Amazon's healthcare business will be divided into six new units as part of a restructuring effort, in a move that comes after recent top health executive departures. CMO Sunita Mishra stepped down last month, while Aaron Martin, who has been the vice president of the healthcare unit, is also set to step down. This reorganization follows a series of other executive departures, including Vin Gupta, who served as CMO of Amazon Pharmacy, and Trent Green, the CEO of One Medical.
Providence Health & Services has laid off 134 employees across Oregon, part of an effort to cut costs amid growing financial pressures in the health care industry. The broader Providence system, headquartered in Renton, Washington, is taking similar restructuring steps across its operations in seven Western states. The Catholic not-for-profit health system said it has eliminated 600 full-time jobs across its 125,000-person workforce. Most of those are administrative or non-clinical positions, though some medical providers were also laid off.
Bay Mills Community College will now be offering courses in licensed practical nursing to address local medical professional shortages.
On June 5, the college received approval from the Michigan Board of Nursing to launch the Licensed Practical Nursing (LPN) certificate program. LPN certificates were offered at the college years ago but the program was removed in 1999.
The certificate will qualify people to work as a nurse with a foundation of the standards of the practice. It will also include teachings tied to traditional Native American practices to promote a better understanding of unique cultural, racial and social differences among patients in the area.
While a range of clinicians can conduct forensic exams, specialized nurses called sexual assault nurse examiners (SANE) receive rigorous training to provide trauma-informed care throughout the evidence collection and examination process.
SANEs also connect survivors with resources and advocates. SANEs and the advocates they connect survivors with are vital for trauma-informed patient care and for bringing perpetrators of sexual assault to justice. But there is a critical shortage of SANEs across the Gulf South. According to the International Association of Forensic Nurses, a trade group that certifies SANEs, Alabama has 44 certified SANEs for the entire state. Louisiana has 42. Mississippi only has 6 — for a population of almost three million.
Where and how sexual assault patients access this resource varies greatly across the region. Although Louisiana state law requires patients have access to forensic exams in every parish, in practice not every hospital is set up to provide them.
The Office of the Health Insurance Commissioner this week announced that three health insurers have been directed to pay fines and have taken corrective actions for violating Rhode Island laws that required the waiver of cost-sharing for COVID-19-related services during the recent public health emergency.
A Penn Township woman is facing charges after police and hospital staff allege that she caused a fire inside UPMC Hanover in April, according to court documents. Michele Warren, 56, of Penn Township, was charged with a felony count of risking a catastrophe, along with misdemeanor charges of recklessly endangering another person and reckless or negligent damage of property, according to charges filed by Hanover police this week.