Month: March 2025

Hospitals are getting more crowded and healthcare experts are warning that has serious consequences for the quality of patient care.

A new study published in JAMA Network projects that by 2032, national hospital occupancy rates could exceed 85%, a critical level where hospital operations may become unsafe and dysfunctional.

This projection highlights a growing concern about the inadequate supply of hospital care to meet future demand. Although this national figure masks significant geographic and temporal variations, many areas are already experiencing a public health crisis due to hospital capacity constraints.

Historically, hospital care has been a significant portion of healthcare spending, accounting for 29% of the estimated $1 trillion spent annually in the US From 1960 to 1982, spending on hospital-based care surged due to increased health insurance coverage, reduced cost-sharing, and technological advancements.

In response, Medicare introduced the Inpatient Prospective Payment System in 1983, which aimed to control costs by reimbursing hospitals based on diagnoses and patient factors, rather than retrospective cost-based methods.

Policymakers also implemented certificate of need (CON) laws to regulate the number of acute care beds, aiming to curb unnecessary hospital spending. Despite their widespread adoption, these laws have faced criticism for being ineffective and even harmful. Efforts to optimize hospital bed productivity through lean healthcare principles and just-in-time resources have inadvertently contributed to hospital consolidation and reduced acute care capacity, the study authors say.

Pressing need for more hospital beds
As the demand for acute care continues to grow, driven by an aging and more medically complex population, the need for greater hospital bed capacity becomes more pressing. Technological advancements have improved survival rates for serious conditions, but they have also increased the demand for hospital care.

While some policymakers have explored alternatives like hospital-at-home programs and ambulatory care, the study said these solutions have not fully addressed the challenges of inadequate hospital capacity.

The study concludes the US must expand hospital bed capacity, particularly for critical and complex care services. However, the current healthcare financing environment favors the rapid expansion of urgent care centers and ambulatory care, while restricting similar growth in hospital capacity.

This selective development is based on the assumption that lower-cost settings will improve affordability and access, but the study said evidence suggests that meaningful substitution does not occur. ConsumerAffairs

Delhi chief minister Rekha Gupta on Tuesday alleged that medical equipment worth crores of rupees was lying unused in warehouses of many Delhi government-run hospitals.

During a visit to the Guru Teg Bahadur (GTB) Hospital, Gupta said, “Since the Covid-19 pandemic, the warehouse here has been completely filled. Even today, 458 oxygen concentrators, 146 ventilators, 36,000 PPE kits, multipara monitors, masks, and other medical supplies are lying unused.”

“This is not just the case with GTB Hospital, but with many hospitals across Delhi,” she said.

The chief minister said that the new structures that were recently constructed at the hospitals have been constructed without proper planning. She further claimed that hospital staff had not been paid their salaries for six months.

She added that the condition of several Delhi government hospitals was dire, with poor infrastructure. “Who is responsible for this? We will try to fix the problem,” she said.

Hitting out at the previous government, she said, “People who are asking for the ₹2,500 (monthly aid to women) should see how the previous government has left us.”

The CM was referring to Mahila Samriddhi Yojna — one of the key promises the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) made in the run-up to the Delhi Assembly elections. “AAPs health and education model is nothing but zero. Their governance is only about publicity, not real work,” she said. Hindustan Times

The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) this week claimed it had canceled 30 leases for US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) facilities nationwide, including a facility in St. Louis, MO, which is crucial to the agency’s drug testing operations. The department claims the cancellations will save almost $9M over the next year and at least $29.6 million in total.

The White House and Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) did not respond to Focus’s inquiries about when the leases expire and whether any FDA staff at those facilities will lose their jobs or be reassigned. FDA, however, directed Focus’s questions to the General Services Administration (GSA).

According to Howard Sklamberg, a partner at Arnold & Porter and a former FDA deputy commissioner for global regulatory operations and policy, the cuts could have long-term consequences for the safety and efficacy of the products the agency regulates. He told Focus FDA has more than 200 offices in the US and worldwide that vary in size, including the facility in St. Louis that is critical to the agency’s oversight drug quality.

“That laboratory is FDA’s most important pharmaceutical lab in the country,” said Sklamberg. “That laboratory performs most of the testing program overseen by FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research… [and] is an important part of the postmarket surveillance of drugs.”

“The drug supply is quite safe, but in the medium- and long-term, [closing the facility] increases the risk of drugs that are unsafe or not effective,” he added.

Drug manufacturers are required to conduct their own testing, but FDA also inspects manufacturers’ laboratories and third-party labs. Furthermore, the agency does its own drug testing to ensure it conforms to regulatory standards, much of which is done at the St. Louis facility.

“Any significant cut in that lab would put a big gap in FDA’s drug testing program, which is an important part of ensuring the safety and efficacy of drugs,” said Sklamberg. “It is a very important lab that has some very talented scientists in it who perform an incredibly important service for the public.”

Former FDA Commissioner Robert Califf also raised concerns about the lease at the St. Louis facility being terminated.

“This facility was critical to solving life and death issues like the adulteration of heparin that caused a lot of death and illness till it was solved and the nitrosamine adulteration situation that has been an ongoing issue,” Califf told Focus. “Pharmaceutical quality is essential to FDA’s mission and with current facilities, it’s really an oversight function for the industry that is expected to adhere to quality standards.”

“Taking that away could easily lead to a regrettable direct impact on serious harm to unsuspecting and vulnerable patients,” he added.

Califf also noted that FDA had already developed a plan long before last year’s elections to optimize the agency’s lab functions, and he’s not opposed to including the physical footprint of the labs in that discussion. However, he said it has been hard to include that in past discussions due to congressional oversight since it may affect jobs for constituents.

“What’s missing is the full plan and evaluation—it needs to be publicly vetted and all the benefits and risks should be laid out,” said Califf.

When asked about the facility leases, a GSA spokesperson told Focus that acting Administrator Stephen Ehikian’s vision for the agency includes reducing deferred maintenance liabilities, supporting the return to office of federal employees, and taking advantage of stronger private and government partnerships in managing the federal workforce.

“GSA is reviewing all options to optimize our footprint and building utilization,” said the spokesperson. “A component of our space consolidation plan will be the termination of many soft term leases.”

“To the extent these terminations affect public facing facilities and/or existing tenants, we are working with our agency partners to secure suitable alternative space,” the spokesperson added. “In many cases this will allow us to increase space utilization and obtain improved terms.”

GSA also emailed a statement that its Public Buildings Service (PBS) has identified federally owned assets that are not considered core to government operations, some of which belong to FDA. It said many of the 440 non-core assets, primarily consisting of office space, have become functionally obsolete and unsuitable for the federal workforce.

“GSA will consider non-core assets for divestment from government ownership in an orderly fashion to ensure taxpayers no longer pay for empty and underutilized federal office space, or the significant maintenance costs associated with long-term building ownership — potentially saving more than $430 million in annual operating costs,” said the agency.

After this article was first published, GSA removed some buildings from its non-core assets list, including some FDA buildings, and eventually removed the entire list from its website. The GSA website now states that such a list is “coming soon” and that the administration is in the process of identifying non-core government properties for disposal.

In the opening weeks of the Trump Administration, DOGE has acted to make broad cuts across the federal government in its stated goal of reducing federal spending. Sklamberg noted that he worked for FDA for seven years, much of that time in senior positions, and it took him a long time to understand the complexities of the agency’s operations and how things are prioritized.

“It’s hard for me to see how a small number of people in a very short amount of time can have the information needed to prioritize what FDA does from a public health perspective,” said Sklamberg.

“FDA’s budget is comparatively quite small, it’s about $7B, half of which is paid by companies in user fees,” he added. “When cutting FDA’s budget, one has to be very careful that they’re not jeopardizing functions that could create a risk to people’s health and lives.”

Stephen Grossman, an FDA regulatory consultant and author of FDA Matters, agreed with the sentiment.

“There are well-established protocols for downsizing the federal government,” Grossman told Focus. “It requires evaluation of needs, identification of priorities, and establishment of a plan that leaves the remaining government services viable.”

“Instead, both lay-offs and shuttering of facilities are being done by fiat,” he added. “For employees that has meant callbacks and for facilities that will ultimately mean re-openings. It’s much better to have a plan and do it right from the beginning.”

The New York Times on Monday reported that DOGE has, once again, revised its estimate of savings down, this time to the tune $4 billion after erasing or altering more than a thousand federal contracts it had eliminated on its website that accounted for 40% of all contracts listed on its site. Its initial claims of $16B in savings have been whittled down to $9B so far, which is a far cry from the $2 trillion that the Trump administration has stated it wants to cut.

The following is a list of the 30 FDA field offices where DOGE has ended the leases and their estimated costs and savings from its website:

Location	Annual Cost	Total Savings
ATLANTA, GA	$         446,286	$                      –
DAVENPORT, IA	$           12,312	$             36,936
SOUTH BEND, IN	$           28,745	$             11,977
WICHITA, KS	$           46,863	$             74,200
BOYLSTON, MA	$           56,349	$             98,610
WARWICK, RI	$         107,126	$           276,743
EAST PROVIDENCE, RI	$           59,161	$           211,993
NASHVILLE, TN	$         388,552	$           777,105
MEMPHIS, TN	$         323,607	$           701,149
IRVING, TX	$         115,742	$           414,741
TEMPE, AZ	$         151,150	$       1,410,731
ONTARIO, CA	$         140,262	$           128,573
PEORIA, IL	$           19,026	$             33,295
COLUMBUS, OH	$         121,125	$           262,436
BALTIMORE, MD	$           77,572	$           213,324
SAN CLEMENTE, CA	$         699,986	$           933,314
SAN JOSE, CA	$         220,598	$           110,299
WILMINGTON, DE	$           95,385	$           310,002
PLANTATION, FL	$         414,703	$           691,172
TALLAHASSEE, FL	$           39,290	$           288,124
ST. LOUIS, MO	$      2,457,367	$     19,249,372
MADISON, WI	$         121,221	$           272,746
SALT LAKE CITY, UT	$           95,124	$           475,620
GREENSBORO, NC	$           24,855	$             16,570
NEWARK, NJ	$         633,783	$       2,112,611
WAUWATOSA, WI	$         187,375	$           499,666
LONG BEACH, CA	$         952,904	$                      –
SAN DIEGO, CA	$         454,339	$                      –
LOUISVILLE, KY	$         101,765	$                      –
OMAHA, NE	$           34,357	$                      –
Total	$     8,626,930	$    29,611,309

RAPS.org

Apollo Hospitals, one of India’s biggest hospital chains, has announced a new partnership to further develop its AI tool for predicting cardiovascular disease risks.

It will collaborate with 3M spinoff Solventum Health Information Systems to use its patient classification and quality methodologies to enhance cardiovascular care. Specifically, Solventum’s tools will be integrated with Apollo’s AI-powered Cardiovascular Disease Risk technology.

They will later work to assess the effectiveness of their combined solution on population health and resource efficiency metrics, including mortality, lengths of stay, complications, and readmissions.

“The project aims to evaluate opportunities to deliver high quality care in the most cost-effective way by leveraging the potential of diagnosis related groups, case mix index, and the severity of illness, and by increasing the efficiencies in resource utilisation,” their media release read.

Why it matters
The partnership zeroes in on cardiovascular diseases, the leading causes of premature death and morbidity in India. Given its growing burden (cardiovascular diseases account for over a quarter of deaths in the country) alongside the continuing severe cardiologist shortage – now at one cardiologist per 250,00 people, the use of predictive analytics has become more critical to bridge this gap, they said.

The enhancement of Apollo’s predictive analytics tool is expected to boost Apollo’s capability to identify patients at great risk of adverse outcomes and further hospitalisation.

The larger context
Apollo introduced its Cardiovascular Disease Risk tool in 2021. Built using data from more than 400,000 patients, the tool takes into account lifestyle attributes and vital signs to predict an individual’s risk of cardiovascular diseases.

The following year, the predictive tool was integrated into ConnectedLife, a healthcare application and a Fitbit partner in Singapore.

Besides predictive analytics for cardiovascular care, the hospital chain has pursued various AI projects over the past years. Most recently, Apollo Hospitals has reportedly planned to adopt AI copilots from Microsoft as part of a new partnership to support its AI roadmap implementation.

On the record
“This powerful union enables us to pinpoint high-risk patients more accurately and deliver timely, personalised care. This breakthrough is leading to a dramatic reduction in complications and hospital stays while fundamentally transforming patient outcomes and broadening access to the high-quality care every individual deserves,” Apollo Hospitals co-managing director Dr Sangita Reddy said.

“We believe this collaboration can help us more accurately identify patients who are at high risk of adverse outcomes that may need additional services. We anticipate improved patient access, operational efficiency, and clinical outcomes as a result of our joint efforts,” added Dr Sandeep Wadhwa, global chief medical officer at Solventum HIS. Healthcare IT News

President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the National Institutes of Health, Dr Jay Bhattacharya, told a US Senate panel he plans to focus the agency on chronic diseases, improve research integrity, and foster scientific dissent.

Bhattacharya, a Stanford University professor who was a vocal critic of Covid-19 lockdowns, is expected to be confirmed for the role. His five key goals also include supporting innovative biomedical research and regulating high-risk studies.

“American health is going backwards,” Bhattacharya told the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, citing rising rates of obesity, diabetes, and chronic illnesses.

He also waded into the debate being fueled by his likely future boss, Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose response to a growing measles outbreak in Texas has underscored his decades-long anti-vaccine views.

Committee chairman Senator Bill Cassidy, a Louisiana Republican and physician, questioned Bhattacharya over his stance on investigating a potential link between autism and childhood vaccinations, an issue long debunked by scientific evidence that had been embraced by Kennedy.

“I don’t generally believe there is a link, based on my reading of the literature,” Bhattacharya said. “But we do have a sharp rise in autism rates, and I don’t think any scientist really knows the cause of it. I would support a broad scientific agenda based on data to get an answer to that.”

Cassidy pushed back, emphasizing that the alleged connection between the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism has been exhaustively studied and disproven.

“If we keep plowing over ground that has already been plowed, we waste limited resources,” Cassidy said. “We have a responsibility to address real health concerns, like chronic disease, rather than appease misinformation.”

A growing measles outbreak in Texas, in which one unvaccinated child has died and nearly 20 others have been hospitalized with serious complications, marks the first major test for Kennedy, a longtime vaccine skeptic.

“It’s a tragedy that a child would die from a vaccine-preventable disease,” Bhattacharya said. “I fully support children being vaccinated for diseases like measles that can be prevented with vaccination efforts.”

Covid critic
Once confirmed by the full Senate, Bhattacharya will lead the nation’s premier medical research agency, overseeing a nearly $50 billion budget and funding for thousands of scientific projects.
He is set to face immediate challenges, including legal battles over Trump’s proposed cuts to federal research funding. A federal judge last month temporarily blocked the cuts.

Bhattacharya gained prominence as a leading critic of lockdowns and widespread Covid-19 restrictions. He co-authored the 2020 Great Barrington Declaration, advocating “focused protection” for the vulnerable while reopening society.

He later sued the government, claiming officials pressured social media to censor his views.

His positions often clash with mainstream public health leaders whom he argues suppress dissenting views.

“Over the last few years, top NIH officials oversaw a culture of cover-up, obfuscation, and a lack of tolerance for ideas that differed from theirs,” he said on Wednesday.

The NIH has long been in Kennedy’s crosshairs, and Democrats pressed Bhattacharya on the recent and any planned future cuts to agency staffing, part of Trump and billionaire adviser Elon Musk’s firing of thousands of federal employees as they shrink the US federal bureaucracy.

Bhattacharya said that if confirmed, he would assess funding allocations and work to ensure research efforts continued.

Democratic US Senator Patty Murray from Washington challenged him on the administration’s push to cap indirect NIH grant costs at 15%. “Stanford, your own institution, would lose about $160 million annually,” she said.

Bhattacharya acknowledged that indirect costs funding support critical infrastructure, but called for greater transparency. “People distrust how that money is used,” he said. Reuters

As many as 15 health tech companies have integrated with the government’s digital health mission, with their apps helping patients access health records and other digital healthcare services to cut down long queues at clinics and hospitals.

Companies partnering the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM) include Driefcase, Aarogya One, Bajaj Health, Practo, and Ambula Technologies.

As one of the key services of ABDM is the faster OPD registration service for the patients via ABHA’s QR code share based ‘scan and share’, patients can now use any of these ABDM enabled apps application to share their profile with the hospital and doctors.

The ‘scan and share’ facility is running in more than 18,000 health facilities across all states and UTs.

The idea is to minimize the problems of standing in long queues for registration at the hospital and eliminate the chances of medical errors, ensuring continuity of treatment and do away with hard prescription copies.

It also facilitates creating and maintaining health records of a patient and empowering individuals to manage and share their health information with doctors after the consent of the patient.

Taking it forward, the National Health Authority (NHA), which implements ABDM, has now directed all the states/UTs to actively encourage citizens to use these apps.

“Some of the private PHR applications companies are also providing assistance, by way of manpower support, to assist the patients in registering using the ABHA based QR registration services,” the NHA said in a communication to the Mission Directors in the States/UTs.

Abhinav Lal, co-founder and CTO, Practo said, “By integrating with ABDM, patients can use the app to create their ABHA registration and utilize the benefits of the national digital health ecosystem. This will enable them to utilize features like Scan and Share, to identify facilities that fit their needs, facilitate informed decisions, and improve outcomes.”

“We believe that a strong partnership between private platforms and public initiatives is essential for building a robust and inclusive digital healthcare future for India,” Lal said.

ABDM has three components–Ayushman Bharat Health Account (ABHA), a digital health ID for each person, and Health Facility Registry (HFR).

Notably, the government’s Digital India initiative has given a push to the digital health sector. With greater accessibility of internet across the country, the ABDM, launched in September 2021, will lead to equitable healthcare and connecting the last link to universal health coverage in an accessible, inclusive, affordable, timely, and safe manner.

“DRiefcase was the first private PHR app to be approved by NHA. We have the highest share in ‘Scan and Share’ OPD registration among PHR apps. DRiefcase has tirelessly worked with NHA and state governments to successfully reduce patient waiting times by hours, significantly enhancing their experience. This is just the beginning. The future use cases of ABDM like record sharing, Universal Health Interface (UHI) and National Health Claims Exchange (NHCX) can make Indian healthcare experience the best in the world,” said Sohit Kapoor, founder, DRiefcase.

Other firms mentioned above could not be contacted. LiveMint