
Also —
The Boston Globe:
How The Hip Replacement Became The Hot Gen-X Surgery
Not her. Beth Laliberty was only 54. A skier, a soccer player — a kid. Sure, she’d been limping for years. And yeah, when she caught sight of her reflection in a window at Market Basket in Haverhill she was shocked by the hunched figure leaning on the cart for support. “Who’s that 85-year-old woman?” she wondered. But even so, when a surgeon suggested a hip replacement, Laliberty recoiled. “That’s for old people,” she thought. (Teitell, 4/4)
