A Massachusetts health care cost watchdog agency helped block plans of the state’s largest hospital system to expand into the suburbs. Now, other states are looking at whether Massachusetts’ decade-old model of controlling health costs is worth emulating.
A 124-year-old hospital in a midsize Rust Belt city in Indiana will soon be torn down, despite protests from residents and city officials decrying the loss of local health services. The Catholic hospital system said it is downsizing the 226-bed hospital because of a lack of demand for inpatient care, as the organization has been building new hospitals in wealthier suburbs.
Dying malls have turned out to be good places to care for the living. During the pandemic, mall-to-medicine transitions accelerated, with at least 10 health systems moving in where retail has moved out.
More people have visited emergency departments for eating disorders during the pandemic. Those living in rural areas have limited pathways to treatment.
To contain the spread of covid, hospitals and nursing homes barred visits. The separation and isolation took a toll on patients and families. Florida is one of the latest states to ensure access for visitors.
About 50% of the covid-19 patients who got the last-ditch life support treatment at Vanderbilt University Medical Center died. Researchers wanted to know what happened to the many patients they had to turn away because ECMO (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation) machines and the specialized staffers needed were in short supply. The grim answer: 90% of those turned away perished.
A bill one family considered paid wrongfully resurfaced, resurrecting painful memories. It’s a scenario that’s not uncommon but grievously unsettling.
Diagnosed with aggressive leukemia on a Western trip, a young man thought his insurance would cover an air ambulance ride home to North Carolina. Instead, questions about medical necessity left him with an astronomical bill.
Nashville nurse RaDonda Vaught is charged with reckless homicide for giving the wrong medication to a patient at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
Former nurse RaDonda Vaught is on trial for reckless homicide, and her case raises consequential questions about how nurses use computerized medication-dispensing cabinets.
