Investment losses and higher staffing and supply costs are all contributing, but one expert cautions to look at the long-term picture
HealthOne
Posted inHealth
Colorado maternity wards are giving out take-home doses of the opioid overdose antidote in hopes of saving moms
A project to get hospital emergency departments to dispense naloxone was so successful that organizers are now focused on labor and delivery units
Posted inCOVID, Health, News
Why Colorado’s hospitals have bent — but not broken — during the latest COVID surge
Nearly 19 months in, these are some of the toughest days for Colorado hospitals during the coronavirus pandemic. Even as the latest surge in coronavirus hospitalizations appears to have plateaued — what state epidemiologist Dr. Rachel Herlihy this week called an “unstable equilibrium” — hospitals across Colorado have still been scrambling to add critical-care beds […]
Posted inCOVID, Health, News
For Colorado health workers, the latest COVID surge is a special kind of exhausting
For Dr. Marc Moss, the day begins before 7 a.m. Time for rounds. These are anxious weeks again in the intensive care unit at UCHealth University of Colorado Hospital, where Moss works. After a decline in patients earlier this summer that the hospital’s doctors and nurses had hoped signaled the effective end of the coronavirus […]
Posted inCOVID, Health, News
Staff at five Colorado hospitals will have to get vaccinated against coronavirus. What about all the rest?
Update on July 28, 2021: Two more hospital systems, UCHealth and Denver Health, have announced they will require employees to be vaccinated by the fall. This brings the total number of hospitals with vaccine mandates to nearly 20. Employees at five Colorado hospitals will be required to get vaccinated against the coronavirus by this fall, […]
Posted inBusiness, Economy, News, Technology
What’s Working: Denver business leaders say $45,000 is the new “scrape-by” wage
If you’ve been wondering what Denver’s business leaders think about work, jobs and unemployment, a pretty large source of influence had already taken a stand. “An economy that doesn’t work for all Coloradans doesn’t work for us,” Prosper CO says on its website. The organization was started as a committee two years ago by the […]
Posted inBusiness, Health, News
Colorado will pay hospitals to close expensive free-standing ERs
By Phil Galewitz, KHN Colorado health officials so abhor the high costs associated with free-standing emergency rooms they’re offering to pay hospitals to shut the facilities down. The state wants hospitals to convert them to other purposes, such as providing primary care or mental health services. At least 500 free-standing ERs have set up in more […]
Posted inBusiness, Health, News
New Centennial Hospital fills southeast Denver gap, while other areas wait for specialty care
The opening of a new southeastern metro hospital, Centennial, by the for-profit HCA chain this month underscores where medical centers get built in the area — and where they don’t. HCA subsidiary HealthONE’s launch of 20-bed Centennial in a fast-growth area near Arapahoe and South Parker roads echoes the pattern set by other recent hospital […]
Posted inBusiness, Health, News, Politics and Government
Colorado hospitals’ profit margins are nation’s highest as state lawmakers move to cap health care costs
Colorado hospitals charge more, have higher costs and still report higher profit margins than any other state, according to a financial analysis of federal data presented Wednesday to the Colorado Business Group on Health. Both for-profit and nonprofit hospitals in Colorado have made “strategic decisions to maximize revenue and profit,” in large part by consolidating […]
Posted inColoradans, COVID, Health, News
An increasing number of Colorado coronavirus patients are surviving, and fewer need ventilators
Back in March, one of the most pressing problems surrounding coronavirus was the fear that hospitals could run out of ventilators. Doctors were quickly intubating patients, believing it was the best chance to save their lives from a contagious and deadly disease they had never seen before. But a lot has changed in three months […]