Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Skewing The Data?: South Dakota Including NICU Beds In Hospital Count
AP: South Dakota Including NICU Beds In Hospital Availability
South Dakota health officials acknowledged Tuesday that they include intensive care unit beds designed for infants in their total count of hospital beds available in the state — a key metric that the governor has used to defend her handling of the coronavirus pandemic. COVID-19 hospitalizations reached 607 on Tuesday, marking a new high for the fifth day in a row. The Department of Health reported that about 37% of general-care hospital beds and 32% of ICU beds are available. (11/10)
The New York Times: As Hospitalizations Soar, El Paso Brings In New Mobile Morgues
Coronavirus patients filled beds on one floor. Then two. Then the University Medical Center, a teaching hospital in El Paso, set up tents to care for patients in a parking lot. A downtown convention center became a field hospital. To free up even more space, the state began airlifting dozens of intensive care patients to other cities. Local leaders clashed over what to do to quell the spiraling coronavirus crisis. The top county official ordered a lockdown and curfew. But the mayor disagreed, and the police said they would not enforce it. Then the state attorney general weighed in — a lockdown was unnecessary and illegal, he said. And the patients kept coming. (Goodman, 11/10)
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Aurora Pauses COVID-19 Community Testing To Focus On 'Bedside' Care
Aurora Health Care announced Tuesday that it was temporarily closing all its community testing sites to focus on "bedside" care as Wisconsin's spike in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations continue." We are pausing drive-thru and walk-up COVID-19 community testing at Sinai, Green Bay and Kenosha in order to redirect staffing resources where they’re needed most — providing patient care at the bedside," Aurora said in a statement. (Spicuzza and Carson, 11/10)
In other health industry news —
Crain's Detroit Business: Detroit Medical Center Laying Off Staff, Selling MedPost Urgent Cares
The Detroit Medical Center is going through another round of layoffs as parent company Tenet Healthcare Corp. of Dallas also begins the process to close or sell its remaining four MedPost urgent care centers in Southeast Michigan. Four knowledgeable DMC sources tell Crain's that several hundred employees have been laid off with more expected by the end of the year, including managers in multiple departments, nearly 100 newly hired nurses at Children's Hospital of Michigan and employed physicians at Tenet Physician Resources. (Greene, 11/10)
Philadelphia Inquirer: Tower Health Considers Selling Philadelphia-Area Hospitals
Tower Health, buckling under a massive debt load and huge losses over the last two years, will consider selling all six Philadelphia-area hospitals that the Berks County nonprofit has acquired since 2017, Tower officials told municipal bond investors Tuesday.“ We as a board will consider any and all strategic options,” with “a very strong preference, if not an obsession, to preserve the mothership, Reading Hospital,” Tower’s chairman Tom Work told investors on a conference call. (Brubaker, 11/10)
NPR: How A Minneapolis Clinic Is Narrowing Racial Gaps In Health
North Minneapolis, one of the most racially diverse neighborhoods in Minnesota, was already dealing with high coronavirus infection and death rates when George Floyd was killed by police outside a corner store just 3 miles away. His death on May 25 sparked deeper conversations all across the U.S. about the ways racial inequality plays out, including when it comes to health. Nationally, Black people are at least twice as likely to die from heart disease, from COVID-19 or in childbirth, compared with white people, and north Minneapolis mirrors those trends. Nearly two-thirds of Latinos in the area who get tested for the coronavirus test positive — that's a rate nearly 10 times higher than the state's rate overall. (Noguchi, 11/11)
Modern Healthcare: Delayed Care, Public Options And Lower Interest Rates Lead To A Mixed Insurer Outlook At Fitch
The unprecedented events of 2020 portend both good and not-so-good things for the future of the health insurance industry, a new Fitch Ratings report finds. First, the good. Fitch's authors wrote that the COVID-19 pandemic shined a spotlight on the importance of having health insurance for businesses, institutions and individuals alike. Going forward, that should solidify demand for basic and supplemental health coverage, Fitch said. (Bannow, 11/10)
In obituaries —
NBC News: Dr. Juan Fitz, A 'Hero Of Emergency Medicine,' Dies Of Covid-19 In Texas
When Dr. Juan Fitz, an emergency medicine physician in Lubbock, Texas, caught the coronavirus, he viewed it like he did everything else: as an opportunity to help others. Fitz, 67, “lived and breathed emergency medicine,” said Dr. Michael Chamales, the medical director of the Covenant Health Emergency Departments in Lubbock and a fellow ER physician who worked with Fitz for 15 years. (Chuck, 11/11)
