Intermountain Healthcare announced it would postpone elective and non-emergent surgeries and procedures on Monday due to capacity issues from increasing COVID-19 hospitalizations. Intermountain said this decision was: “An effort to maintain a safe environment and ensure each patient receives the best care possible.” Hospitals will conduct reviews of daily surgical and procedural schedules, … Read more
Melissa Freigang is the founding director of the Prosperity Center of Excellence at Weber County, which works directly with the Weber-Morgan Health Department to assist in alleviating intergenerational poverty and homelessness while promoting strategies to prevent homelessness and connecting impoverished families with needed services. In this Q&A, Freigang talks with State of Reform about the … Read more
COVID-19 cases amongst nursing home staff are increasing in Utah. According to the AARP Nursing Homes COVID-19 Dashboard released on Thursday, Utah has the fifth highest percent of new confirmed cases in nursing home staff among the fifty states at 30.2%. Higher COVID numbers are coupled with a staffing crisis with 22.1% of nursing homes … Read more
PatientRightsAdvocate.org recently released a study which randomly evaluated 500 hospitals on their compliance with a new Affordable Care Act (ACA) hospital price transparency rule, which took effect on Jan. 1, 2021. Out of the five randomly selected Utah hospitals, all were noncompliant to this new rule. The rule required hospitals to provide a … Read more
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) revoked Utah’s community engagement requirements on Tuesday due to risk of “coverage losses and harm to beneficiaries” as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. CMS sent a letter to the Utah Department of Health’s Division of Medicaid and Health Financing in Feb. 2021 to announce … Read more
Researchers from the University of Utah (U of U) released a study last week detailing the importance of a key protein in heart cells, VDAC2, in potentially preventing heart failure. The study shows drug and therapeutic treatments that improve the signaling pathway for this protein can alleviate and reverse the effects of heart failure. … Read more
As the Delta variant makes its way through Utah, John Poelman, senior director at Leavitt Partners, thinks Utah’s economy and mandates will not change much. He said individuals will be responsible for their decisions in navigating the COVID-19 pandemic and their own levels of comfortability. The Delta variant has changed the way the … Read more