Hospital Administration

Dive Brief: Researchers found that Black patients admitted with COVID-19 were 11% more likely to die than their White counterparts after adjusting for patient and clinical characteristics, according to a recent study in JAMA Network Open. Black patients were more likely to die largely because of where they received care ’ at hospitals that performed

Dive Brief: Beaumont Health and Spectrum Health are looking to merge in a deal that would result in Michigan’s biggest health system with 22 hospitals and 64,000 employees across the state, with combined annual revenue of almost $13 billion. Executives of the two systems announced Thursday they have signed a letter of intent to explore creating

Dive Brief: Tenet, a major U.S. health system, has agreed to sell five hospitals in the Miami-Dade area for $1.1 billion to Steward Health Care System, a physician-owned hospital operator and health network. The deal also includes the hospitals’ associated physician practices. Dallas-based Steward has agreed to continue using Tenet’s revenue cycle management firm, Conifer

Dive Brief: A survey of state employee health plans found that administrators recognize hospital prices as the main driver of healthcare cost increases but have few policies to address that issue directly. Most states instead focus on attempting to control prescription drug costs and lower utilization, according to the Georgetown University’s Center on Health Insurance

Dive Brief: About half of physicians and even more patients said the U.S. healthcare system discriminates against people a great deal, a good amount or somewhat, according to a survey out Tuesday from the nonpartisan research group NORC at the University of Chicago. Patients’ trust in their primary doctor rises with age and income, though

Dive Brief: A majority of hospitals aren’t complying with a Trump-era rule on price transparency, according to a study published in JAMA on Monday. Under the rule, which was finalized in 2019 and took effect in January, hospitals have to publicize their negotiated rates with payers for common services. But early data shows that’s often

Dive Brief: HHS on Friday extended key deadlines for medical groups and hospitals to use money from the Provider Relief Fund established by the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act last year. Providers no longer have to use all funds by June 30. Deadlines will be based on when the money is received. Also,

The biggest nurses union in the country is teeing up a fight with hospitals run by HCA Healthcare, Sutter Health and CommonSpirit Health as it heads into negotiations for some 65,000 nurses this year. The COVID-19 pandemic exposed problems faced by nurses ranging from inadequate personal protective equipment to unsafe staffing levels, members of National Nurses

Dive Brief: The Occupational Safety and Health Administration issued an emergency temporary standard Thursday that healthcare employers specifically must abide by to better protect workers from the spread of COVID-19. The ETS requires hospitals, nursing homes and other sites of care to provide employees with paid time off to get vaccinated and to recover from

Dive Brief: The healthcare industry added 23,000 jobs in May, with virtually all in ambulatory service roles, according to a new government jobs report released Friday. Ambulatory services added 22,000 jobs that month. And hospitals saw their first gains in several months, posting about 2,900 new roles, according to the preliminary data from the Bureau of Labor

Dive Brief: Medtronic abruptly pulled its HeartWare HVAD pump system from the market Thursday after a slew of Class I recalls and numerous reports of patient injuries and deaths associated with the device. The medtech cited ongoing device failures and “a growing body of observational clinical comparisons indicating a higher frequency of neurological adverse events,

Dive Brief: >Sentara Healthcare and Cone Health are scrapping plans to merge after signing a letter of intent in August 2020. The deal was expected to close in the middle of this year pending regulatory approval, and would have created a 17-hospital, $11.5 billion system. Norfolk, Virginia-based Sentara is a nonprofit system with 12 hospitals

Dive Brief: Cleveland Clinic bounced back into the black in the first quarter of 2021, reporting operating income of nearly $62 million, a turnaround from its $40 million loss from operations during the same period last year. Though patient volume is still trailing what executives had expected, a recent acquisition helped boost patient volume during

Sree Chaguturu is CVS Health’s senior vice president and chief medical officer for CVS Caremark. As the United States grappled with the enormous threat posed by the coronavirus last spring and social distancing measures took hold, we saw a significant drop in people accessing routine and preventive care. With a new, deadly and little understood

Dive Brief: Cyber threats to the medtech industry, including ransomware and other malware, are growing in sophistication, potentially putting patient safety at risk, according to Kevin Fu, acting director of medical device cybersecurity at the FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health. “It’s not just a kid in their basement causing trouble. These are actually

Dive Brief: Ransomware attacks will continue among large providers for the foreseeable future, and “healthcare systems will need to deploy additional resources to thwart future cybersecurity breaches even as the pandemic continues to use up significant clinical, financial and strategic resources,” according to a new report from Moody’s Investors Service. The organization noted that nonprofit

Dive Brief: Hospital operator HCA Healthcare is linking up with Google Cloud on a new data analytics platform to support provider decision-making, the companies announced Wednesday. The deal between the 186-hospital system and the technology behemoth will build on HCA’s existing use of technology to streamline both clinical and non-clinical operations, and represents “significant investments” in the

Dive Brief: Physician trust in the U.S. healthcare system significantly declined during the pandemic, along with their confidence in the leaders and executives at the healthcare organizations employing them, according to a report from the nonpartisan research group NORC at the University of Chicago commissioned by the ABIM Foundation. The poll found that 30% of

Medtronic’s HeartWare HVAD pump system has been hit with a slew of recalls in recent months and the rate of device malfunction reports documented since it’s been on the market in an FDA database outpaces competing products. So far this year, the FDA issued three Class I recalls for the system, including issues with delayed

Dive Brief: The Mayo Clinic reported turning a profit in the first quarter of the year, although its expenses rose significantly compared to the first quarter of 2020, which was mostly completed before the COVID-19 pandemic became a significant issue. Overall, net income for the Minnesota-based multistate hospital system totaled $243 million without counting $11

Dive Brief: Phoenix-based Banner Health is launching a program for providers to order digital health tools like remote patient monitoring and digital therapeutics directly from its Cerner EHRs across its 30 acute-care hospitals and other facilities. It’s partnering with Xealth, which sells a platform for clinicians to integrate, prescribe and monitor digital health tools for patients

Dive Brief: Stoltenberg Consulting annual’s healthcare IT outlook survey concludes that the COVID-19 pandemic has rearranged their priorities. Moreover, the pandemic has “raised the bar for the digital health experiences.” Health system chief information officers are now valuing patient engagement over artificial intelligence and machine learning, according to the poll of 65 CIOs, who have

Prior to the COVID-19 public health crisis, there was momentum to transform operating rooms into digitally connected environments to allow surgeons to collaborate and medical device companies to share best practices and products. Social distancing mandates over the past year accelerated those efforts as virtual reality and remote training technologies have been widely adopted. The value

Dive Brief: CommonSpirit Health and Essentia Health have called off a deal for Essentia to acquire 14 CommonSpirit facilities in North Dakota and Minnesota, the two Catholic systems announced Tuesday. The deal, nixed just four months after being announced, would have doubled the size of Duluth, Minn.-based Essentia’s hospital network. One of the facilities up

Dive Brief: Sutter Health’s financial woes continued into the first quarter, as the system undergoes a sweeping review of its finances after COVID-19’s squeeze on its financial performance led to a steep 2020 operational loss.   The dominant health system in northern California posted another operating loss of $49 million for first quarter due to

Dive Brief: Providence, one of the nation’s largest health systems and the first to admit a COVID-19 patient last year, says it is “turning a corner and seeing signs of renewal” as the tally of COVID-19 patients has fallen dramatically since the start of the first quarter when cases reached their highest peak in January.   Still,

Dive Brief: HHS’ Health Resources and Services Administration called out six pharmaceutical companies Tuesday for violating rules under the 340B drug discount program, ordering them to repay affected providers for previous overcharges and warning of more penalties if they don’t comply. In July 2020 some drugmakers stopped giving the 340B ceiling price on their products

An open-ended strike involving hundreds of nurses at Tenet’s St. Vincent hospital in Worcester, Massachusetts, is now in its 11th week. With few prospects for a deal on the horizon, the hospital is moving to permanently hire 50 replacement nurses, it said last week. Roughly 800 nurses began the work stoppage March 8 over staffing

Dive Brief: The United States Supreme Court should keep in place a lower court ruling that bars hospitals from receiving higher Medicare reimbursements for outpatient services compared to other providers, according to a brief HHS filed late last week. The 33-page brief filed with the high court is in response to a petition by the

Missouri is withdrawing plans to expand Medicaid coverage to its low-income adult population after the Republican-controlled legislature failed to allocate funds for the voter-backed initiative. Missouri Gov. Mike Parson, a Republican, sent a letter to the CMS on Thursday alerting the federal agency that his administration is now withdrawing the state plan amendment it submitted