It s a long-running ideal for hospitals in Central Massachusetts and elsewhere in the state that doesn t want to lose patients to Boston hospitals: keep patients near home for services.
But Central Massachusetts hospitals are losing a slight share of patients statewide and in absolute numbers, according to data released Monday by the state s Center for Health Information and Analysis that included 2016-2019 patient numbers.
Those patients aren t necessarily going to Boston hospitals. The Boston area also saw a small decline at 1%, with some numbers increasing just south of Boston, on the Cape and Islands, and in the Berkshires, with the health data agency breaking out figures by regions and major hospital systems.
Beth Israel Deaconess receives food gift from Fidelity Bank
Community Content
Fidelity Bank recently provided “Share the Love” Valentine’s Day-inspired lunch and coffee gifts to people working on the front lines of the public health crisis in several communities, including Needham.
In Needham, a free pizza lunch was delivered to workers at Beth Israel Deaconess.
“While we think everyone has demonstrated heroism and resilience in their own ways, we wanted this year’s Share the Love event to be focused on the front-line workers who have selflessly helped others during this unprecedented period of uncertainty,” said Fidelity Bank chairman and CEO Edward F. Manzi Jr. “Our gift is a small way for Fidelity Bank to fulfil our promise of being a caring bank that supports our community, clients and colleagues.”
With several cases of the highly infectious COVID-19 variant confirmed in Worcester, UMass Medical School researchers have doubled their efforts to track and trace the mutated infections in Central Massachusetts. Their method? Genomic sequencing, which lets them determine the genetic makeup of virus samples that are collected through local testing efforts. The tracking project is being done in .
Smokers can now light up the vaccination hotlines in many states.
New Jersey, Mississippi, Pennsylvania and Virginia are registering smokers to get the coronavirus vaccine early, according to a health care think tank.
âThe goal is to get people at greatest risk,â said Jennifer Tolbert, director of state health reform at the California-based Kaiser Family Foundation. âBy targeting those individuals, you can hopefully reduce the chance of them ending up in the hospital with more severe cases of COVID and at greater risk of dying.â
The Centers for Disease Control and Preventionâs Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices said smokers should be vaccinated in Phase 1C, which includes people 65 to 74 years of age and those 16 to 64 with high-risk medical conditions. Phase 1A includes health care workers and long-term care facility residents, and Phase 1B includes people 75 or older and non-health care front line and essential workers.