Every healthcare provider, pharmacist and patient in the U.S. dreads saying or hearing the words, "You'll need prior authorization for that." Prior authorization is a bottleneck that slows down care, frustrates staff, and leaves patients waiting.
Using electronic health record data to measure how frequently someone changes their residential address may be an effective tool to screen for patients who may be experiencing homelessness, according to a Northwestern Medicine study.
Experts warn the boarding issue will worsen as the number of people 65 and older in the U.S. with dementia grows in the coming decades. Hospital bed capacity in the U.S. may not keep up. Between 2003 and 2023, the number of staffed hospital beds was static, even as emergency department visits shot up 30% to 40% over that same period.
Immunization programs nationwide have been left brittle by years of stagnant funding by federal, state and local governments. In Texas and elsewhere, this helped set the stage for the measles outbreak and fueled its spread. Now cuts to federal funding threaten efforts to prevent more cases and outbreaks.
While much of the country is focused on the spiraling measles outbreak concentrated in the small, dusty towns of West Texas, cases of pertussis have skyrocketed by more than 1,500% nationwide since hitting a recent low in 2021 amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Deaths tied to the disease are also up, hitting 10 last year, compared with about two to four in previous years. Cases are on track to exceed that total this year.