Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Adoptees Fight For Access To Their Original Birth Certificates
Stateline: Adoptees Press States For Access To Original Birth Certificates
Peggy Klappenberger of Crownsville, Maryland, has a little game she plays with her two teenage sons. Every time she drives by the hospital where they were born, she points to the window of the room where their birth took place. She makes a point of telling them, over and over, that they are seeing the building where they came into the world. It may seem like a harmless quirk, but there’s a reason it’s so important to her: Klappenberger doesn’t know the name of the hospital where she was born. She doesn’t know her original name, either. (Povich, 4/26)
11alive.com: 2-Year-Old Gets New Heart At Children's After Being Abandoned By Biological Parents In China
Two-year-old Rynli Harris is all smiles after receiving a gift of life with a new heart, months ahead of schedule at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta. Hospital officials are also grinning ear-to-ear because it was their 400th transplant. “We were told that we might wait up to a year and we were terrified we might not make it to that,” said Tamara Harris, Rynli’s mother. “There’s not words for hearing your child can live and that somebody would, in the midst of the most unbearable grief and pain, would choose life and what that would mean for our daughter.” (Braverman, 4/26)
In other health care industry news —
Modern Healthcare: UHS Returning CARES Act Grants Received In Q1
For-profit Universal Health Services said Monday it plans to give back the COVID-19 stimulus grants it received in the first quarter of 2021. The King of Prussia, Pa.-based acute-care and behavioral health provider said it will return all $188 million in grants recorded during the quarter ended March 31. The grants were part of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act's Provider Relief Fund. UHS said it has begun coordinating the return—expected to take place in the second quarter—using a portion of its cash and cash equivalents held on deposit. (Bannow, 4/26)
Modern Healthcare: Study: Quality Declines When Hospitals Have Trouble Borrowing
Hospital quality drops off when hospitals have trouble borrowing money, researchers at the University of Minnesota and the University of South Carolina reported on Monday. In the first paper to directly study the effects of a credit crunch on hospital quality, researchers found that hospitals tend to deliver lower-quality care and worse patient outcomes when they respond to tightening credit by making up the difference through increased patient revenue. (Brady, 4/26)
Modern Healthcare: Tripathi: Hospitals Should Be Preparing To Share Unstructured Data
Hospitals need to start preparing to share and use unstructured patient data as the next phase of information-blocking regulations from HHS' Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology go into effect next year, the Biden administration's top health information-technology official said at an event Monday. The first phase of requirements from a landmark data-sharing rule from ONC went into effect April 5, under which healthcare providers, health information exchanges and certain software developers must share patient data with one another and with patients as requested, unless they meet an exception outlined in the rule. (Kim Cohen, 4/26)
KHN: Pandemic Imperiled Non-English Speakers More Than Others
In March 2020, just weeks into the covid-19 pandemic, the incident command center at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston was scrambling to understand this deadly new disease. It appeared to be killing more Black and brown patients than whites. For Latinos, there was an additional warning sign: language. Patients who didn’t speak much, or any, English had a 35% greater chance of death. Clinicians who couldn’t communicate clearly with patients in the hospital’s covid units noticed it was affecting outcomes. (Bebinger, 4/27)
KHN: Big Investors Push Nursing Homes To Upgrade Care And Working Conditions
Nursing homes and long-term care facilities, where 182,000 Americans perished during the covid pandemic, have taken heat from government regulators, residents and their families. Now the industry is hearing it from an unexpected source: their investors. Investors who own large shares of nursing home companies now are demanding that the operators improve staff working conditions and the quality of care. (Meyer, 4/27)
