Healthcare
Metro Health board agrees to create technology to share COVID-19 data with first responders in ‘limited way’
The Nashville Board of Health agreed on Thursday to contract with the Motorola telecommunications corporation to develop technology to share COVID-19 patient data with first responders when they are transporting potentially positive individuals to jails, hospitals or mental health facilities. The technology capable of sharing data on a limited basis will likely take months to […]
Despite offers of hotel rooms for homeless, city does not take action
In April, the director of sales and marketing for the Millennium Maxwell House Hotel read a story about the critical need for shelter for people experiencing homelessness during the pandemic. She thought the historic hotel near Metro Center could play a role. “We are here and would love to help,” Christina Jones wrote in an […]
COVID-19 is spreading across Nashville. Here’s a zip code breakdown
Nashville Public Health officials on Tuesday released the latest heat map showing the concentration of COVID-19 cases by neighborhood with a warning from Mayor John Cooper. The virus, he said, has “now spread to other parts of the county, including our downtown core.” Southeast Nashville, including the zip codes 37013, 37221, continues to have the […]
Ruling on ‘heartbeat bill’ will come after Lee signs
A federal judge in Nashville on Wednesday said he will wait to rule on a request by Tennessee’s abortion providers to temporarily halt a new ‘heartbeat’ abortion measure until it is signed by Gov. Bill Lee. The measure, approved by state lawmakers last week, bans most abortions after the point a fetal heartbeat is detected, […]
Abortion clinics file for restraining order in federal court
In new filings in federal court on Monday, eight Tennessee abortion clinics challenging a heartbeat abortion ban outlined the consequences on patients and asked for an immediate temporary restraining order or preliminary injunction to prevent the measure from ever taking effect. The measure, one of the most restrictive abortion policies in the nation, was approved […]
House approves measure allowing nurses to prescribe opioid care
A measure to widely expand the number of healthcare providers legally allowed to prescribe medications used to treat individuals with opioid addiction in Tennessee has landed on the desk of Gov. Bill Lee. Tennessee, thus far, has been the only state in the nation that has barred nurse practitioners or physician assistance from providing medication-assisted […]
State House committee advances bill criminalizing abortion after heartbeat detected
A bill criminalizing abortion after a fetal heartbeat is detected was approved by members of a House health committee on Tuesday, even as some lawmakers voting in favor of it said they had not read it in its final form, including one of the bill’s sponsors. The bill was amended by Rep. Bryan Terry, R-Murfreesboro, […]
Tennessee hospitals losing $1 billion each month
Tennessee’s hospitals are collectively losing $1 billion each month, for a projected total of about $3.5 billion since the pandemic began, Wendy Long, president and CEO of the Tennessee Hospital Association told lawmakers Wednesday. While federal and state funding and grants have begun to flow to the state’s hospitals, there remains a “significant financial deficit,” […]
Tennessee’s contact tracing efforts under fire from right and left, but state says effort going well so far
Two months ago, the Tennessee Department of Health’s contact tracing program was merely a simplistic, uncontroversial tool to prevent the spread of highly contagious diseases. If a college student contracted a sexually transmitted disease, contact tracers from the health department would reach out to the student’s partners to inform them they had been exposed. If […]
TN rural hospitals back bill to save money on pharmaceutical costs
For nearly 30 years, nonprofit hospitals, clinics and health centers providing safety-net care have taken advantage of a federal program that provides them with cheaper prescription drugs. Under the federal 340B program, approved nonprofits and providers treating a high percentage of indigent patients purchase the outpatient drugs for less from pharmaceutical companies but are then […]
Opioids and COVID: Caught between two epidemics
Mark Sriedfertg was helping a friend move last week, when he noticed she had disappeared. He found her in the bathroom, blue-lipped and unconscious on the floor. “I didn’t have Narcan,” said Sriedfertg, who, at 58, has been in recovery from opioid addiction for nine months. “I applied ice to her groin and the top […]
BCBS posts drop in numbers of insured
BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee saw a drop of of 15,743 in commercially-insured members in April, according to data provided by the state’s largest insurer. The loss of coverage for individuals formerly covered through employer-sponsored insurers represents a fraction of the insurer’s 1.5 million customers. But the data is too early to capture the full extent […]