As part of their continuing Health Watch series, Bridge Magazine continues their focus on hospital staffing and the economics behind the perplexing circumstance of healthcare workers losing their jobs during a health crisis. Writing for today’s Bridge, Brie Zeltner notes that the surge in coronavirus patients has increased staffing and equipment costs even as COVID-19 treatments bring in less revenue than the outpatient and elective procedures that have previously been the foundation of hospital business models.

Marianne Udow-Phillips, CHRT’s founding executive director, points out that the need to reserve space for coronavirus patients also affects hospital occupancy rates — further compounding challenges to the hospital’s bottom line. “We have a lot of [COVID-19] patients,” Udow-Phillips said, “but it’s a relatively small percentage of our total capacity.”

The article points out that the widening gap between costs and revenue is also a concern for many rural hospitals in Michigan — and thousands across the U.S. — many of which were facing financial challenges and potential closure before the coronavirus struck. Udow-Phillips reflected on what health care systems will need to recover, and raised the possibility that mergers and consolidations may accelerate as hospitals and providers seek to bolster their fiscal positions.

“Health care systems are going to need more support because the system is going to have to retool and regear,” she said.

READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE HERE

–Summary by Benjamin Kohrman

As hospitals and health systems across Michigan scramble to address a surge in COVID-19 patients, there is competition over the short supply of highly sought-after critical care nurses – driving up labor costs and pulling some Michigan nurses away from their regular jobs to take higher-paying temporary positions. In “Michigan nurses getting fat pay raises or pink slips in coronavirus crisis,” Bridge Magazine takes an in-depth look at this trend and related hospital staffing issues that have a direct impact on the ability of hospitals and caregivers to manage the coronavirus caseload across Michigan.

The article notes that in some cases, Michigan critical care nurses are being lured out of state by lucrative offers from hospitals in other regions, and some Michigan hospitals are seeking staffing help from other states and health systems that are not currently as over-burdened by the coronavirus crisis.  Even as some hospitals are in a bidding war to hire critical care nurses for coronavirus care, Bridge Magazine’s Kelly House notes that other health care workers are losing their jobs as elective procedures, planned surgeries, and outpatient medical services are being cancelled during the pandemic.

“As the coronavirus pandemic leaves a trail of devastation in Michigan, it is also defying the laws of health care workforce supply and demand, creating a maddening musical chairs of labor, forcing executives to adjust in real-time, and fueling frustrations among some workers who say they’re tired of being called heroes but treated like pawns,” House writes.

The perplexing circumstance of health care workers losing their jobs during a health crisis has led to calls for retraining so that those workers can assist on the front lines. “But retraining workers in the midst of a pandemic could prove tricky, said Marianne Udow-Phillips, founding executive director of the Center for Health and Research Transformation at the University of Michigan and a former director of the Michigan Department of Human Services. “You’ve got everybody deployed to the front lines and you don’t have the capacity to do that kind of training,” Udow-Phillips said. “But it’s a lesson learned for what we could do to prepare for the future.” Udow-Phillips also notes that policy changes at the state and federal level could help Michigan and other states be better prepared for future pandemics.

READ THE FULL BRIDGE MAGAZINE ARTICLE HERE

–Summary by Benjamin Kohrman.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a devastating impact on the healthcare system across the United States, and rural hospitals in Michigan are no exception.

In the Bridge MI article “Rural Michigan hospitals say coronavirus may soon force some to close,” Marianne Udow-Phillips, executive director of the Center for Health and Research Transformation at the University of Michigan, describes the thin cash margins of independent, rural hospitals and why they’re so vulnerable during this coronavirus epidemic.

To slow the spread of the virus, elective surgeries and procedures have been canceled, which has a huge impact on hospital bottom lines.

“All hospitals are challenged,” says Udow-Phillips, a national health policy expert and a lecturer at the University of Michigan’s School of Public Health and Ford School of Public Policy.

“But rural hospitals have huge cash issues. They have very thin if any cash margin, so they don’t have what they need to weather the ups and downs.”

Udow-Phillips says she’s “worried about whether many of our rural hospitals will be able to weather this for any period of time.”

Alan Morgan, head of the National Rural Health Association expressed the same sentiment. “If we’re not able to address the short-term cash needs of rural hospitals, we’re going to see hundreds of rural hospitals close before this crisis ends.”

READ THE FULL STORY HERE,