By Ken Perez, vice president of healthcare policy and government affairs, Omnicell, Inc.
On February 27, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 1319, the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021. One week later, on March 6, the U.S. Senate passed its own version of the bill, on a 50-49 party-line vote, under budget reconciliation which allowed for passage of the bill by a simple majority.
The House took it up on March 9. Notably, the Senate removed a phased-in federal $15 minimum-wage mandate.
In late February, the American Hospital Association had lobbied for $35 billion in targeted emergency funding for hospitals across the nation. However, neither the House nor the Senate version included that level of assistance, though H.R. 1319 does include a number of provisions that either directly or indirectly benefit hospitals:
$160 billion for COVID-19 vaccine and testing: Hospitals will get paid for COVID-19 vaccine administration and testing, but that will be just a portion of this amount
$8.5 billion for rural hospitals
$330 million for graduate medical education at academic medical centers
$200 million for Nurse Cops: This scholarship program supports the training of nurses for the U.S. military, eventually contributing to the pool of nurses available for hospitals
$60 million for education, an awareness campaign, and grants for mental and behavioral health for healthcare professionals
$20 million for grants to modernize Affordable Care Act health insurance marketplaces and 100% coverage of continuing health insurance through September 2021 for laid-off workers: These coverage-related provisions should enable more people to get health insurance, reducing hospitals’ uncompensated care exposure.
Your routine, health, and lifestyle can all contribute to your sleep quality each night. If you often feel tired throughout the day or crave sleep as soon as you have stepped out of bed, you might be struggling with sleep deprivation.
If you want to feel fit, healthy, and energetic each day, read this informative guide to improving your sleeping habits.
Adopt a Consistent Schedule
A poor bedtime routine could make it difficult for you to fall asleep, or you might feel wide awake in the middle of the night. If this sounds familiar, you may need to adopt a more consistent schedule. For example, you must go to bed and wake up at the same time each day, even during a weekend. Plus, you must sleep for at least seven hours each night.
Over the past year, COVID-19 pushed the healthcare supply chain to breaking point. Throughout March, April, and May 2020, many offices could not get hold of the critical personal protective equipment they needed. And today, there are ongoing worries about vaccine shipments, delays, and insecure supplies.
Digital technology may be the answer to the sector’s supply chain prayers, according to Lab News. The site identifies four ways in which computer-aided supply chains are improving the situation and saving the system from shocks.
Empowering Patients
Historically, patients played very little role in medical supply procurement. Doctors’ offices, clinics, and hospitals would go to suppliers directly, and patients would simply accept whatever treatment they got.
Now, however, there is a trend to allow patients themselves to replenish their supplies. For instance, Convatec ostomy supplies are now publicly available via eCommerce to the public. Similarly, home assistants, such as Alexa, allow patients to issue voice commands that connect with suppliers, automatically delivering oral medication to them in the post.
Streamlining Vaccinations
Organizing tens of millions of vaccinations is a supreme logistical challenge. Doing it by telephone would push existing systems to breaking point.
Andreessen Horowitz, one of the most well-known venture capital firms in Silicon Valley, having made notable exits including Airbnb, Facebook, Box and Slack, is often at the precipice of significant software trends, including those signifying industry disruption. The firm is taking some of its focus on the rapid innovation occurring within the digital health space.
For example, Julie Yoo, general partner at Andreesen Horowitz, recently issued a report defining “The New Tech Stack For Virtual First Care.” In the report, Yoo says API-first solutions are, and will continue, helping telehealth companies rapidly build more scalable, efficient operations.
Digital Healthcare Surges As the World Focuses On Patient Care
For obvious reasons the recent growth in the overall digital health market has been explosive. Yoo points out that 2020 was a record-breaking year in the number of digital health companies that got started and funded, as well as the extensive growth these platforms achieved in both patient utilization and revenue. In her analysis, more than 1,000 full-stack digital health companies began in the past three years.
“We’re truly entering into a new golden era for healthcare technology,” she noted in her report.
Legacy Healthcare IT Fails Digital Health
New virtual care companies require much of the same back-end infrastructure as traditional healthcare providers; however, legacy healthcare IT solutions lack flexibility, interoperability, and scale required. Many digital health companies are trying to build their tech stacks or outsource manual operations — either approach is a mistake.
(Image source from “New Tech Stack of Virtual Care Delivery,” Andreessen Horowitz)
The “New Tech Stack For Virtual First Care”
Yoo point out that “in the same way that Plaid, Stripe and AWS abstracted out entire layers of infrastructure and dramatically reduced the cost and time to stand up a new tech business, these health-tech companies are now allowing digital health startups to accelerate their time to market and really focus on the higher-order elements of their products and services to deliver game-changing care to patients.”
If you’re itching to travel, love meeting new people, and are passionate about healthcare, it might be time to consider becoming a travel nurse. Travel nurses fulfill all of the regular duties a traditional RN would. However, instead of sticking to one facility long-term, nurses bounce from destination to destination, helping understaffed hospitals. Currently, there is a massive demand for qualified nurses everywhere, which means traveling staff often have a leg up in the competition.
If you’re looking for location flexibility, a challenging experience, and long-lasting memories, take a look at this complete guide on beginning your career as a traveling nurse.
Traits of a successful travel nurse
If you are itching for adventure and have a passion for the medical field, travel-based nursing may offer you the best of both worlds. However, how do you know if you’re cut out for the role? Flexibility, trust, compassion, and reliability are just a few attributes that will make you shine as a travel nurse.
Additionally, an essential quality is being comfortable with change. As you can imagine, nurses’ day-to-day is not routine, consisting of emergency calls and unpredictable conditions. If constant movement and excitement make you tick, this may be the career for you. Once you’ve made up your mind, search sites like Fusion Marketplace to take the stress out of the hunt and jump right into your career.
Physical and mental activity keeps elderly people alive. It boosts their memory and mental capacity, slowing down aging and enhancing their quality of life. Experts view gadgets as the best tool to engage these seniors because they come with familiarity and will help them to maintain a global view of life.
Two of the major concerns for the seniors is their health and safety. By monitoring their health, caregivers can respond quickly before a situation deteriorates, averting a health crisis. Their frail bodies also make their lives risky especially when they are exposed to sensitive conditions like strange places, water, or lost memory. Visit this site for homework help and engaging discussions on homework topics in different disciplines.
While each senior has unique needs, here are common tech tools that will cover the health and safety needs of seniors at home or in care facilities.
Most of the laboratory practitioners lose millions of dollars just because of inefficient management of lab billing services. Usually, it happens because of the lack of a sufficient workforce, equipment required for billing, and more importantly time. If you are finding it difficult to keep your claims process optimized then you must acquire the assistance of professional laboratory billing companies.
A reliable lab billing company stays well-versed with the recent evolutions in the healthcare industry. They provide a dedicated workforce that follows up on all claims. They try to collect maximum revenue for your practice to achieve mutual business success goals.
For this purpose, they implement every preventive measure to submit clean medical claims. When error-free claims are submitted in a timely manner, you can get quick reimbursements. This leads your practice towards long-term financial stability. Moreover, you get complete control of your lab revenue cycle management.
In addition to this, you don’t need to spend your time on hectic and time-consuming consuming tasks of lab billing and coding. Because outsourced billing experts eliminate the responsibility of your laboratory staff. And you can also get rid of the constant monitoring of your staff.
You and your healthcare staff can utilize the saved time in enhancing your patients’ encounters at your lab practice. Sometimes, laboratory practitioners feel hesitation in hiring a third party for their financial management.
If you are one of them, stop thinking like this. Because you don’t lose control over your finances because professional laboratory billing companies keep you updated with regular analytical reports.
Moreover, hiring lab billing agencies can help you to drive maximum profitability to your business in the following ways:
Nursing may not be one of the oldest professions out there, but it is undoubtedly one of the most esteemed and well-regarded ones. However, it wasn’t always this way. It has evolved immensely since its conception because of the likes of people such as Florence Nightingale and continues to grow to this day.
Nightingale, the daughter of a wealthy and aristocratic family, defied odds and entered a profession that was seen as lowly and revolutionized it entirely. So, while nursing may have evolved immensely over the years, some core tenants remain the same. Human dignity, altruism, honesty, and empathy are just a few of these core tenants that guide nursing as a profession.
However, one fundamental tenant is good communication. Much of the nurse’s work relies on effective communication, to which there are many layers. Nurses act as mediators between healthcare administration and doctors and the patients, ensuring that all parties are satisfied. If you’re looking to enter this profession, you need to have your communication skills on point. Below, we’ve listed the top communication skills each nurse needs to have.
Verbal communication
Verbal communication is the most well-known form of interaction and often the most stressed upon. Nurses need to be eloquent, clear, and precise when communicating with patients and medical staff members alike. Nurses need to know their audience and how they can communicate effectively and clearly. Ineffective communication can affect health outcomes severely, so it’s essential to keep the tone and words in check at all times. Nurses need to understand their patients and offer them help, even when the clients might be challenging to deal with.
Your routine, health, and lifestyle can all contribute to your sleep quality each night. If you often feel tired throughout the day or crave sleep as soon as you have stepped out of bed, you might be struggling with sleep deprivation.
