One of the most pressing issues in healthcare today is the growing talent shortage of qualified medical professionals. These critical staffing talent shortages could jeopardize communities’ access to care and result in dire consequences. The staffing shortage existed before the pandemic, but it’s only worsened during the past few years. According to government reports, 23% of hospitals are experiencing a significant staff shortage.
Since February 2020, hospital workforces have been reduced
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Public Health
State of Texas Develop Flu Tracking Dashboards for Prediction & Response
What You Should Know:
Texas Department of State Health Services (TX DSHS) has partnered with SAS to develop new public health dashboards for tracking influenza data across the state, unifying multiple flu surveillance sources into a central visualization platform. The flu data visualizations and analytics will be instrumental for Texas DSHS in anticipating regional surges in cases and allocating state resources to the areas with the most testing and vaccination needs while keeping
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Workplace Collaboration Linked to Positive Employee Mental Health
What You Should Know:
TELUS Health today released its monthly Mental Health Index which revealed that workers who collaborate with others in the workplace have a better mental health score than those who work exclusively independently. The Index also showed that the mental health scores of workers who do not feel supported in their mental health and wellbeing by their employers scored 10 points below the national average.
Collaboration aligns with better mental health
Nearly
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Combating Hospital Waste to Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions
With the growing concern around the current climate crisis, industry leaders everywhere seek new ways to reduce their carbon footprint. The healthcare industry alone accounts for 8.5% of emissions in the United States, with medical devices and products contributing to a significant portion of the 5.9 million tons of healthcare waste each year. However, healthcare leaders are ready to make a change. In 2022, 61 of the largest U.S. hospital and health sector companies joined the Health Sector
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CDC Launches Fentanyl Dashboard to Monitor Nonfatal Overdose Trends
What You Should Know:
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has recently released its Fentanyl Study Dashboard, an innovative tool that utilizes data from the Toxicology Investigators Consortium (ToxIC), to track and monitor nonfatal overdose trends associated with fentanyl. The dashboard, “Fentalog Study: A Subset of Nonfatal Suspected Opioid-Involved Overdoses with Toxicology Testing” went live in May of 2023 aims to provide vital insights to healthcare
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The End of One Health Crisis Must Not Lead to a New One
Three years after the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic, the Public Health Emergency (PHE) enacted in the United States came to an end this May. As much as we would like to go back to normal, it seems that simply turning the page on the PHE without carrying forward what we learned during COVID-19 will leave millions of Americans scrambling for healthcare and disengaging from essential preventive health services. The result will have a devastating impact on those with chronic
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FWA Is Increasing. Healthcare Costs Are Spiraling. Now There’s A New Generation Of AI Technology To Take Back Control
In 2020, the Department of Justice estimated that fraudulent, wasteful, and abusive (FWA) billing practices account for more than $100 billion of the nation’s healthcare expenditures.1 Today, the National Healthcare Anti-Fraud Association (NHCAA) conservatively estimates that healthcare FWA costs the nation about $68 billion annually, representing 3% of the nation's $2.26 trillion in healthcare spending.2 FWA estimates from commercial health plans range as high as $230 billion annually, or
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DEA Extends COVID-19 Telemedicine Flexibilities for Prescribing Controlled Medications for 6 Months
What You Should Know:
Today, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) issued the “Temporary Extension of COVID-19 Telemedicine Flexibilities for Prescription of Controlled Medications” – a temporary rule that extends telemedicine flexibilities adopted during the COVID-19 public health emergency (PHE).· The temporary rule will take effect on May 11, 2023, and extends the full set of telemedicine flexibilities
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4 Keys to Modernizing Public Health Data Collection and Analysis
The COVID-19 pandemic shined a spotlight on the urgent need to modernize the nation’s public health system. Despite success in rapidly developing vaccines, the unprecedented public health emergency also exposed significant gaps in U.S. public health infectious disease data collection and analysis methods which are critical for identifying behavioral risk factors and preventive actions.
The Problem
Unfortunately, inefficiency remains a hallmark of the U.S. public health surveillance system
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Report: 20% of Americans Skip Healthcare Due to Transportation Barriers
What You Should Know:
A new analysis shows more than 21% of U.S. adults without access to a vehicle or public transit went without needed medical care last year. These individuals were significantly more likely to skip care than those who reported neighborhood access to public transit services (9%).This analysis examining the association between transportation and access to healthcare was conducted by Urban Institute researchers with support from the Robert Wood Johnson
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