cover story one
Consolidation in Health Care
Post pandemic economics
By DANIEL K. ZISMER, PhD
Health care trade publications are reporting that U.S. hospital-centric health systems are in for another phase of consolidation and changes in ownership control. Why? Crashing financial performance for many are driving credit rating down drafts. Threats of receivership, out-right closures, and “shotgun weddings”; i.e., forced mergers and acquisitions have returned. Additionally, a few are reporting “full beds” with negative operating financial performance. Stop and think about any other industry that is producing and selling at capacity as it’s losing money.
cover story two
JAK Inhibitors: A promising new drug class
By Charles E. Crutchfield III, MD and Pallavi Kannan, MS
JAK inhibitors have been approved by the FDA for just over a decade. However, even when patients are likely to benefit from this dramatic scientific advance, physicians often find themselves debating whether to treat patients with a medication that received FDA approval only in recent years or to continue using traditional treatments despite less efficacy.
Minnesota Health Care Roundtable
Care Coordination: Improving Communication and Outcomes
The following report from the 55th session of the Minnesota Health Care Roundtable continued on the theme of our last two programs, which focused on improving the interoperability of care teams and care transitions. In this session, we focused specifically on care coordination, completing exploration into a highly interrelated trilogy of emerging and related responses to the necessary evolution of health care policy. The role of care coordination is growing quickly across all phases of health care delivery.
