Practice

Dive Brief: Hospitals across the country have spent more than $3 billion on personal protective equipment since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, though costs have steadily declined since the worst shortages experienced during the second quarter of 2020, according to an analysis from Premier, a group purchasing organization. Before the pandemic, hospitals normally spent

Dive Brief: Telemedicine continues to be an integral method of care delivery for primary care physicians as COVID-19 drags on, according to a new survey, even as some states and payers begin to pare back virtual care access and coverage. Data out Monday from the Larry A. Green Center and the Primary Care Collaborative found almost

Dive Brief: Ransomware attacks on healthcare facility networks are causing medical device “outages” that put patient lives at risk, according to Kevin Fu, acting director of cybersecurity at the FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health. “You can’t have a safe and effective medical device if it’s unavailable” due to ransomware, Fu told AdvaMed’s annual

A government watchdog’s special fraud alert warning companies of red flags to avoid when soliciting doctors as speakers has caused a splash within the medtech industry — in particular new guidance on alcohol served at events. The November 2020 alert from the Office of Inspector General addresses “suspect circumstances” medtechs and drugmakers might avoid to

Think of the brain as a car with a finite amount of fuel available to function optimally. An excessive workload can drain what it takes for your brain to run properly. So too can having to work in a way that you are constantly switching tasks or being interrupted or interacting with user-hostile technology. These

Dive Brief: Already in the midst of a nationwide shortage, nearly a third of the country’s nurses say they are seriously considering leaving the profession, according to a new survey by Press Ganey. The trend could exacerbate the complications hospitals have in hiring and maintaining their nursing staffs. Particularly troubling to providers is the trend

Provider groups slammed CMS for an interim final rule released Thursday that lays out the arbitration process for determining out-of-network payments so that patients don’t receive surprise bills. The second major rulemaking on the No Surprises Act establishes that existing rates in a provider’s geographic area will be a strong anchor for final payment decisions

The country’s largest nursing union is accusing hospitals of skirting mandates it fought hard for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to temporarily impose amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Infection control policies early in the pandemic rapidly shifted amid shortages and changing guidance from government agencies, spurring tension between healthcare workers and their employers. Concerns over

Within the past 18 months, health science programs are facing added challenges with their clinical placements. Some schools paused clinical placements last year due to COVID-19, and now have a backlog in their existing clinical experience schedules. This exacerbates the already-increasing competition for high-quality clinical placements. There are more students, but in many cases, fewer

Dive Brief: The COVID-19 pandemic spurred health systems to adopt new technologies and meet the changing needs of their patients, though much of that momentum has stalled in 2021, according to a report out Wednesday from Kaufman Hall. Only 7% of the organizations Kaufman Hall surveyed scored in the first tier of its Healthcare Consumerism

Editor’s note: Claus Jensen is Teladoc Health’s chief innovation officer Until about 100 years ago, the village doctor was the primary and often only source of healthcare in the local community. They knew everyone, knew the history of your family good and bad, knew the disease patterns in the local community and were a ubiquitously

Dive Brief: Nurse burnout remains largely unchecked more than a year and a half into the COVID-19 pandemic, with nurses increasingly reporting they want to leave bedside nursing or the profession entirely, according to a new report from staffing firm Aya Healthcare. Nurses intent on leaving their roles are considering completely different working situations, such

Dive Brief: Four out of six infections routinely tracked at U.S. hospitals rose significantly during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data analysis published in the journal of the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America on Thursday. From 2019 to 2020, major increases were observed in central-line associated bloodstream

Contracts covering thousands of nurses at major hospitals expired and went up for renegotiation this summer, and despite some disputes, most of those hospitals and labor unions are reaching new deals relatively quickly. While nursing unions have long pushed for stricter staffing requirement like nurse-to-patient ratios — and continue to do so — they’re further stressing the

Dive Brief: Nearly 40% of hospitals surveyed from April through June by employment services firm Aon said they’re ramping up hiring to meet increasing demand for medical services following last year’s widespread delays and cancellation of nonemergency care due to COVID-19, according to a report out Monday. Another 36% of hospitals plan for normal hiring

Dive Brief: Outpatient facilities, including family medicine and specialty clinics, were targeted by cybercriminals nearly as often as hospitals in the first half of this year, according to a report from cybersecurity firm Critical Insight using HHS data. Among healthcare facilities overall, breaches are occurring nearly twice as often since 2019, and breaches attributed to

Dive Brief: Intermountain Healthcare is raising its minimum wage to $15 an hour starting Sept. 19 in a move that will impact 2,200 employees currently paid less than that rate, according to a release from the system. It’s also giving pay raises to 12,800 employees in more than 250 roles, ranging from 3% to 7%

Dive Brief: UPS Flight Forward, the logistics company’s drone subsidiary, plans to complete the first drone delivery of COVID-19 vaccines on Wednesday at Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, the company announced in a press release Tuesday. The delivery is leaving from the hospital and going to one of the health system’s

Dive Brief: More than one in 10 adults ages 16 to 64 said they delayed or went without needed healthcare services due to virus fears in the past 30 days, an April survey from the Urban Institute funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation found.  One in 10 parents delayed seeking care for their children

The crowds at HIMSS this year may have been smaller due to COVID-19 concerns, but the conversations at the annual health IT conference were just as weighty as prior years. The conference, which spanned several Las Vegas resorts from Caesars to Wynn, netted roughly 19,300 in-person attendees and 5,000 digital, organizers estimated late Thursday. Roughly

Women have an overwhelming influence on the way healthcare is delivered and hold more jobs across the industry than men. They make 80% of all healthcare buying decisions, in large part because they make those choices for both their families and themselves, and comprise 65% of the U.S. healthcare workforce, a 2019 report from Oliver

The pandemic is permanently changing the way businesses in all industries operate and how employees perform their jobs. That’s especially true in healthcare, where attempts to reduce physical contact spurred the brisk adoption of telehealth, home health services and virtual platforms to help patients with appointments. Analysts with McKinsey believe healthcare employers should rethink the

State lawmakers temporarily scrapped hundreds of regulations early in the COVID-19 pandemic to help businesses and consumers deal with widespread shutdowns, giving patients greater access to telehealth and helping spur an explosion in use of virtual care. A number of states allowed medical professionals licensed elsewhere to hold telehealth visits with residents of their state

Nearly two months since it became available, many doctors have yet to use the first drug approved in the United States to slow Alzheimer’s disease. The drug, known scientifically as aducanumab and commercially as Aduhelm, has been a source of hope to Alzheimer’s patients and their caregivers for the past several years. Rather than treat

Dive Brief: Hospital margins were still tight in June as rising expenses offset rebounding volumes and revenues, according to Kaufman Hall’s latest monthly flash report released Monday. Volumes and margins were much stronger in June than during the early months of the pandemic last year, the report found. But volumes were still well below pre-pandemic

Dive Brief: Health care startup Zocdoc announced the appointment of Edward Liu as CFO. Liu has spent more than two decades as the head of Americas Technology Banking at Morgan Stanley, and will oversee all of the digital healthcare marketplace’s finances.  Just prior to Liu’s hire, Zocdoc overhauled its pricing model, which used to charge practitioners a

Dive Brief: In what appears to be a break from the gloom physicians have felt over the past year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, independent medical practices “feel stronger, resilient, and positive about the future of their practice and the industry,” according to a new survey by Kareo. This feeling of optimism came despite the

Dive Brief: After months of being sidelined in the COVID-19 vaccination effort and plunging volumes last year threatening financial solvency, primary care doctors are now giving more vaccinations but are still worried about the future of their profession, according to a new survey. Data released Monday from the Larry A. Green Center and Primary Care

To ensure compliance and patient safety, there are two federal sources that healthcare organizations need to screen for exclusions at a minimum monthly, as well as State Medicaid exclusion lists. The two major federal sources that need to be continuously monitored are the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG)