Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Chicago Hospital Built After 9/11 To Handle Mass Casualties Faces First Big Test
The Washington Post: Chicago’s Rush University Medical System Was Designed For A Pandemic
As this city braces for April 20, the anticipated peak of coronavirus infections here, doctors and nurses at Rush University Medical Center say they are prepared, not just because of their training, but because of where they work: A 14-story, 830,000-square-foot facility built specifically for a deadly pandemic. The butterfly-shaped building, known as “the Tower,” opened in January 2012 as the first of its kind in the United States. (Guarino, 4/9)
Modern Healthcare: Hospitals Open Grocery Stores For Providers Treating COVID-19 Patients
Coleman's became the first CommonSpirit Health hospital to add a makeshift grocery store to the facility on March 30. As frontline caregivers across the country struggle to treat a growing wave of coronavirus patients, hospitals are increasingly adding grocery stores with little or no cost markups so employees can grab the essentials on their way out. (Bannow, 4/9)
Modern Healthcare: Ohio Hospitals Are Prepping For Big Financial Losses In Pandemic
Although hospitals are preparing to care for a huge number of patients in the anticipated COVID-19 surge, that demand won't translate to more dollars for healthcare systems. As they begin treating these more costly, higher-acuity patients and postpone more profitable elective surgeries, health systems across the country are bracing for significant financial losses. (Coutré, 4/9)
Kaiser Health News: To ‘Keep The Lights On,’ Doctors And Hospitals Ask For Advance Medicare Payments
Darrin Menard, a family physician in Lafayette, Louisiana, has spent the past month easing patients’ anxieties about the coronavirus that has killed 10 people in his parish so far. But Menard has his own fears: How will his medical practice survive the pandemic? His office typically sees 70 patients a day, but now it handles half that amount and many of those appointments are done over the phone or computer. (Galewitz, 4/10)
Modern Healthcare: Four Health Systems Providing Managers, Supplies To Detroit Field Hospital
Four metro Detroit healthcare systems are teaming up to provide staffing, support and supplies for the launch of a field hospital for COVID-19 patients inside Detroit's riverfront convention center. And Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's administration is giving the 1,000-bed quarantine space inside the former Cobo Center a name: the TCF Regional Care Center. (Livengood and Frank, 4/9)
WBUR: Boston Hospitals, Even Longtime Rivals, Work Together To Manage Flow Of COVID-19 Patients
Boston hospitals, even traditional rivals, have launched a citywide group to manage capacity, so that no one hospital becomes overwhelmed with COVID-19 patients while others have beds available. It's a bit like the Red Sox and the Yankees and other teams joining together for a common cause — heart-warming, and also a sign of true crisis. (Goldberg and Bebinger, 4/9)
WBUR: Convention Centers Fill With Beds For COVID-19, Including 500 For Boston's Homeless
For the last five days, workers from Teamsters Local 25 have filled the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center with rows of walls and curtains. Where it was empty a week ago, the floor will now bustle with medical rooms a thousand deep – a new field hospital to care for patients with COVID-19. Raised over the rooms is a blue and yellow flag with the hospital’s name: Boston Hope.While Teamsters Local 25 is used to building inside Boston's convention center, the union local president, Sean O’Brien, says this project felt different. It was personal. (Chen, 4/9)
