Star Tribune
65,000 days of care avoidable if patients had somewhere to go
One in six days of inpatient care is unnecessary right now in Minnesota hospitals — a level of inefficiency that is causing backlogs in emergency departments and leaving patients waiting for hours to receive treatment.
The Minnesota Hospital Association issued that finding Wednesday after surveying 101 hospitals across the state and discovering that a backlog, which emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic, is becoming a permanent problem. Patients spent 65,000 more days in inpatient hospital beds than needed in the five-month period ending last October — after the COVID public health emergency had ended.
“We cannot have this become the new normal for our patients across the state and in all of our communities,” said Dr. Rahul Koranne, president and chief executive of the trade group for the state’s hospitals. “The sheer magnitude of the number of patients stuck up in the (hospital) units is immense and it is backing up the entire system.”
A loss of 3,000 nursing home beds in Minnesota since 2020 has left hospitals with nowhere to send patients who are ready to leave but still need rehabilitation services before they can go home. The backlog is costly for hospitals, which don’t get paid by insurers for unnecessary inpatient care, and frustrating for patients who suffer delayed treatment.
Melanie Wickersheim, a heart and kidney transplant recipient, said she endured delays getting into the emergency room at M Health Fairview’s University of Minnesota Medical Center last week, despite severe vomiting and diarrhea.
The medics that brought her by ambulance were surprised as well, she recalled. “They were looking at the clerks like, ‘Aren’t we going straight back?'”
Wickersheim said her health stabilized once she got beyond the ER waiting room and she received medications and fluids, but that the delay prolonged her discomfort. The 39-year-old Minneapolis woman then remained in the ER for three days, because no inpatient beds were available, which in turn left other patients sitting in the waiting room or receiving emergency treatment in the hallways.
“It feels like a crisis,” she said. “I’ve been a patient for a long time, going in and out of emergency departments … and I’ve never experienced this before.”
Lawmakers offered solutions last year, including $300 million to keep nursing homes open and $18 million in one-time funding to compensate hospitals for their boarding of patients who got stuck in inpatient beds in the first half of 2023.
Koranne said the nursing home funding should help by allowing facilities to hire more staff and take more patients from hospitals. However, he said, hospitals need longer-term financial relief as well, including an increase in payment rates from the state’s Medical Assistance program, to overcome the financial losses of boarding patients who are ready to be discharged.
“The hospitals are getting forced into a corner and have to make some very tough decisions about how to keep themselves open,” he said.
Newly released financial data for Minnesota’s hospitals showed that 43 of 118 had negative operating margins in 2022.
Other solutions include the expansion of inpatient rehabilitation facilities that could take more patients from hospitals in Minnesota. A Texas for-profit company wants to build a 60-bed facility in Roseville, but first needs lawmakers to grant it an exception to the state’s hospital construction moratorium.
M Health Fairview responded to overcrowding at St. John’s Hospital in Maplewood by opening a new 16-bed short-stay unit that can free up ER space by taking patients who don’t need prolonged hospital stays.
Fairview in a written statement did not address Wickersheim’s experience but said overcrowding and ER backlogs have caused “staggering financial losses” and disrupted patient care. Solutions are needed outside of hospitals that prevent medical emergencies and reduce patient demand, the statement said. “This is not something we can do alone.”
The overcrowding is most severe in the Twin Cities, where weekly hospital reports show that 99% of inpatient medical and surgical beds are occupied on most days.
Allina Health responded in 2022 by unifying United Hospital in St. Paul and Regina Hospital in Hastings under one license, making it easier to transfer patients between them to free up space. Overcrowding has remained a problem at the St. Paul ER, though, which set a record in December when it treated 5,500 patients.
“The patient in the emergency department, who needs to get up in the unit, can’t,” Koranne said. “The patient in the ambulance, who needs to get into the emergency department, can’t. It’s backing up the entire system.”
Twin Cities, get ready to potentially spot an ex on the Minneapolis season of Love Is Blind, which was officially announced Wednesday night.
The anticipated reunion episode that closed out season 7, set in Washington, D.C., included the surprise announcement. The eighth season will launch on Valentine’s Day.
“This Valentine’s Day 2025 will mark the five-year anniversary of the premiere of Love Is Blind, and it is going to be the launch of season 8, which takes place in Minneapolis,” host Vanessa Lachey said in a moment also posted to social media.
Three of the incoming Minneapolis singles were introduced in the reunion episode. When asked about the challenges of the dating scene in Minneapolis, one contestant shared a sentiment many Minnesotans will be familiar with.
“It’s such a small community, it’s not like a major city but it’s also not a small town. So you kind of see the same people over and over, and it’s a small bar scene,” he said.
Star Tribune
Long Prairie, MN school board dismisses its superintendent, the latest controversy in this small town
LONG PRAIRIE, MINN. — The school district superintendent dressed up as the school mascot, Thor, on football nights. He read the graduation address in both English and Spanish. He even set up office hours in the cafeteria, granting easier approachability to students.
But now, two months into the school year, Daniel Ludvigson is gone. Or, rather, “on special assignment,” according to the terminology of the Long Prairie-Grey Eagle School Board, which voted 4-3 earlier this month to remove him as superintendent. The move came weeks after voting to not renew his contract, which expires at the end of the school year in June.
Four board members — two of whom voted to oust Ludvigson, including Board Chair Kelly Lemke — are up for re-election next week.
The dismissal is the latest blow in this central Minnesota community on the edge of the prairie. Over the last nine months, the town of 3,400 residents and seat of Todd County has lost its mayor, a city manager, two school board members, and now its superintendent.
Students walked out earlier this month in support of Ludvigson. Signs in support of Ludvigson can be seen across town on the lawns of apparent Democrats and Republicans alike. And last week, hundreds packed the American Legion off Hwy. 71 to eat beef sandwiches and sign support letters for Ludvigson, who only swung by to pick up his child for hockey practice.
In a time of great divide in America, this fight has nothing to do with politics.
“You’ve got Harris buttons and Trump hats side-by-side, arm-in-arm,” said Amanda Hinson, a former local newspaper reporter who is concerned the board is not being upfront about why they placed Ludvigson on special assignment. “We want transparency in our government.”
Lawn signs around Long Prairie, Minn., now include people weighing in on the dismissal of Superintendent Daniel Ludvigson by the school board. (Christopher Vondracek)
School board members say Ludvigson has repeatedly shown he is not ready for the prime time of a school district bigger than the one in central North Dakota he arrived from two years ago. They have twice disciplined Ludvigson, but did not state the reason for placing him on “special assignment,” beyond insinuating that staff are fearful to raise official complaints.
Rain and potentially heavy snow are on tap Thursday around the Twin Cities, just before families set out for Halloween trick-or-treating.
Temperatures were expected to drop throughout the day, creating conditions for flurries. A winter weather advisory is in effect from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. covering the Twin Cities metro area and parts of south-central Minnesota. Steady rain drenched the Twin Cities on Thursday, making for a soggy morning commute.
“As colder air begins to move in this morning, the rain will transition to heavy snow from west to east with snowfall rates of an inch per hour at times into early afternoon,” the National Weather Service in Chanhassen said in a weather advisory.
The Twin Cities and surrounding areas could get between 2 and 4 inches of snow, according to the weather service. The winter weather advisory is expected to affect Anoka, Chisago, Hennepin, Ramsey, Scott, Washington and Le Sueur counties.
It’s unclear how much of the snow will actually stick, with warm surface temperatures likely leading to melting on contact in many areas.
“Exact totals will depend on snowfall rate, surface temperatures, and melting — which increases uncertainty with the snow forecast,” the weather service said in an early Thursday briefing.
“Thundersnow possible!” the weather service emphasized.
The good news for Halloween revelers is that the snow and rain are expected to wrap up in time for trick-or-treating, though temperatures will remain in the 30s with a sharp windchill.
