New Penn State COVID-19 Report on Essential Work

Posted on by lad3

The Penn State Institute of State and Regional Affairs (ISRA) released today the second installment of the COVID-19 Report Series: Employment Risk, quantifying the extent of establishments and employment effected by the COVID-19 pandemic and the closure of non-essential businesses.

The report uses current definitions for essential businesses paired with data on establishments, employment, and unemployment claims to assess the economic impact of the pandemic in Pennsylvania.

The key findings include:

  • At least 1.2 million employees worked in industries impacted by business establishment closures.
  • Over the four-week period from March 21 through April 4, nearly 1.7 million unemployment claims were filed.

Click here to read the latest report from ISRA’s COVID-19 Report Series for additional details on trends at the sector and county levels.

Policy Brief: Metropolitan/Nonmetropolitan COVID-19 Confirmed Cases and General and ICU Beds

Posted on by lad3

Fred Ullrich, BA; and Keith Mueller, PhD

The spread of COVID-19 across rural areas has fueled concern about the availability of healthcare resources for dealing with the pandemic. This brief looks at a single measure of healthcare resources – hospital beds – and reports of current COVID-19 cases in a single week to assess the impact on rural facilities.

Please click here to read the brief.

Reopening Could Cause 233,000 Extra Deaths by June 30 but Save Up to 18M Jobs: Report

Posted on by lad3

As states consider relaxing coronavirus lockdown orders, a new report estimates that fully reopening the economy would lead to an additional 233,000 deaths nationally by the end of June, relative to not reopening, but would at the same time save approximately 18.6 million jobs from being lost.

The University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Wharton Budget Model analyzed the health and economic effects of states partially reopening (lifting emergency declarations, stay-at-home orders, and school closures) as well as fully reopening, which would include businesses and restaurants as well.

The model, released on Friday, projects on a national level that if states do not open before June 30 and maintain status quo, the cumulative national deaths due to the virus would rise to about 117,000 by June 30 (including deaths before May 1), and approximately 18.6 million jobs would be lost between May 1 and June 30.

Read more.

Rates of Living Alone by Rurality and Age

Posted on by lad3

Living alone is associated with higher risk of social isolation and poor health for populations without access to appropriate support and resources. Little is known about how rates of living alone vary by rurality, however.  In this infographic, the University of Minnesota Rural Health Research Center identifies rates of living alone for all adults and within specific age groups using two classifications of rurality.  The report can be accessed here.

CRS Report on Health Care Provisions in Coronavirus Response Act

Posted on by lad3

The Congressional Research Service (CRS) provides an overview of the healthcare-related provisions of the Families First Coronavirus Response Act, passed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The report focuses on coverage of COVID-19 testing and related items for individuals covered by Medicare, Medicare Advantage, Medicaid, CHIP, TRICARE, Veterans healthcare, the IHS, and most private plans. The report also includes a discussion of changes to Medicare coverage of telehealth services.

Health Care Professional Workforce Composition Before and After Rural Hospital Closure

Posted on by lad3

A new rural policy brief is available from the RUPRI Center for Rural Health Policy Analysis authored by Erin Mobley, PhD; Fred Ullrich, BA; Redwan Bin Abdul Baten, MPH; Mina Shrestha, MPH and Keith Mueller, PhD.  This policy brief examines the composition of the local health care workforce before and after rural hospital closure to reveal any associations with discontinuation of inpatient services in rural communities.

Please click here to read the brief.

 

Policy Brief: Measure and Data Element Identification for the HRSA Evidence-Based Tele-Behavioral Health Network Program and the HRSA Substance Abuse Treatment Telehealth Network Grant Program

Posted on by lad3

A Research & Policy Brief is available from the Rural Telehealth Research Center.

To address the many challenges in treating behavioral health in rural areas, the Federal Office of Rural Health Policy (FORHP) in the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) established the Evidence-Based Tele-Behavioral Health Network Program (EB THNP) in 2018, funding 14 grantees, and the Substance Abuse Treatment Telehealth Network Grant Program (SAT TNGP) in 2017, funding 3 grantees. Concurrently, the Rural Telehealth Research Center (RTRC) worked cooperatively with FORHP to establish data collection protocols and tools on a set of measures that could be used for a cross-grantee evaluation of behavioral health services over their funding periods. This brief details multi-project work to identify the standardized set of measures appropriate to behavioral health, create an Excel-based tool – termed the Behavioral-Telehealth Evidence Collection (B-TEC) Tool- and begin to systematically collect data from the grantees.

Please click here to read the brief.

New Brief: Best Practices from 14 CAH Executives Operating in Challenging Environments

Posted on by lad3

Rural hospital executives are tasked with broader and more general functions than urban hospital executives who have greater resources to employ area-specific specialists. As such, rural hospital executives have developed and fine-tuned a different skill set than urban hospital executives. This study found four major themes from the many identified skill sets of the Critical Access Hospital (CAH) CEOs interviewed. These “best practices” likely helped contribute to the positive status of the CAHs interviewed and could also be a resource from which other CAHs could find utility.

For this study, the Flex Monitoring Team interviewed 14 CAH CEOs about their perspectives and experiences leading CAHs with a low risk of financial distress despite their operating environment. CEOs described their experiences with financial and quality issues, leadership roles, performance measurement, policy challenges, and community health.

This brief summarizes best practices related to tasks of daily operation, forecasting, and community health outcomes and to craft advice for other CAH CEOs.

This paper may be accessed here or on the Flex Monitoring Team website.