Free Republic

First I saw a article about Utah overwhelmed last week and now El Paso. Covid boogie man before the election? And why tw0 weeks? WTF is staying home for two weeks going to do??

<p>SALT LAKE CITY — With new coronavirus cases shattering records on a daily basis, The Salt Lake Tribune reports that Utah’s hospitals are expected to begin rationing care in a week or two.</p> <p>That’s the prediction of Greg Bell, president of the Utah Hospital Association, who said administrators of the state’s hospitals confronted Gov. Gary Herbert on Thursday with a grim list: Criteria they propose doctors should use if they are forced to decide which patients can stay in overcrowded intensive care units.</p>

ST. LOUIS COUNTY, Mo. – St. Louis County leaders said the latest COVID data is concerning. St. Louis Metro Pandemic Task Force leader Dr. Alex Garza said they are seeing a high number of occupied hospital beds with about 90 percent of healthcare beds full in the SSM Health system. The numbers were slightly lower in metro hospitals at 85 percent. “Speaking with our task force hospitals yesterday that same sort of level was echoed across all the hospitals from St. Luke’s to Mercy to BJC,” Dr. Garza said. “We normally don’t operate at that high of a level.” However,...

Recent Harris Poll research revealed that two-thirds of consumers describe every step of acquiring health care as difficult. Half of respondents even avoid care because of this complicated bureaucracy, likely making their ailments worse and costlier in the long term. Doctors have been sounding the alarm on this problem for years. Thankfully, the White House is listening to physicians who are actually practicing—and we practitioners are saying patients need more price transparency, less reliance on insurance, and less government interference.This would result in lower cost, increased access, and higher quality. You can have only two of these in government-controlled health care....

A major U.S. hospital system was hit with a cyberattack, one of the largest attacks on medical data in history, according to a report. The computer systems for Universal Health Services failed over the weekend and have resulted in some locations filing patient information with pen and paper, according to NBC News. Universal Health Services has more than 400 locations, mostly in the U.S., and treats millions of patients a year. The company operates in the United Kingdom, too. The company said it was dealing with “an IT security issue” but reports indicate the hospital chain is experiencing a ransomeware...

Dozens of major hospitals across the U.S. are grappling with whether to ignore a federal decision allowing broader emergency use of blood plasma from recovered COVID patients to treat the disease in favor of dedicating their resources to a gold-standard clinical trial that could help settle the science for good. As many as 45 hospitals from coast to coast have expressed interest in collaborating on a randomized, controlled clinical trial sponsored by Vanderbilt University Medical Center, said principal investigator Dr. Todd Rice. Officials at some hospitals said they are considering committing only to the clinical trial — and either avoiding...

Rapper Akon has revealed plans for a futuristic $6 billion city in his Senegal homeland modelled on Black Panther's Wakanda. The R&B star, who boasts two multi-platinum albums, told a news conference on Monday he had laid the first stone for the city in the Atlantic Ocean village of Mbodiene, around 60 miles south of the capital Dakar. The solar-powered Akon City will offer hotels, a university, hospitals, business and leisure centres including a casino, as well as movie studios, all featuring futuristic designs by architect Hussein Bakri, with African sculptures for inspiration.

One would think, in these days of COVID-19, that America’s doctors and patients are as reliant on our hospitals as they’ve ever been, and that they’re going to stay that way. Guess again. Today, even as the health care system and the economy face strains from the coronavirus and its complications, scores of doctors and patients are avoiding large bureaucratic hospitals and instead flocking toward leaner and meaner models of health care. Professional providers of all types -- from surgeons to drugstore owners -- are focusing on innovation. Even better, they’re now treating patients as consumers who value quality care...

CMS issued an interim final rule on Aug. 25 that requires hospitals to report COVID-19 data to HHS in order to participate in Medicare and Medicaid programs. Five things to know: 1. The emergency regulations require hospitals and critical access hospitals to report daily COVID-19 data through the HHS portal, powered by TeleTracking and Palantir, to receive payment from CMS. 2. Hospitals are required to report several data points, including the number of patients testing positive for COVID-19, ICU bed occupation and availability of ventilators and personal protective equipment. This information is essential for emergency planning and resource allocation during...

Chicago invested nearly $120 million on four separate emergency coronavirus facilities in the spring that ended up treating a total of 38 patients, bringing the effective price tag of the massive project to over $3 million per patient. Municipal officials spent $66 million on the rapid construction of a 2,750-bed makeshift facility in the city's McCormick Place Convention Center in April, as well as an additional $50 million preparing three previously shuttered hospitals in the nearby districts of Elgin, Blue Island and Melrose. The McCormick Place field hospital was the only one of the four that welcomed any patients, with...

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will "no longer control" the coronavirus data collection system from hospitals across the nation, a spokesman for U.S. Health and Human Services confirmed Tuesday night. The New York Times reported earlier Tuesday that the administration had ordered hospitals to bypass the CDC and send all COVID-19 patient information to a central database in Washington beginning Wednesday, raising concerns from health experts that it will be politicized or withheld from the public.

Hospitals from across the country will no longer send CCP virus or COVID-19 related data to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and are instead required to send it to a central database in Washington beginning July 15, according to an HHS statement released Friday. HHS said Vice President Mike Pence sent a letter to hospital administrators across the country asking them to send daily pandemic data on “testing, capacity, utilization, and patient flow” to the federal government. “The objective is to allow states and hospitals either to leverage existing data reporting capabilities or, where those capabilities are insufficient,...

In early April Senator Dr. Scott Jensen from Minnesota went on The Ingraham Angle to discuss how the CDC is encouraging American doctors to over-count coronavirus deaths across the US.The document is here. US HHS Document to Doctors … by Jim Hoft on Scribd CLICK ABOVE ARTICLE LINK FOR THE IMAGES OF THE REPORT This was after Dr. Scott Jensen, a Minnesota physician and Republican state senator, told a local station he received a 7-page document coaching him to fill out death certificates with a COVID-19 diagnosis without a lab test to confirm the patient actually had the virus.Dr....

5-4 vote. The split you expect.

Tracy Doherty was let go from her job as a pediatric nurse at Valley View Hospital in early May. The hospital’s CEO is projecting $30-45 million in lost income this year, which led to staff cuts. ... Her line of work usually comes with some stability, so she was surprised when she was laid off earlier this month. “Being a nurse you kind of never expect to lose your job,” Doherty said. “I knew they were going to be cutting staff, but I didn't think it would be nursing staff.” Valley View let go of about 100 employees, or roughly...

HARRISBURG, Pa. — Gov. Tom Wolf is elaborating on the reopening process for green phase counties in Pennsylvania, as well as providing guidance on outdoor dining in yellow counties, dining in green counties and professional sports in yellow counties. Green phase Eighteen counties will move into the green phase on Friday. The following guidance applies: Personal care services, including hair salons and barbershops must operate by appointment only; appointments or reservations are also strongly encouraged for gyms or spas. Any gathering for a planned or spontaneous event of greater than 250 individuals is prohibited. This includes, but is not limited...

SACRAMENTO - As the novel coronavirus tore through Italy and then New York in March, California, anticipating a deadly surge in cases, ordered hospitals to shut down routine procedures and called in thousands of health care workers to help patients. But the predicted surge never came. And the cost of all that preparation - setting up field hospitals, doubling the number of intensive care rooms, purchasing protective equipment - dealt a blow to hospital bottom lines, while the ban on all non-emergency procedures cut revenues in half. The measures drove hospitals in the most populous U.S. state close to bankruptcy,...

After patient volumes sink up to 90% in some areas, the Dallas hospital system ‘must re-examine everything,’ says CEO. Baylor Scott & White Health, the largest not-for-profit hospital system in Texas, will lay off roughly 1,200 employees, or almost 3% of its workforce, due to fallout from the coronavirus. Baylor said it would also furlough an unspecified number of workers, leave open positions unfilled and cut the pay of about 300 senior leaders. Furloughed employees, who are generally eligible for unemployment insurance, will continue to get company benefits and may be asked to return to the job eventually. Like many...

Nearly two dozen large hospital chains received more than $5billion in federal grants under the CARES Act, even though they already sit on over $100billion in cash. The Providence Health System, one of the nation’s largest and richest hospital chains based in Seattle, received at least $509million in government funds meant to help health care providers from going under during the coronavirus pandemic. But Providence Health is already sitting on nearly $12billion in cash which it invests and in turn generates more than $1billion in profits from in a good year, according to a New York Times report.

The federal government gave more than $121 thousand in coronavirus relief money to the Jamestown Regional Medical Center, a hospital that has been closed since June 2019. The Department of Health and Human Services says the hospital received $121,722 from its provider relief fund. Records show the Rennova-owned hospital still owes $1.2 million in unpaid federal taxes. Reports suggest that the hospital has been closed since June 13, 2019. “It’s not fair for them to direct money to a hospital that has currently no real ability to re-open and provide adequate and safe patient care,” former Jamestown nurse Miah Elmore...