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President Trump authorized the Federal Emergency Management Agency to use up to $44 billion in Stafford Act disaster relief funds to supplement individuals’ wages resulting from lost work due to the COVID-19 public health emergency.

The Health Resources and Services Administration expects in mid-August to distribute half of the $5 billion in Provider Relief Funds announced last month to enhance COVID-19 response at Medicare-certified long-term care facilities, the agency said Friday.

In an op-ed published in Fierce Healthcare, Robyn Begley, AHA’s chief nursing officer and CEO of the American Organization for Nursing Leadership, urged Americans to take steps to defeat COVID-19 by adopting the mindset employed in every hospital and health system nationwide.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, hospitals remain cornerstones of their communities, as they’ve always been. They continue to serve and heal, provide jobs, food, social services and education around sound health practices. 

The health care field added 125,500 jobs in July, increasing nearly 1% to a seasonally adjusted 15.7 million, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported.

The Health Resources and Services Administration awarded 89 organizations, including hospitals, $1 million each to combat opioid and other substance use disorders in high-risk rural communities. The recipients will work with the communities to implement and tailor evidence-based or promising practice models to their needs.

Researchers have developed an expanded system for classifying serious maternal complications during hospitalization for childbirth, which can be used to compare severe maternal morbidity rates across hospitals and other patient populations, according to a study reported in the September issue of Obstetrics & Gynecology.

The Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights alerted health care organizations to postcards disguised as official OCR communications claiming to be notices of a mandatory HIPAA compliance risk assessment. 

Rural hospitals, already facing enormous challenges, quickly adapted when COVID-19 reached their communities.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a report describing the characteristics of multisystem inflammatory syndrome (MIS-C), a rare but serious condition that states have reported in more than 500 children with COVID-19.

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan announced the reopening of the state’s coronavirus emergency enrollment period. The reopening of enrollment, which is for private health plans only, will last through Dec. 15.

The Food and Drug Administration Tuesday authorized the emergency use of three types of ventilator accessories for treating COVID-19 patients.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services does not intend for Paycheck Protection Program funds to impact Medicare payments to rural hospitals, CMS Administrator Seema Verma said in a tweet.

President Trump last night signed an executive order intended to increase domestic production of essential medicines, medical equipment and protective gear.

Sens. Mark Warner, D-Va., and Tim Scott, R-S.C., introduced the Getting Early Treatment and Comprehensive Assessments Reduces Emergencies (GET CARE) Act, which would encourage patients to continue seeking preventive care during the COVID-19 pandemic, including disseminating scientific and evidence-based, preventive care-related information, with the goal of increasing the number of Americans seeking preventive care across all ages, particularly in medically underserved communities.

A divided Congress. A lapsed deadline to pass important legislation. And uncertainty about how the situation will end.

Michigan-based Trinity Health’s Transforming Communities Initiative is a “think big” approach to health care, targeting such underlying problems as youth tobacco use and childhood obesity.

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s Office of Behavioral Health Equity recently published a report on the opioid crisis’ impact on the Hispanic and Latino populations.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this week launched Hear Her, a new campaign to raise awareness of pregnancy-related complications, risks and death.

Virginia launched the first COVID-19 contact tracing app based on the exposure notifications system application programming interface developed by Apple and Google.