Category: Health Care
-
Big Lessons from Government Data on Virginia’s 286 Nursing Facilities
by James C. Sherlock Nursing facilities in Virginia offer an incredible mixed bag. There are heroes and villains. Much to see here. This column will offer expansive views of government data on each of the 286 nursing facilities in this state. I found out a lot things that really matter to the quality of…
-
Nursing Home Ads Pose As Official State Advice
by James C. Sherlock The Virginia state government has a Department for Aging and Rehabilitative Services. Who wouldn’t want one of those? But in the case of recommending nursing homes, it would be better if it would either stop or fix its broken system. Which it pays a nonprofit, VirginiaNavigator, to run. It is…
-
Bacon Bits: Bafflement, Confusion… and Hope
What is wrong with this picture? Headline from FFXnow: “Inova temporarily closes urgent care centers in Reston and Tysons due to high patient volume.” On top of an influx of COVID-19 cases fueled by the Delta variant, Virginia hospitals are getting more patients — many of whom had delayed seeking medical care due to the pandemic…
-
Virginia’s Self-Inflicted Nursing Home Crisis – Part 5 – The Best facilities in Virginia
by James C. Sherlock To show you the list of nursing facilities that I would use to begin a search for one for me and my family, I have built a spreadsheet of the very best facilities in Virginia. Because they are available, I made it a true list of all stars. Five stars composite…
-
Virginia’s Self-Inflicted Nursing Home Crisis – Part 4 – the Worst Facilities in Virginia
by James C. Sherlock Today we are going to take a look today at a snapshot of Virginia’s worst nursing homes as rated by the Centers for Medicare/Medicaid services. Medicare rates 54 of the total of 288 nursing facilities in Virginia as overall one star out of five. By definition of the way that Medicare…
-
Virginia’s Self-Inflicted Nursing Home Crisis – Part 3 – McAuliffe & Herring
by James C. Sherlock In the first two parts of this series, I wrote about the shortage of state inspectors for nursing homes in the Virginia Department of Health Office of Licensure and Certification (OLC) and the continuing danger it poses to Virginia patients. The problem, unfortunately, is much wider than just nursing homes. So…
-
Virginia’s Self-Inflicted Nursing Home Crisis — Part 2, the Business
by James C. Sherlock Nursing homes are businesses. Seventy percent of those in Virginia are for profit. They are run not by doctors but registered nurses with physicians on call. Nursing facilities very widely in size in Virginia, from the 300-bed Mulberry Creek Nursing and Rehab center in Martinsville to facilities of less than 30…
-
Virginia’s Self-Inflicted Nursing Home Crisis – Part 1
by James C. Sherlock None of us ever knows when we will need a nursing home for ourselves, our parents or our kids. Yes, kids. While long-term nursing care is mostly for older patients, skilled nursing facilities are needed for patients of all ages, including children, for shorter term post-op treatment and recovery. The patients…
-
Follow the Science. Whose Science?
James Earl Biden. Yesterday was supposed to be the day when almost all American adults could start getting the first booster shot for the Pfizer vaccination. On August 18 the Biden Administration announced that a Pfizer booster shot would be available to Americans who received their second Pfizer dose at least eight months prior. At…
-
Nine Years Later, Bon Secours Still Hasn’t Made Good on Promises
by James A. Bacon In October 2012, the City of Richmond negotiated a $40 million deal with the Washington Redskins and the Bon Secours Virginia Health System to build a Redskins training camp in the city. The complex deal had many moving parts. To make it happen, the city gave Bon Secours a long-term lease…
-
Hospitals Experiencing a COVID Crunch
The media is full of stories about how the rebound in COVID-19 cases fueled by the Delta variant is putting hospitals under the most stress since the peak of the epidemic in February. Hospitals are rapidly filling up. Some are reporting shortages of beds, others of staff. Making matters worse, hospitals from other states, also…
-
Correction: Vaccination Advantage Exaggerated
by Steve Haner Twenty to one? Where did that math challenged fellow get that? Oh, wait, I am the math challenged fellow and I have to offer a big correction to my post from yesterday. Yes, the advantage to being vaccinated is evident in that new data set on the Virginia Department of Health dashboard,…
-
Enough Inefficiency to Go Around
by Dick Hall-Sizemore Folks here on BR seem to take great pleasure in pointing out and criticizing the shortcomings and inefficiencies of government. I have spent my entire professional career working in state government and I have suffered through more than my share of meetings at which nothing was decided and have seen a lot…
-
VDH Data: Vaccinated Improve Odds by 20 to 1
According to the Virginia Department of Health’s count, just more than 400 fully-vaccinated patients have ended up in a Virginia hospital with a case of COVID-19, and 83 have died. This was the count for the period of January 17 to August 14 and represented five percent or less of the total hospital cases and…
-
State Mental Health Plan Too large, Complex to Succeed?
by James C. Sherlock I really want Virginia’s mental health program to work. It looks like a major struggle, however. I will recommend a major change: state control of the Community Services Boards (CSB)s. I think that will be necessary for the plan to have any chance of succeeding. I have just finished reading a draft…