One of the most popular healthcare subjects in recent years has been bringing the hospital into a patient’s home as a way to make care more accessible and lower overall healthcare costs.

Withings, a French consumer electronics company, is getting into the hospital-at-home business with its new device that executives touted as being able to perform a “one-minute health checkup.” BeamO, which debuted at the 2024 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) conference in Las Vegas on January 7, allows patients to check their vitals at home and send the data straight to their doctors.

“Once, body temperature was the only health scan routinely taken at home. BeamO will revolutionize the measurement of the core vitals carried out during medical visits from the comfort of one’s own home,” Eric Carreel, founder and president of Withings, said in a statement.

Keep reading here.—MA

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Operating margins at not-for-profit hospitals are expected to “gradually improve” in 2024 but will still lag far behind pre-pandemic levels, according to a January report from credit rating agency Fitch Ratings.

Median operating margins for not-for-profit hospitals dipped to record lows during the pandemic, falling to 0.2% in 2022, according to the agency, which has yet to report numbers for 2023. In 2019, the median not-for-profit hospital operating margin was 2.4%, according to Moody’s.

Despite signs that margins are improving, they’re still “nowhere near” where they were pre-2020, and a “larger expense base will keep huge gains unlikely,” according to Fitch.

“2024 will not be markedly better and certainly not the V-shaped recovery we’re hoping for,” Kevin Holloran, senior director and sector head at Fitch, said in a statement.

Keep reading here.—MA

It’s not just empty office spaces and long Covid-19: Another persistent effect of the pandemic is a struggling healthcare workforce.

Healthcare workers are still reporting high rates of clinical depression and burnout—even as hospitals are no longer operating in an emergency state—and those mental health issues can undercut the industry’s workforce as a whole, according to new data from healthcare talent marketplace Vivian Health.

Through a survey Vivian Health conducted online between December 2023 and this month, nearly half (46%) of 863 respondents experienced clinical depression in 2023, though the severity of the disorder was divided along generational lines. About three in five (59%) millennial workers and 56% of Gen Z workers reported having experienced the condition, while 37% of baby boomers reported having had clinical depression.

Keep reading here.—WP

Do you work in healthcare or have information about the industry that we should know? Email Will at [email protected]. For confidential conversations, ask Will for his number on Signal.

Today’s top healthcare reads.

Stat: Covid-19, the flu, and RSV were responsible for 0.8%–2.6% of total hospitalizations in Washington state by mid-January. (the Seattle Times)

Quote: “There’s not any actual power in the bill.”—Jordan Scott, an organizer with the Pennsylvania Harm Reduction Network, on legislation that would dictate how states and localities should spend opioid settlement money (KFF Health News)

Read: Adults in the US are living longer—but they’re spending more of that time being unhealthy. (the Wall Street Journal)

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