Category: Health Care
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Statewide Elective-Surgery Ban is Medical Malpractice
by James A. Bacon The Carilion Medical Center in Roanoke is the largest hospital in Virginia west of the Blue Ridge Mountains. It was staffed for 663 beds in 2018, according to Virginia Health Information, and it admitted roughly 40,000 patients a year. Twelve days ago, reeling from the drastic decline in admissions caused by…
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Why Northam Is Such An Important Governor
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in Abortion, Feminism, Women’s Rights, Agriculture & forestry, Business and Economy, Charity, Philanthropy, Nonprofits, Civil Rights, Individual Liberties, Consumer Protection, Defense, National Security, Energy, Environment, Federal issues, General Assembly, Governance, Government Finance, Government Transparency, Government workers and pensions, Gun rights, Health Care, Immigration, Infrastructure, Insurance, Labor and Workforce, Land use & Development, LGBQT, Media, Money in politics, Regulations, Gov’t Oversight, Science & Technology, Social Services and Entitlements, Taxes, TelecommunicationsBy Peter Galuszka This is a bit like throwing chum at a school of sharks, but here is my latest in Style Weekly. I wrote an assessment of Gov. Ralph Northam that is overall, quite positive. My take goes against much of the sentiment of other contributors on this blog. They are entitled to their…
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COVID-19 Update: Is the Hospitalization Rate Stable or Rising?
by James A. Bacon New COVID-19 hospitalizations in reported in Virginia yesterday shot up to a high of 139, but the spike came after a month-long low of 12 the previous day. It is reasonable to conclude that what we’re seeing is an artifact of data collection and reporting, not a reflection of the real…
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A Pulse Oximeter for Every Virginia Home?
by Verhaal Kenner Imagine you have mild or modest COVID-19 symptoms and are told to stay at home. How would you know if the infection had gotten worse and you needed to head to the hospital? Doctors have been seeing what some are calling “happy hypoxics” -– individuals “appearing comfortable” with modest symptoms but suffering…
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Why the Secrecy about Hospital Beds and COVID?
by Kerry Dougherty Anyone remember why the country is locked down? I do. With images of Italy’s collapsing healthcare system and Italian death panels doling out beds and ventilators in early March, we were told we had to take radical steps so that American hospitals would not be similarly overwhelmed by the COVID-19 virus. “Fifteen…
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COVID-19 Update: Pick Your Data to Support Your Narrative
COVID-19 data has been published today that can either calm you or alarm you, depending upon your inclination — or your support for or against Governor Ralph Northam’s economic lockdown measures. On the positive side, the chart above, taken from Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association data, indicates that COVID-19 still is not straining the capacity…
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Are Daily Headlines Driving the Fear?
by Larry Hincker Last year, Virginia suffered 1,800 flu deaths. So far, the COVID-19 virus has taken about 425. The 2017-18 flu season was the worst in four decades. More than 80,000 Americans died that year. What if newspapers posted a chart of flu deaths on their front page every day, like they now do…
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Virginia’s Leaders Traffic in Gloom and Doom
by Kerry Dougherty In response to a Tweet I posted last week about Gov. Ralph Northam, a local priest responded by quoting a nun who’d seen one of the governor’s press conferences and thought Virginia’s leader was in need of prayers “…that is a man without hope,” she said. Amen, Sister. Northam’s the captain of…
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Virginia’s Nursing Homes – Sources of Data and Ratings
James C. Sherlock I am being flooded with very good questions from readers and private correspondents on what sources of information go in to the ratings of nursing homes. There are two primary sources, Center for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) data, some of which comes from the states and most from its own…
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About the Governor’s New Metrics…
by James A. Bacon Governor Ralph Northam presented Friday his “Forward Virginia” blueprint for reopening Virginia’s economy when the COVID-19 epidemic recedes. As Virginia sees progress in five key metrics, the Governor says, he will relax his emergency restrictions in phases. The first of four phases would allow some businesses to re-open with “strict safety…
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COVID-19 Update: The Madness Goes On
Here, according to this morning’s Virginia Department of Health (VDH) dashboard, is an up-to-date look at new COVID-19 hospitalizations. (As always, we must be wary of weekend reporting lags, but VDH and Virginia hospitals seem to have tightened up their reporting and compiling these days, so the lag is not as pronounced as it once…
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Getting to Goldilocks
by Chris Spencer The news was good overall on Friday when Governor Northam announced the creation of a COVID-19 task force and presented a preliminary blueprint for reopening Virginia.[1] Like all works in progress, both could use tweaking, but they are good starts. Let’s imagine how the task force could achieve victory. I. A Beginning…
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Update: Virginia COVID-19 Testing and Nursing Home Data
by James C. Sherlock I update here the continuing scandals in Virginia nursing home understaffing and COVID-19 testing. In a quarterly update, the percentage of understaffed nursing homes and the Virginia’s relative standing among the states and D.C. in that statistic every quarter are posted on Medicare Nursing Home Compare. Here are the data from…
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COVID-19 Update: Still Lots of Idle Hospital Capacity
Another day has gone by, Virginia hospitals still have abundant spare capacity to treat COVID-19 patients, and Governor Ralph Northam’s emergency decree against elective surgery continues to drain hospitals of revenue, cost healthcare workers their jobs, and delay many Virginians’ access to healthcare. The number of COVID-19 patients in hospitals (both confirmed and awaiting tests)…
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Where the Helicopter Money Is Landing
What has the federal government done to help Virginia cope with the COVID-19 crisis? The following data comes from the White House. Clearly, the decision to compile and disseminate the information was political. But the data speaks for itself. The Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) has obligated $200.2 million or Virginia to respond to COVID-19…