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Understanding the perspectives of both patients and doctors can be a hard road to navigate, but Hsieh believes active listening is key.

The COVID pandemic took a drastic toll on an already struggling and underfunded behavioral healthcare system. In the wake of lockdowns, a greater need for psychiatric help is often met with endless waiting lists and bed shortages.

Hospital and health system CFOs have navigated many changes and challenges in the industry in 2021, including staffing shortages and rising inflation.

This year, dozens of finance leaders from hospitals and health systems across the U.S. shared their perspectives on a variety of topics with Becker's Hospital Review via podcasts and interviews. Below are quotes from 11 of those executives, discussing everything from the best piece of advice for their peers to their most pressing concern.

WORCESTER, Mass. - The number of people getting tested for COVID-19 at the Mercantile Center is rising.

There were more long lines outside of the testing center Monday.

UMass Memorial Health runs the site and said they expect to test more than 1,000 people both Monday and Tuesday.

Every morning in the Minneapolis metropolitan area, 200 to 400 people wait in an emergency room for a bed to come open.

“That’s the highest number ever,” said Dr. J. Kevin Croston, the CEO of North Memorial Health, which operates more than two dozen health care facilities in the area.

Since November, hospitals have understaffing, an escalation of behavioral health cases, and a worsening of a variety of diseases from over a year of delayed care. Now the surge in Covid-19 cases is spurring some hospitals to refuse to patients from other systems, close outpatient units and prepare “crisis standards of care.”

Amid surging COVID-19 infections, overflowing hospitals, and exhausted healthcare workers, Massachusetts hospital leaders are hanging on a glimmer of hope: some treatments, vaccines, and hard-won knowledge from the earlier outbreaks have meant fewer severely ill COVID patients.

And those who do need intensive care generally are recovering more quickly, doctors say.

On Tuesday, UMass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester instituted new visitor policies in response to rising COVID case numbers and the Omicron variant.

According to the new visitor policy, adult patients will only be allowed one designated visitor. This visitor must be the same individual throughout the course of the patient’s hospitalization, meaning other visitors for the same patient will not be permitted. The previous policy had allowed two visitors per patient. 

The Massachusetts Medical Society is pushing for a statewide mask mandate for indoor public spaces, with COVID-19 cases rising and straining hospitals, as several cities and towns have already reinstituted mandates in their communities.