Hospital Administration

A year since COVID-19 hit U.S. shores, the pandemic is still raging as deaths and cases strain hospital resources.  Amid the scrambling, however, providers and payers are adjusting to a new normal likely to continue for months if not beyond. Though arrival of vaccines has prompted hope, the rollout has been slow and fragmented, left up to each

Dive Brief: Moderna on Monday said its vaccine for COVID-19 should still protect against coronavirus variants first detected in the U.K. and in South Africa, citing results from laboratory testing that showed the blood of immunized volunteers in an early study contained antibodies capable of neutralizing the virus.  Even so, the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based biotech plans

As the healthcare industry is witnessing a deadly pandemic disproportionately claim the lives of Black patients, it is now facing a reckoning over its role in the health disparities that exist throughout the country. The COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare the stark health inequities as it has disproportionately infected and killed people of color. That

Joe Biden will be sworn in as the 46th president of the United States while the country grapples with one of the biggest health crises in its history. The novel coronavirus has infected more than 24 million in the U.S. and killed more than 400,000 people, a devastating milestone the country just reached Tuesday. While two

Dive Brief: The more packed a hospital intensive care unit is with COVID-19 patients, the greater likelihood those patients will die, according to a new study by researchers from the Department of Veterans Affairs, Indiana University School of Medicine and a variety of other academic medical centers and research institutes. The researchers monitored VA medical

The key to beating the COVID-19 virus is here. The long-awaited, er short-awaited, vaccine has arrived. Yes, Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna, along with the FDA and the government’s Operation Warp Speed program, have pulled off nothing short of a miracle. From initial research to getting a vaccine into the hands – or should we say arms

Dive Brief: The Federal Trade Commission sent orders to six health insurance companies to obtain patient-level claims data for inpatient, outpatient, and physician services from 2015 to 2020, the agency said Thursday. The FTC wants to figure out how hospitals’ acquisitions of physician practices has affected competition.   The agency sent orders to some of the

With two highly effective coronavirus vaccines now being distributed across the country, the U.S. government’s announcement Thursday to set aside $2.6 billion for purchasing an antibody drug for COVID-19 may have raised a few eyebrows.  After all, the two currently authorized antibody drugs, from Regeneron and Eli Lilly, have not been widely used since the

Dive Brief: As distribution of the COVID-19 vaccines slowly rolls out throughout the U.S., Mayo Clinic, Epic, Cerner, Microsoft and Oracle are among a coalition of providers and software giants working on an initiative to try and make it easier for recipients to prove they’ve received a shot. The Vaccination Credential Initiative is spearheaded by the

Nearly a year after the first confirmed case of COVID-19 in the U.S., some of the nation’s largest health systems made a case for the need to accelerate toward value-based arrangements and potentially acquiring or partnering with health plans to become an integrated system. Amid new records for deaths and cases from the novel coronavirus,

Dive Brief: Ascension is selling several of its hospitals and clinics in Wisconsin to nonprofit health system Aspirus Health, the two companies announced Tuesday. Catholic health giant Ascension has signed an agreement to transfer ownership of seven hospitals, 21 physician clinics and an air and ground medical transport business located in north and central Wisconsin

Dive Brief: Nitrile gloves are the latest item of personal protective equipment challenging supply chains as the coronavirus pandemic stretches into another calendar year. Nitrile gloves are used across industries from food preparation to administering vaccines. Nitrile gloves were the second-most sought after item reported by the Thomas Index Report in Q4. The item is

Sanjay Basu is a primary care physician and epidemiologist. He is the director of research at the Harvard Medical School Center for Primary Care as well as the VP of research and population health at Collective Health, a healthcare plan administrator. When COVID-19 cases began rising in the U.S. in early 2020, healthcare providers mobilized

Dive Brief: CMS is currently auditing a sample of hospitals to see if those facilities are in compliance with the price transparency policy that went into effect Jan. 1. The agency is also probing complaints, a spokesperson said Friday. CMS did not provide any further details about the complaints or sampling of hospitals. If hospitals