In The Media Archive

Udow-Phillips on Marketplace Morning Report: Why patients are putting off health care, even when they need it

Healthcare professionals are in a dilemma. Sick people are putting off medical attention, even if they are suffering from life-threatening conditions. Healthcare providers are working to persuade those who need urgent medical attention to receive the necessary treatment.

Marianne Udow-Phillips is cited in a Marketplace Morning Report segment, “It’s safe to see your doctor, ailing health-care industry tells prospective patients.” The story focuses on what healthcare providers are doing to encourage clients to return for needed treatments.

“But even with reassurances, people across the country are putting off routine care,” says NPR Reporter Erika Beres. “Childhood vaccination rates are down, and emergency departments are seeing about half the volume they’d typically see.”

Marianne Udow-Phillips says people are afraid. “There is a lot of fear that when people go to the hospital they will become exposed to COVID-19, and they may actually end up sicker than they would if they just stayed home,” Udow-Phillips said.

To persuade people to come, hospitals and healthcare organizations have started advertising efforts, to convince people to stop putting off the medical attention they need. The Kentucky Hospital Association launched an advertisement that claims that although the coronavirus has significantly altered our lives, “the health care you need doesn’t have to be delayed.”

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Michigan’s independent doctors are facing new hardships during coronavirus pandemic: Udow-Phillips explains

Stethoscope The novel coronavirus is not only causing massive stress on hospital systems, but it is also threatening the existence of independent practices in Michigan. Ted Roelofs, in his latest story for Bridge Magazine, shares that as cases started to increase, and social distancing rules were implemented in March, private practices saw a dramatic decline in patients and revenue.

With this decline in patients, private practices are facing hardships in determining if they will be able to recover from the loss in business. Some are able to receive aid from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act and the Paycheck Protection Program to continue essential operations and pay staff and bills for the near future. However, without the certainty of when this will all end, there is no indication if there will be more aid available to keep these operations running for longer.

The Center for Health Research and Transformation’s executive director Marianne Udow-Phillips shares that it is very possible to see a decline in medical practices, especially in rural Michigan, which already has a shortage of primary care physicians. She also points out that as more independent physicians become less available, there will be a decline in personalized care. and that smaller practices do not have the same infrastructure to get through a “massive disruption” like this pandemic.

READ THE FULL STORY HERE

–Summary by Emmen Ahmed

In MLive, Udow Phillips explores Michigan’s approach to reopening the economy: Slow, steady and safe

CHRT Executive Director Marianne Udow-Phillips discusses the uncertainties surrounding reopening Michigan’s economy in an MLive story.

As Governor Whitmer and a 29-person Economic Recovery Council roll out a plan for restarting Michigan’s economy, the emphasis is on caution and flexibility. In a May 6 article, MLive’s Malachi Barrett explores the public health, regional, and economic factors that go into decision-making about safe business practices in nine different categories of workplaces in Michigan.

In the article, Barrett captures insights from Economic Recovery Council members on striking the balance that protects citizens and allows economic activity to increase. Looking ahead, CHRT Executive Director Marianne Udow-Phillips echoes the concerns of public health experts and the healthcare community. “There’s a lot of worries in the public health community that as things open as people become laxer in social distancing, we will see that spike of illness and deaths again,” Udow-Phillips said.

While health and business experts evaluate the risk of exposure in different workplaces, Barrett notes that policymakers are also considering regional differences in the number of cases reported and the capacity of different healthcare facilities. In combination with that data-based approach, Udow-Phillips notes that “…we’re going to have to open gradually, see what happens with those first openings and then over time things could start again.”

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COVID-19 has transformed health and behavioral health care delivery through telehealth, but does everyone have access?

Drawing of woman on laptop facing male on another laptop

In this 25-minute webinar by Karin Teske, a senior analyst for research and evaluation at the Center for Health and Research Transformation (CHRT), viewers will learn about the rapid advance of telehealth in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Three experts will join this webinar to discuss their perspectives on how the pandemic has changed the way healthcare is provided through telemedicine and the difficulties in ensuring that everyone has access to these services.

Teske shares telehealth use and uptake data from before the COVID-19 pandemic and offers a glimpse of what’s changed since March 2020. She reviews new policies governing the provision of telehealth for national Medicaid clients and Michigan Medicare and commercial plan clients. She also describes who has been left out of the telemedicine transformation, and what we can do to address that.

The experts also note that there are still problems with telehealth access, notably for elders, people living in rural areas, low-income people, and people without a strong background in technology or health literacy.

Listen to COVID-19 transforms healthcare delivery via telehealth, but does everyone have access?, one in a series of COVID-19 webinars organized by the Michigan State University College of Osteopathic Medicine.

Note: The telemedicine landscape has been rapidly evolving. For updates, please reach out to her.

Innovative strategies for protecting low-income communities from COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately impacted low-income areas, escalating already-existing health disparities and economic difficulties. As a result, innovative strategies have been developed to aid in protecting these communities from the virus and its effects.

In this 10-minute webinar by Samantha Iovan, a senior analyst for health and human services at the Center for Health and Research Transformation (CHRT), viewers will learn about the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on low-income communities, including homeless populations residing in aggregate housing facilities.

Iovan shares innovative strategies to protect these populations that have emerged in communities across the country, as well as funding sources that can be used to implement these solutions in other low-income communities.

Listen to The impact of COVID-19 on homeless and impoverished populations, one in a series of COVID-19 webinars organized by the Michigan State University College of Osteopathic Medicine.

The webinar emphasizes the need for collaborative efforts to address these problems and offer assistance to those who need it most in these historic times. Together, we can lessen the pandemic’s harmful effects on vulnerable people and make sure that everyone has access to the services, supplies, and assistance they need. Ongoing dissemination of information is critical to the health and well-being of our nation.

Udow-Phillips in Michigan hospitals are needed now more than ever. Why are they laying off workers?

For hospitals and health systems in Michigan and the U.S., outpatient and elective procedures are the foundation of sustainable business. The March 10 executive order putting a hold on “non-essential procedures” in Michigan has had a profound effect on the viability of large and small health providers. MLive’s Malachi Barrett spoke with CHRT Executive Director Marianne Udow-Philips about the conditions that led up to the precipitous drop in hospital revenues, and the perils that may lie ahead for health facilities and systems.

While the executive order was aimed at protecting tenuous supplies of personal protective equipment as hospitals prepared for a wave of COVID-19 patients, it unavoidably halted the “non-emergency” procedures that provided a major income stream for hospitals. In the MLive article. the Michigan Health and Hospital Association estimates that without non-emergency and elective procedures Michigan hospitals are losing $300 million a week while simultaneously spending $100 million on COVID-related equipment, staff, and treatments.

This widening gap between revenue and expenses is forcing layoffs of healthcare workers throughout Michigan and threatening the existence of some rural hospitals. Udow-Phillips expressed guarded optimism that hospitals may be able to resume elective procedures sometime in May. “I am expecting that we’ll start seeing in May some cases coming back into the hospital.” But, she says, “it really depends on how well we do in containing this virus. If the health system gets overwhelmed again, then they’re going to have to cut back.”

Udow-Phillips also discussed how providers are adapting to COVID-imposed health protocols and the expansion of telemedicine.

READ THE ENTIRE MLIVE ARTICLE HERE

CHRT speaks with Huffington Post about improving senior housing options as COVID-19 ravages nursing homes

2 women looking at each other through a pane of glass, hands pressed together

Image of a senior in a nursing home

The COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on nursing home residents’ vulnerability has highlighted the need for a conversation about improving and enhancing senior housing facilities. This is crucial since a sizable portion of COVID-19 deaths are occurring in nursing homes in some areas.

In “As COVID-19 ravages nursing homes, a new push for better senior housing,” medical writer Patricia Anstett looks at why nursing home residents, who in some states account for more than 50 percent of all COVID-19 deaths, are so vulnerable. These alarming statistics, writes Anstett, “have intensified an important discussion the nation will wrestle with for years to come: How can the United States expand community-based alternatives for seniors and improve care in larger facilities?”

Steve McAlilly, the chief executive officer of Methodist Senior Services, said, “a pandemic magnifies and highlights the strengths and weaknesses of the entire system, I hope we wake up and understand we need to have a policy conversation in Washington about the fact that long-term care needs to be adequately funded to keep this from happening again. Hopefully we will seize this as the moment that caused us to have that conversation, because until now long-term care has gotten the crumbs on the healthcare plate.”

CHRT’s Marianne Udow-Phillips, just one of the many experts Anstett cites in the piece, says governments, foundations, insurance plans, philanthropic organizations, and advocacy groups have to come up with more creative solutions for elder care. Among the solutions Anstett features in the Huffington Post story is the Ann Arbor Area Community Foundation’s Vital Seniors Initiative, which CHRT supports.

READ THE STORY HERE

Related content:

COVID-19 rapid response brief: Best practices for protecting populations in nursing homes, long-term care settings

Telehealth services have expanded to address COVID-19 emergency. Let’s preserve the most effective innovations.

Rural hospitals continue to suffer financially due to coronavirus, even hospitals with few COVID-19 patients

As the COVID-19 pandemic forces hospitals to focus on essential procedures, reducing revenues at healthcare facilities across Michigan, many rural hospitals are struggling to stay open. In this Michigan Health Watch series, Bridge Magazine’s Ted Roelofs examines some of the ways the coronavirus response is squeezing operating margins for rural healthcare providers, even if they may not be treating many COVID-19 patients.

In 2019, before the COVID-19 crisis, 18 rural hospitals in Michigan were at risk of closing, threatening access to care for about one-quarter of Michigan’s rural communities. Long-term population loss, fewer revenue-generating procedures to help pay for expensive diagnostic tools, and costly staffing of 24-hour emergency rooms all contributed to precarious financial situations. Now, the March 10 Executive Order that puts a hold on “non-essential” procedures is further compounding an already-tenuous revenue situation for rural – and some non-rural – health facilities.

There may be some relief on the horizon, with possible federal assistance for hospitals that treated COVID-19 patients and, importantly, a loosening of restrictions on elective and outpatient procedures says Marianne Udow-Phillips, founding executive director of the Center for Health and Research Transformation. “I think there’s going to be some ability to be doing some of these procedures soon,” she reports.

The Bridge article also examines how hospitals in other states are responding to the focus on COVID-19 patients and looks at the financial impact of the coronavirus caseload on larger hospitals in Michigan.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE

Udow-Phillips in HuffPo on what’s missing in the debate over Michigan’s ongoing stay-at-home orders

no people around michigan state capitol lansing because of the stay-at-home orders

Michigan has been especially hit hard by COVID-19. In an effort to slow the spread of coronavirus and to reduce the strain on hospitals and healthcare workers, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer has issued aggressive stay-at-home orders. In “Something big is getting lost in the debate over stay-at-home orders,” Jonathan Cohn, a Huffington Post reporter, explores why these guidelines have sparked protests by those who believe their freedoms are unnecessarily inhibited. Some people are demanding an end to the lockdown procedures and a return to normal life.

Marianne Udow-Phillips, CHRT’s founding executive director, talks about the strain public health agencies are under as they work to support the health and human needs of Michiganders who have lost employment during the crisis. Udow-Phillips believes that state and local agencies are struggling to support the wave of needs because “we’ve underinvested in public health forever.

READ THE ENTIRE HUFFPOST POST ARTICLE HERE

CHRT Health Policy Fellow Denise Anthony talks to WEMU about immunity certification, unintended consequences

WEMU’s Lisa Barry explores the idea of an immunity certification system that could exempt those who have COVID-19 antibodies from some social distancing restrictions and allow them to go back to work. Dr. Denise Anthony, CHRT Health Policy Fellow and Professor of Health Management and Policy at the U-M School of Public Health, joins Barry, cautioning that in the U.S., “There is not yet a certified test…It is in the development and research phase.”

The interview explores the potential use of technology to track people with a COVID-19 diagnosis and how testing data could be misused to discriminate against those who test negative for the coronavirus. Dr. Anthony points out that “It’s possible that people if they are found to not have the antibodies, could end up suffering from a surprising form of reverse discrimination…They might try to seek out exposure…or face restriction on their movement, employment, or other access to resources.”

In the interview, Dr. Anthony also points out that socioeconomic factors play a role in the transmission effects and deaths related to COVID-19. She articulates the critical policy safeguards that will be necessary to prevent discrimination and inequitable community impacts as immunity testing moves forward.

LISTEN TO THE INTERVIEW

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