AHA Stat Blog

COVID-19 is a pandemic with no precedent, and certainly no equal. In many ways, we’ve been learning as we go. For health care professionals, this has elevated the importance of peer-to-peer sharing as never before.

A recent article from Axios attempts to say that the hospital and health system field is not being negatively impacted financially by the pandemic. The article ignores the diverse experiences of hospitals during the pandemic, particularly those that are under significant financial pressure.

Hospitals and health systems have reinvented themselves in many ways to respond to COVID-19. Since March, decades of standard operating procedures have been reexamined, redesigned and refined — all with the goal of saving lives while protecting caregivers and patients’ families during the pandemic.

We know that prior to the COVID-19 outbreak, demand for health care workers and health care job openings were at record highs. We also know that the pandemic created pressure to quickly ramp up staffing levels and optimize surge capacity, even as the cancellation of non-emergent surgeries caused serious financial challenges for hospitals and health systems.

The good — our society clearly recognizes the vital role our hospitals and health systems play in our nation’s critical infrastructure and how important they are to our communities’ health and safety. The bad — we have seen an increase in the frequency, severity and sophistication of cyberattacks targeting hospitals and health systems.

A recent analysis from the Peterson Center on Healthcare and the Kaiser Family Foundation, “What drives health spending in the U.S. compared to other countries,” does not provide a full picture on health care spending in the U.S. while also downplaying the immense role that drug costs play in overall health care spending.

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted a critical need for care that is customized, patient-centered, cost-effective and, most of all, successful. Team-based care checks all of these boxes and more.

While hospitals and health systems — and their brave front-line caregivers — continue to battle the greatest public health challenge of our lifetimes, the Department of Health and Human Services recently made a change to its COVID-19 Provider Relief Fund (PRF) reporting requirements that could jeopardize access to care for patients and communities.

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought increased attention to the issue of health care disparities. And it’s clear we’ve got a lot of work ahead of us to close the gaps.

More than 200,000 of our friends, family members, fellow citizens and front-line workers have succumbed to COVID-19 since March. To put that in context, that’s approximately the same as the population of Salt Lake City, Utah.

The RAND Corporation has released the third edition of its hospital price transparency study. The AHA previously highlighted our extensive concerns with the data and methodology used in the last version.

From the beginning of the COVID-19 pa

Today, we continue to grapple not only with the COVID-19 pandemic, but also a dangerously polarized election, ongoing civil unrest in the face of untenable systemic racism … and now, 94 major wildfires that are devastating our West Coast neighbors, families and friends, as well as recent hurricanes that have brought new challenges to our colleagues in the South.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services will withdraw its Medicaid fiscal accountability proposed rule from its regulatory agenda.

The COVID-19 pandemic makes working in health care especially exhausting both physically and mentally. These front-line care workers face putting their families and colleagues at risk for exposure to the virus, working extended shift hours and confronting an unimaginable death toll.

An all-too-common activity among some researchers is cherry picking data to support pre-conceived arguments. One of these false narratives is that hospitals and health systems are uniquely responsible for increased health care prices. But an examination of comprehensive data tell a different story.

Americans everywhere have watched with increasing dismay and alarm as 94 major wildfires continue to incinerate wide swaths of our beautiful Western states. As of this writing, the infernos — which are most heavily concentrated in California, Washington, Oregon and Idaho — have scorched nearly 5 million acres, an area approximately the size of Connecticut and Rhode Island combined.

Flu season soon will be upon us. And this year, it will take place in the middle of our ongoing battle against COVID-19.

This morning, like most mornings, I looked at a picture outside of my office that was taken on Sept. 11, 2001. The picture shows doctors, nurses, administrators and other caregivers standing outside the emergency department of my local community hospital in Arlington, Va., waiting to treat victims of the attack at the Pentagon. 

The gift of a new life shouldn’t come at the expense of an existing one. Yet every year, more than 700 women die from pregnancy- and delivery-related complications. Another 50,000 women suffer severe health problems related to pregnancy. And, these complications are disproportionately affecting Black and American Indian/Alaska Native women.