Early In Pandemic, There Were More Telehealth Calls Than Any Other Kind

Modern Healthcare: Mental Health Treatment Was Most Common Telehealth Service During COVID
A new study finds during the first few months of the pandemic, patients were more likely to use telehealth services for behavioral health treatment than physical conditions. The study, published recently by RAND Corp., shows that 53.6% of patients with a behavioral health condition sought treatment via telehealth from mid-March to early May of 2020. By comparison, 43.2% of patients with a chronic physical condition used telehealth to receive care during the same period. (Castellucci, 1/11)

Bangor Daily News: After Years Of Political Wrangling, Bangor Psychiatric Unit Expected To Open Later This Month
A newly built facility on the Dorothea Dix Psychiatric Center campus in Bangor is set to open later this month, housing older patients with severe mental illness from across Maine. The 18-bed unit’s opening will cap years of political wrangling over how to address persistent concerns about staff and patient safety at the state-run Riverview Psychiatric Center in Augusta, which lost its federal certification in 2013 before regaining it in 2019. The Bangor facility had long been intended to house forensic patients who have been found not criminally responsible for crimes they have committed or have been deemed unfit for trial, but who no longer need the restrictive, hospital level of care provided at Riverview Psychiatric Center. (Marino Jr., 1/12)

In other health care industry news —

Fox News: Amid Faulty Disinfection, Coronavirus Patients Battled Deadly, Drug-Resistant Fungus: CDC
As if the latest deadly novel pathogen wasn’t enough, the federal health agency recently documented a summer-time outbreak of a serious, multidrug-resistant fungus in a Florida COVID-19 unit. Health department officials were flagged to four cases of the so-called Candida auris infections; three manifesting in the bloodstream, one presenting in a urinary tract infection. The CDC says this yeast can cause serious infections and death, especially in patients with underlying medical conditions. Worse yet, it’s difficult to identify, can be asymptomatic and lingers on surfaces. After the first four cases were found in an unspecified "hospital A," the CDC, state health department and the hospital launched a joint investigation to observe staffers’ hand hygiene, disinfection and PPE practices, per a recent CDC report. (Rivas, 1/11)

Stat: Crossing The Threshold: Violence Against Home Visiting Nurses 
It’s a difficult time to be a nurse. It’s an even more difficult time to be a home visiting nurse. This large group of health care providers, who are largely invisible in the media, are poorly paid and more stressed than ever before. (Ha Do Byon, 1/12)

Cincinnati Enquirer: Mercy Health Will Bring $156 Million Hospital Complex To Mason
Mercy Health officials say the health system will build a new hospital and medical office complex in Mason. The $156 million medical complex will include a 60-bed hospital on 30 acres off the Kings Mills exit on Interstate 71, according to a Mercy Health release. Construction is scheduled to start on the 156,900-square-foot medical center in the third quarter of 2021. The health system expects to start seeing patients there shortly after construction is finished in the third quarter of 2023.About 220 new jobs are eventually anticipated in Mason in 2024, eventually increasing to 275. (Mayhew, 1/11)

KHN: An Urban Hospital On The Brink Vs. The Officials Sworn To Save It
Illinois and Chicago officials are trying to figure out how to stop a private company from closing a money-losing urban hospital in a poor, underserved Chicago neighborhood. Trinity Health, a national Catholic tax-exempt chain, wants to close Mercy Hospital and Medical Center on Chicago’s Near South Side by May 31. Last month, in an unusual move, the Illinois Health Facilities & Services Review Board unanimously denied Trinity permission to close the 412-bed facility, which predominantly serves Black and other minority patients on Medicaid. (Meyer, 1/12)

KHN: Health Workers Unions See Surge In Interest Amid Covid
The nurses at Mission Hospital in Asheville, North Carolina, declared on March 6 — by filing the official paperwork — that they were ready to vote on the prospect of joining a national union. At the time, they were motivated by the desire for more nurses and support staff, and to have a voice in hospital decisions. A week later, as the covid-19 pandemic bore down on the state, the effort was put on hold, and everyone scrambled to respond to the coronavirus. But the nurses’ long-standing concerns only became heightened during the crisis, and new issues they’d never considered suddenly became urgent problems. (Pattani, 1/12)