Todays’ NewsStand — June 30, 2020

Todays’ NewsStand — June 30, 2020

By Iowa Hospital Association|
|June 29, 2020

Featuring hospital and health care headlines from the media and the web.

Iowa news

Siouxland Paramedics going out of business

A longtime Sioux City ambulance company is calling it quits. Siouxland Paramedics, which was established in 1982, has announced it will be shutting down Wednesday, July 1. Siouxland Paramedics is part of a joint venture owned by MercyOne Siouxland Medical Center and UnityPoint Health-St. Luke’s. The company transitioned out of emergency services in 2018 at a time when the city of Sioux City was establishing its own emergency services. (KMEG)

IHA Report Shows Greene County Medical Center Added $25 Million To Local Economy In 2019

A recently released impact study by the Iowa Hospital Association shows the Greene County Medical Center generated over $25 million for the local economy last year. The annual study measures jobs, income, retail sales and sales tax produced by the hospital and other health care sector areas, including physicians, dentists and assisted living facilities. The report found Greene County Medical Center employees spent nearly $3 million in retail sales and added just short of $176,000 in state sales tax revenues. (KCIM)

Behne, Donaldson named to executive director positions at MercyOne

Carl Behne has been named executive director of rural hospitals and clinic operations at MercyOne Siouxland and Mark Donaldson has accepted the position of executive director of clinically integrated network at MercyOne Siouxland. Behne will be responsible for the MercyOne Western Iowa Medical Group and the owned and managed Critical Access Hospitals in the Western Region. Donaldson has more than 25 years of progressive health plan and health care service delivery under population health and value-based care principles, including 15 years managing clinically integrated networks. (Sioux City Journal)

National news

Texas Medical Center hit 100% ICU bed capacity, then didn’t report data for 3 days

Houston-based Texas Medical Center stopped reporting intensive care unit bed capacity for three days over the weekend after saying its ICU was at 100 percent occupancy June 25 and was on pace to exceed an “unsustainable surge capacity” by July 6, according to a Houston Chronicle report. The health system eventually updated its charts June 27, but the Chronicle reported eight of the 17 original slides were deleted. On June 28, the health system re-posted many of the missing slides, including ICU bed capacity data, updating how the information was presented. The data and projections on the slides remained the same. (Becker’s Health)

Contact-tracing ‘not going well,’ Fauci says

National contact-tracing efforts are “not going well,” Anthony Fauci, MD, told CNBC June 26. Instead of creating a national contract-tracing strategy, the White House instructed states to develop infrastructure for broad COVID-19 testing and contact-tracing before reopening. Dr. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said some states have been slow to ramp up this capacity, which will be crucial before a potential second wave of coronavirus cases this fall. (Becker’s Hospital Review)

As cases surge in US, rural areas seeing increases as well

For many states and counties in the U.S., the dark days of the coronavirus pandemic in April unfolded on their television screens, not on their doorsteps. But now, some places that appeared to have avoided the worst are seeing surges of infections, as worries shift from major cities to rural areas. While much of the focus of concerns that the United States is entering a dangerous new phase has been on big Sunbelt states that are reporting thousands of new cases a day — like Texas and Florida — the worrying trend is also happening in places where livestock outnumber people. (GoSkagit)

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