Healthcare professionals are a tough group. Healthcare, while rewarding, also involves heartbreaking work. Healthcare providers are always dealing with change, uncertainty, and upheaval. The external environment has always been chaotic. But now, COVID-19 has turned up the heat even higher. Many healthcare professionals report feeling chronic stress and burnout. The scope, duration, and intensity of what we’re facing is moving beyond stress and into something more serious. We're now entering trauma territory — and this can take a toll on even the toughest individuals.

Rexford Titus, the former CEO of Waukesha, Wis.-based ProHealth Care, died from complications of COVID-19 on Nov. 16. He was 74.

The initial COVID-19 surge this spring overwhelmed hospitals in New York City, forcing them to implement crisis standards of care. The experience highlighted many opportunities to improve future planning and implementation of these standards, according to a report from the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security in Baltimore. 

Below are 10 hospitals and health systems that posted job listings seeking COOs during the past few weeks.

Haven's head of measurement, Dana Gelb Safran, ScD, has left the Amazon-Berkshire Hathaway-JP Morgan Chase healthcare venture to join a patient communication startup. Her exit adds to a growing list of high-profile executive departures since Haven's formation in 2018.

The ability of a hospital or health system to maintain appropriate staffing levels is one of the most pressing challenges executives now face amid a nationwide resurgence of COVID-19. As such, many are making pleas to their state for help.

Sioux Falls, S.D.-based Sanford Health President and CEO Kelby Krabbenhoft shared his thoughts about having COVID-19 and why he won't be wearing a mask in an email to health system staff, according to the Grand Forks Herald. 

When the pandemic surged in New York this spring, Northwell Health was hit especially hard, treating more than 41,000 COVID-19 patients between March and May. Annabella Salvador-Kelly, MD, who serves as senior vice president of medical affairs and associate CMO at the New Hyde Park, N.Y.-based health system, had a front row view of this initial surge and has since played a critical role in Northwell Health's pandemic response. 

Bob Letson, former CEO of South Peninsula Hospital in Homer, Alaska, died Nov. 8 of COVID-19 in Columbia, S.C., according to Homer News.

A COVID-19 resurgence is putting strain on hospitals to maintain appropriate staff levels when team members get sick. In fact, 22 percent of U.S. hospitals (1,109) reported the week of Nov. 16 that they anticipate a staffing shortage due to the pandemic. 

The transition team of President-elect Joe Biden needs access to the Trump administration's COVID-19 information, national hospital, physician, and nurse groups wrote in a Nov. 17 letter to President Donald Trump.

As economic, health and education inequalities grow, more people are beginning to question whether it's necessary to reimagine how American capitalism functions, according to a report from consulting firm McKinsey & Co.

Robert Safian, MD, a cardiologist at Southfield, Mich.-based Beaumont Health and a professor at Oakland University Beaumont School of Medicine, has sent a letter to the health system's board of trustees urging them to oust Beaumont's top executives. 

Below are 10 hospitals and health systems that posted job listings seeking CEOs during the last few weeks.

The first COVID-19 surge this spring forced healthcare leaders to abandon their traditional management and governance models for more innovative leadership styles that entailed quick decision-making and more access to senior leaders. Rather than returning to old leadership styles when the pandemic is over, healthcare organizations should consider making some of these strategies permanent, seven healthcare leaders wrote in an article for Harvard Business Review.

VisitPay, the leader in patient financial engagement, today announced it is partnering with WellSpan Health, an integrated health system that serves central Pennsylvania and northern Maryland.

President-elect Joe Biden unveiled a task force of 13 physicians, public health experts, academics and commissioners Nov. 9 to help guide COVID-19 response. In an opinion piece published by CNN Nov. 15, two nurse practitioners in the New York City area argue nurses can provide valuable expertise and should also be included in the group.

The White House Coronavirus Task Force has gone quiet amid consecutive days of record-breaking COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations. The body has not held one if its weekly conference calls with state governors in two weeks, according to The Hill.

Top hospital and health system executives shape organizational culture and are responsible for big decisions that affect patients and employees.

Philip Ozuah, MD, PhD, began as president and CEO of Montefiore Medicine in November 2019, just months before the COVID-19 pandemic slammed New York City.