Hospitals in the U.S continue to struggle during the pandemic, and it will likely be a long road to recovery. I’m Jeff Lagasse with Healthcare Finance News, and we’ll dig into that and more in this week’s Top Stories.
The first month of the new year proved challenging for hospitals and health systems as the effects of the pandemic continued to push margins, volumes and outpatient revenues below the performance of the prior year. While the impacts of COVID-q9 may be abating somewhat after a winter surge, Healthcare Finance News reports (https://www.healthcarefinancenews.com/news/us-hospitals-and-health-systems-face-long-road-recovery) that it will still be a long road to recovery. Average hospital operating margins as measured by Kaufman Hall showed a 46% drop from January 2020, and volumes, emergency department visits and outpatient revenue all saw year-over-year declines as well. The only metric that rose was total expenses, as hospitals bear the high costs of labor, drugs and equipment.
In policy this week, telehealth received vocal support from a high-profile official: Xavier Becerra, California attorney general and President Joe Biden’s pick to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. In HealthcareITNews, (https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/hhs-secretary-nominee-xavier-becerra-signals-support-virtual-care) we see that Becerra highlighted the effects of inequity on the health of vulnerable communities, and noted the role that digital health can play in addressing it. He pledged to expand telehealth access in part by addressing the widespread lack of broadband in disadvantaged communities, and said the pandemic has emphasized the importance of ensuring everyone has access to virtual care technologies. Expanding telehealth beyond the pandemic enjoys bipartisan support, but has yet to be translated into permanent policy.
Finally this week, Google is looking to tackle EHR navigation issues with the creation of Care Studio, a clinician-facing search tool that helps organize patient’s medical records. According to MobiHealthNews (https://www.mobihealthnews.com/news/google-rolls-out-ehr-navigation-tool-care-studio), the tool is meant to be used alongside the EHR in order to streamline workflows. Caregivers can use the platform to look through patients' records across different EHRs, and can synch up data from various health systems and put items like blood pressure or glucose levels into the same unit of measure. The program has been in the pilot stage but Google is now planning on broadening the scope.
I’m Jeff Lagasse with Healthcare Finance News, and this has been Top Stories.