San Diego has taken control of the city's ambulance services with hopes of improving response times and eliminating financial incentives for private companies, The San Diego Union Tribune reported July 31.
Care Coordination
Mental health advocates on July 31 protested the closure of acute psychiatric beds at Good Samaritan Hospital, CBS affiliate KPIX reported.
Patients' fears of contracting COVID-19 in healthcare settings have subsided, with older Americans who delayed or avoided healthcare services during the pandemic returning in droves.
The board of directors for Tri-City Medical Center in Oceanside, Calif., voted July 27 to indefinitely suspend labor and delivery services, according to The San Diego Union-Tribune.
Charlotte, N.C.-based StarMed Healthcare announced it was closing two satellite locations July 19, and patients trying to reschedule have hit nothing but dead ends, ABC affiliate WBTV reported July 27.
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Hospitals nationwide are seeing greater volumes of high-acuity patients than they have in the past. That, coupled with labor shortages and little to no space at post-acute care facilities are fueling discharge delays and other hospital capacity challenges.
More than 53 percent of hospitals in the U.S. endured load imbalance during the pandemic, researchers at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., have found.
With triple-digit temperatures in the southern and southwestern areas of the United States, it makes sense that hospital emergency departments are reporting increased patient census figures associated with heat-induced conditions like heat stroke.
Lengths of stay and discharge transitions from hospitals to post-acute care are climbing, according to the American Hospital Association and industry reports.
The weather. It's a topic that doesn't come up often in hospital news reporting, but this summer is set to be one of the hottest on record, and many hospitals are already grappling with the consequences of extreme heat.