Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Oklahoma Allows Nurses With COVID To Continue Working
The Oklahoma State Department of Health is allowing health care workers that have tested positive for COVID-19, but aren't exhibiting symptoms of the virus, to continue working at hospitals and long-term care facilities. But the Oklahoma Nurses Association opposes allowing asymptomatic COVID-19 positive nurses to continue working, and on Monday called the recommendation a 鈥渞eckless鈥 solution to the state鈥檚 staffing shortage. (Forman, 11/24)
A new artificial intelligence (AI) platform developed by Northwestern University researchers can detect COVID-19 in the lungs 10 times faster and a bit more accurately than specialized cardiothoracic radiologists, according to a study published today in Radiology. The researchers trained and tested DeepCOVID-XR, a machine-learning algorithm that analyzes chest X-rays, on 17,002 X-ray images, 5,445 of them with signs of COVID-19, collected from February to April. (Van Beusekom, 11/24)
A patient who suffered permanent lung damage from COVID-19 is recovering after receiving a double lung transplant at University Hospital several weeks ago. The surgery in late October was the first of its kind to be performed in San Antonio. Only a small number of the procedures have taken place in Texas. (Caruba, 11/24)
In other health care industry news 鈥
A federal judge in Kansas dismissed a False Claims Act lawsuit against HCA Healthcare, ruling that the whistleblower didn't have specific enough information about the alleged fraud. U.S. District Judge John Lungstrum in Kansas City this week granted motions to dismiss from Nashville-based HCA, HCA Midwest Health and HCA practices College Park Physical Therapy and College Park Family Care Center Physicians Group. He added the caveat that the plaintiff, Edward Ernst, has until Dec. 14 to resubmit his claims. (Bannow, 11/24)
Connecticut has started a bundled-payment program for its state employees to help save healthcare costs. Connecticut's employee health plan cost the state $1.3 billion in fiscal year 2019, and Connecticut faces a deficit of over $2 billion. The new program, along with other efforts related to the health plan, are proposed to save the state $185 million through fiscal year 2021, according to the state. (Castellucci, 11/24)
