After more than a year of struggles, the financial picture is finally beginning to improve for the nation’s hospitals. I’m Jeff Lagasse with Healthcare Finance News, and we’ll look at why and take a tour of other big news in this week’s Top Stories.
Hospitals and health systems continued to see performance improvements in April compared to the devastating losses experienced in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Healthcare Finance News reports (https://www.healthcarefinancenews.com/news/hospitals-saw-gains-volume-revenue-and-margin-april-finds-kaufman-hall) that in April, hospital margins, volumes, and revenues were up across most performance metrics, both year-to-date and year-over-year, although they were down slightly compared to March. The signs of progress are encouraging, but the contrast between this past April and April 2020 may come down to the dismal financial performance that was recorded a year ago, indicating it will still be a long road to full recovery. America's hospitals will likely face another year of struggle before regaining their financial health.
The Satcher Health Leadership Institute at Morehouse School of Medicine launched its Health Equity Tracker this week, a data platform that highlights the disparate impacts of COVID-19 on marginalized communities. As we see in MobiHealthNews, (https://www.mobihealthnews.com/news/google-rolls-out-health-equity-tracker-platform-highlighting-disparities-between-communities) the tracker -- built with support from Google, Gilead Sciences, the Annie E. Casey Foundation and the CDC Foundation -- is a data visualization tool that displays the scale of COVID-19 cases, deaths and hospitalizations across race and ethnicity, sex and age, from a whole-country view down to the county level. Google.org’s support came in the form of a $1.5 million donation.
Finally this week, the FBI released a bulletin that warned of Conti ransomware attacks targeting U.S. healthcare and first-responder networks. According to HealthcareITNews, (https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/fbi-warns-conti-ransomware-attacks-targeting-us-healthcare-networks) the FBI has identified at least 16 of these kinds of incidents over the past year. The healthcare networks victimized by Conti included law enforcement agencies, emergency medical services, 911 dispatch centers and municipalities. The FBI said More than 400 organizations have been targeted worldwide, including upwards of 290 in the U.S.
I’m Jeff Lagasse with Healthcare Finance News, and this has been Top Stories.