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When Eleni Nicolau became sick with COVID after Thanksgiving, a breakthrough infection that hit the 83-year-old hard, she found herself alone in a hospital room, separated from her family and struggling to breathe.
Then doctors gave her a new option: Did she want to finish her hospitalization at home?
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.”
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.
Lots of attention has been paid to Massachusetts’ unprecedented spending, made possible by once-in-a-lifetime federal largesse to pay for COVID-19-related needs. Behind the scenes, Massachusetts has also been saving.
The comptroller’s annual report for fiscal 2021, which ended June 30, reveals that Massachusetts’ stabilization fund is the largest it has ever been since the fund was established in 1986. The rainy day fund clocked in at $4.6 billion in fiscal 2021, a huge jump from $3.5 billion the prior year.
DOUGLAS BROWN, president of UMass Memorial Community Hospitals, put it bluntly: “We’re going through the worst staffing crisis in our history.”
Yet, UMass fired more than 200 employees earlier this month, many of them working in clinical care. The reason: those employees did not comply with the health system’s mandate to get vaccinated against COVID-19.
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.
As Americans gather to toast the end of another particularly difficult year, many loved ones will be notably missing from holiday celebrations, a glaring reminder of the tragic realities of the coronavirus pandemic.
On Tuesday, the United States reached yet another staggering milestone, with 800,000 Americans now confirmed lost to the coronavirus, according to newly updated data from Johns Hopkins University.
WORCESTER — Dr. Erik Garcia’s Monday started at 7:30 a.m. at the Queen Street shelter, where he saw two patients with more than a dozen medical conditions.
Four hours later, Garcia was finishing up giving COVID tests and checking in with patients at the Hotel Grace shelter and had to decline a BLT — he was due back at his office on Chandler Street for more appointments.
Between 25 percent to 43 percent of fully vaccinated patients at major Massachusetts hospitals tested positive for COVID-19 in the week ending Dec. 10, WBUR reports.
WORCESTER, Mass. - There are no detected cases of the omicron variant in Central and Western Massachusetts, but it doesn't mean they won't appear.
UMass Memorial Health says most of their hospitalized COVID patients have the delta variant of the virus.
WORCESTER (CBS) – Inside a tiny trailer outside UMass Memorial hospital, COVID-19 patients are being treated with monoclonal antibodies. “This is hands down the most effective anti-viral treatment we have against COVID,” explained Dr. Sandeep Jubbal. So far, 2,500 patients have received the infusion here and according to Dr. Jubbal, most start to feel better within hours. “I think given the efficacy, it should be given out like water to everybody,” he said.
A growing surge of COVID-19 patients is stressing already packed hospitals and causing more cancellations of elective procedures.
"We have a severe bed shortage crisis," said UMass Memorial Health President Eric Dickson. "The patients are backing up into the emergency department that need to be admitted into the hospital."
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.
WORCESTER, Mass. — Police departments across central Massachusetts handed out gift cards in exchange for guns on Saturday as part of UMass Memorial Health's annual "Goods for Guns" buyback program.
Participants received gift cards ranging in value from $25 to $75, depending on the type of guns they handed in.
Worcester and eight other police departments will be conducting a gun buyback program Saturday as part of a collaborative initiative to try to reduce the number of firearms in the community.
People can drop off firearms, unloaded and wrapped up or in a bag, and collect a gift card for groceries without having to provide identification or weapon information.
WORCESTER, Mass. - It’s hard to believe that the most vaccinated state in the country, Massachusetts, is seeing a third surge of COVID-19.
UMass Memorial president and CEO, Dr. Eric Dickson, says it's frustrating to see another surge of the virus, especially with more than 72% of Massachusetts residents being fully vaccinated.
Despite having one of the nation's highest vaccination rates, Massachusetts is in the midst of a full coronavirus resurgence. The state's daily case average is now at its highest point in nearly a year, and in the last month alone, new hospital admissions have more than doubled.
WORCESTER, Mass. - Students and artists are making garden tools and sculptures from destroyed guns.
“It's their way of showing that these weapons can be transformed into something beautiful," John Hayden, founder of Guns 2 Gardens Massachusetts, said.
With Central Massachusetts seeing another COVID-19 surge UMass Memorial Health is reporting a steep increase in inpatient cases over the last month and a lack of beds to meet current patient demand.
In four weeks, there has been a rise from 70 to 198 inpatient cases, Dr. Eric Dickson, the president and CEO of UMass Memorial Health, wrote in an email to caregivers on Tuesday.