BY John Hawkins, President and CEO, THA   COVID-19 is back. And while it may not become a public health emergency this time – knock on wood – its resurgence serves as a timely note of caution.   At this writing, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) had reported hospitalizations nationwide were up nearly 19% in the most recent week. CDC also reported recently that COVID-19 emergency room visits for adolescents had nearly...

BY John Hawkins, President and CEO, THA   For some time, rural hospitals – the facilities in our state facing the greatest threat to their existence – have needed help. This year, in several key ways, the Texas Legislature provided a helping hand. But there remains work to do.   Ensuring continued access to care in rural communities – from payment programs to the successful implementation of the new federal Rural Emergency Hospital designation –...

By John Hawkins, President and CEO, THA   The old saying about “strength in numbers” applies to hospitals as well as it applies anywhere. And anytime it’s applicable, you can usually say the opposite is true as well.   For years, hospitals here in Texas have been experiencing the opposite: We’ve been hurting as our personnel numbers have waned. But now – after a legislative session in which the Texas Hospital Association stressed workforce again...

BY John Hawkins, President and CEO, THA   Defense wins championships, the age-old expression goes in sports. Politics is sport in and of itself, and THA had to play some serious defense during the just-concluded session of the Texas Legislature.   The “championship” we won – if you want to call it that – was vital and hard-earned: a crisis was averted. Many hospitals and clinics that would’ve faced a new threat of hardship, reduced...

BY John Hawkins, President, THA   If there’s one theme you’ve seen me come back to in this column in the past year or so, it’s this one: Hospitals need help. Up in Washington, D.C., congressional lawmakers have a golden opportunity in front of them to give our safety-net hospitals – and the vulnerable patients they serve – a major helping hand by avoiding payment cuts that would total billions.   Two members of the...

BY John Hawkins, President, THA It wasn’t long ago that overwhelming numbers of people across Texas and the nation – on all sides of the political spectrum – knew and acknowledged that vaccines prevent diseases. Seventy years ago, polio crippled thousands of American children. Before the polio vaccine, the coffin-like “iron lung” confined patients who were suffering late-stage paralysis from the disease. As we all know, Jonas Salk’s work helped put an end to that...

BY John Hawkins, CEO, THA   An unfortunate reality in today’s world of fast-spreading information is, well, misinformation. With the internet and social media affording a potentially unvetted voice to just about everyone, misinformation is – ironically enough – a fact of life. While it can’t be stopped, it can be refuted. And these days, hospitals need the truth out there as much as any industry does. They are sites of life-saving care, and it’s...

BY John Hawkins, President/CEO, THA Three years after the beginning of the pandemic, hospitals have started to put the pieces back together and take inventory of COVID-19’s wide-ranging, long-lasting impact on health care. That process is ongoing and will be for some time. But a recent Texas Hospital Association workforce survey reinforces and quantifies one fact that’s become abundantly clear: Hospitals are facing a breaking point for their workforce. Now, it’s been no secret that...

BY John Hawkins, President/CEO, Texas Hospital Association   Earlier this month, the Texas Legislature gaveled in its 88th session, and what’s going on at our state Capitol will occupy a great deal of hospitals’ attention for the next four-plus months. If you’re a conscientious health care provider who wants the best possible care environment for your facility, city, and state, I’m sure you’ll be following along, too.   But also this month, in Washington, D.C.,...

By John Hawkins, President/CEO, THA   As the pandemic tapers off, the need for hospitals has not. With surges of respiratory illnesses inundating emergency departments, hospitals – and hospital workers – remain our most unwavering line of defense.   But even as hospitals continue to support their communities in the most urgent and visible ways – the ways everyone associates them with – we should keep in mind the more stealth impacts that hospitals make...