safety net

See the following -

California's Blackouts Reveal Health Care's Fragile Power System

Nicole Wetsman | The Verge | October 28, 2019

The United States health care system depends on electricity to function normally: it needs power to run everything from ventilators to electronic health records, to ferry patients via elevator through hospitals, refrigerate medications, and countless other tasks. But that PG&E planned outage wasn't the last. There were more outages last week, and they are likely to become more frequent as the changing climate keeps California dry and makes fires more likely. The number of weather-related power outages is also increasing as extreme weather events become more common. As a result, it's more critical than ever that health care facilities are prepared for a present and future where power isn't a guarantee. Read More »

Let's Do Public Health Better

Eric Reinhart, who describes himself as “a political anthropologist, psychoanalyst, and physician,” has had a busy month. He started with an essay in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) about “reconstructive justice,” then an op-ed in The New York Times on how our health care system is demoralizing the physicians who work in it, and then the two that caught my attention: companion pieces in The Nation and Stat News about reforming our public health “system” from a physician-driven one to a true community health one. He's preaching to my choir. I wrote almost five years ago: “We need to stop viewing public health as a boring, not glamorous, small part of our healthcare system, but, rather, as the bedrock of it, and of our health.” Dr. Reinhart pulls no punches about our public health system(s), or the people who lead them...

Region Not Ready For Health Reform In 2014

Kathy Robertson | Sacramento Business Journal | September 28, 2012

About 227,500 Sacramento area residents will be eligible for health coverage in 2014, but an already strained regional safety net is not prepared to care for them, a new market analysis of the region concludes. Read More »

Why We Need To Keep Our Community Hospitals Strong

Chuck Lauer | Becker's Hospital Review | May 29, 2012

Community hospitals are under siege right now. Unlike large medical centers or hospital systems, they do not have the clout to qualify for the highest payor rates or the lowest vendor prices. And these self-standing, non-profit institutions have limited access to financing at a time when we're stuck in economic doldrums. Read More »