Practice

Dive Brief: Walgreens Boots Alliance plans to open 40 on-site primary care clinics by the third quarter of 2021, including sites in Houston that are already online and some in Phoenix opening this month. The clinics will be operated as part of an agreement with VillageMD, which is providing medical personnel to staff the sites.

CMS on Thursday detailed its highly anticipated geographic direct contracting model for Medicare beneficiaries. The program, which the agency’s innovation arm has been developing for more than two years, is intended to encourage provider care coordination across a physical area. “We believe it’s one of the center’s largest bets on value-based care to date,” Center

Dive Brief: Sanford Health’s CEO Kelby Krabbenhoft is leaving the top exec role after almost 25 years, according to a Tuesday announcement from the Sioux Falls, South Dakota-based system, following controversial statements the outgoing CEO made about mask wearing during the coronavirus pandemic. Sanford and Krabbenhoft maintain the decision is mutual. But it follows an

Dive Brief: Traveling nurses are in high demand and short supply amid a nationwide surge in COVID-19 cases, according to the staffing firms that recruit them for hospitals. Accordingly, hospitals are dramatically increasing their rates. Average pay packages for ICU travel nurses in November so far hover around $2,246 per week, a nearly 28% increase

Hospitals across the country are ramping up their efforts to figure out how to store, track and administer coronavirus vaccine doses following the recent news that an effective vaccine could be on its way within weeks or months. Hospitals will play a key role once a vaccine receives an emergency use authorization from the FDA,

Dive Brief: After years of speculation, Amazon finally announced Tuesday that it will sell and deliver prescription drugs on its online platform, Amazon Pharmacy.   When paying without insurance, Prime members will be eligible for up to 80% off for generic drugs and 40% off brand-name medicines.  The stocks of CVS Health and Walgreens took

As COVID-19 hotspots spring up across the country, hospitals must once again grapple with how to take care of those patients while keeping other services open safely. It’s a repeat of what facilities went through in the pandemic’s early days on U.S. shores this spring as hospitals struggle to secure enough staff and equipment. Then,

Dive Brief: A majority of providers said patient health has noticeably worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic due to delayed or inaccessible care, according to a new survey from the Larry A. Green Center and the Primary Care Collaborative. The clinicians said they are also confronting their own problems, particularly with the supply chain. More than

Dive Brief: The pandemic accelerated demand for more consumer-friendly healthcare services, including telehealth visits, online scheduling and mobile check-ins to reduce wait times, according to a new report from Kaufman Hall. Providers unable to keep those changes in place, or those whose services are limited in scope, capacity or functionality, will struggle competing against those

Dive Brief: Interoperability adoption and usability varies significantly by EHR vendor, according to a new report from Klas Research out Thursday, despite an ongoing federal push for free and unfettered data sharing. Epic and NextGen are the best main acute and ambulatory care EHR vendors at making external data usable, followed by Cerner, Klas found.

Dive Brief: Demand for temporary healthcare staff is on the rise again as systems across the country face a record number of COVID-19 cases. Staffing firm Aya Healthcare reported a 57% increase in demand for travel nurses over the past 30 days and posted 24,115 open positions as of Monday. Open “crisis nursing” positions increased 291%

Dive Brief: Primary care networks One Medical and Oak Street Health on Tuesday both reported significant year-over-year jumps in revenue and membership during the third quarter as delayed demand for healthcare services amid the pandemic came to a head. One Medical, a membership-based primary care platform, saw revenue jump 46% year over year to $101.7

Dive Brief: The Occupational Health and Safety Administration announced another $471,337 in fines Friday for safety violations related to the COVID-19 pandemic, covering the last week of October. Among 32 workplaces cited, 30 were healthcare facilities, including one ambulatory service in New York and an HMO medical center in New Jersey. Nursing and residential care facilities

Dive Brief: Patients overwhelmingly turned to telehealth visits early in the COVID-19 pandemic but skipped out on diagnostic procedures and other preventive and elective care that can only be done in-person, according to a study published Thursday in JAMA Network Open. The number of mammograms and colonoscopies performed in March and April dropped more than

The healthcare industry is far from alone in seeing the need to improve diversity among its ranks, particularly at executive levels. But the COVID-19 pandemic harshly exposed racial disparities in treatment and care outcomes that remain across the country. And the sector has a long way to go. A 2015 survey from the American Hospital

Dive Brief: A new survey by Doximity concludes that physician incomes rose only 1.5% this year compared to 2019, a steep drop compared to the steady 4% average increases recorded in recent years. The 2020 pay bump is also nearly a full point below the U.S. inflation rate, although they are still compensated handsomely. The survey

Dive Brief: The number of primary care physicians increased significantly from 2009 to 2017, though growth was more pronounced in urban rather than rural areas, according to a JAMA Network Open study published Wednesday. In urban counties, the density of primary care physicians increased 20.8% from 2009 to 2017. For rural counties, it increased by

Months into a crisis that highlighted flaws in the global supply chain, concerns around personal protective equipment still linger for healthcare providers. Thankfully, the pain today isn’t as acute. Hospitals are in a much better position now than at the beginning of this year. They’ve sourced through new channels, begun stockpiling efforts and used newly

Dive Brief: Health systems rapidly scaled up their telehealth, artificial intelligence and revenue cycle programs during the COVID-19 pandemic, according a report from the Nokia-GE Healthcare-UPMC-backed Center for Connected Medicine and Klas Research. But their speedy implementation magnified opportunities for improvement many want to address in the coming year. The survey of 117 executives representing

As health systems are set to start reporting their third quarter earnings results this week, new research highlights hospitals’ ongoing fears about financial viability, patient volumes and supply stocks. That’s as new hotspots in the Midwest report rising COVID-19 case loads and hospitals prepare for the pandemic to collide with flu season, potentially causing stress

Dive Brief: CVS Health plans to hire 15,000 new part- and full-time employees in the fourth quarter — including 10,000 pharmacy technicians, as the drugstore behemoth ramps up lobbying that the technicians should be authorized to administer coronavirus vaccines. The sharp uptick in hiring comes as its near 10,000 brick-and-mortar stores expect an influx of