News

The AHA released its latest edition of the COVID-19 Snapshot underscoring the persisting challenges facing hospitals and health systems during the ongoing public health emergency.

The Health Resources and Services Administration has reopened the Provider Relief Fund portal until Dec. 20 at 11:59 p.m. ET to allow certain health care providers who experienced technical or other problems reporting on funds received between April 30 and June 30, 2020, to comply with the original reporting requirements before the agency recoups the funds or takes other enforcement actions.

Responding to a recent request for input from the field, the AHA urged the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation to balance the risk and reward in its alternative payment models “in a way that reflects the significant investments required to launch and maintain APM participation.”

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission updated its COVID-19 technical assistance to clarify when COVID-19 might qualify as a disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Rehabilitation Act.

U.S. spending on health care grew 9.7% in 2020, up from 4.3% in 2019, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services reported in Health Affairs.

Apache has released a security update to address a second severe vulnerability affecting its Log4j software library, which a remote attacker could exploit to cause a denial-of-service condition, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency announced.

Members of the AHA Board of Trustees have recorded video messages to say thank you to the team members at America’s hospitals and health systems for all they have done – and continue to do – to care for patients and serve communities.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services in a Dec. 10 letter to state Medicaid directors provided state agencies with guidance pertaining to two provisions of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021.

The Food and Drug Administration updated its fact sheets for providers and recipients and caregivers for the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine, with each revised document outlining a contraindication for the vaccine’s administration to individuals with histories of thrombosis with thrombocytopenia following doses of this or any other adenovirus-vectored COVID-19 vaccine.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit issued a ruling ordering the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services vaccine mandate rule to resume in about half of the country while saying 24 states are not subject to the mandate. 

After treating the first confirmed COVID-19 patient in the U.S., Providence health system was able to use its scale and scope to quickly ramp up and deploy resources in response to the unprecedented public health emergency, the organization writes in “Better Together: The Value of Scale.”

In this podcast, Rebecca Chickey, AHA’s senior director of field engagement and behavioral health services, speaks with leaders from Allina Health in Minnesota and western Wisconsin about mental health and addiction services and key digital innovations that the health system is using to provide behavioral health care to patients throughout the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.

In a recent memo to state survey agencies, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services encouraged hospitals to review their maternal health policies and procedures and incorporate maternal safety bundles and other evidence-based best practices for managing obstetric emergencies and addressing disparities.  

President Biden ordered federal agencies, including the Department of Health and Human Services, to take certain actions to reduce administrative burden and improve the customer experience for organizations and the public.

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has created a webpage to provide the latest public information and vendor-supplied advisories on a critical remote code execution vulnerability affecting Apache Log4j software library versions 2.0-beta9 to 2.14.1.

A ransomware attack has impacted several Ultimate Kronos Group services that hospitals and other organizations use to manage their employees and payrolls, the HR management company has confirmed.

Pfizer announced additional phase 2/3 clinical trial data for its COVID-19 oral antiviral treatment, indicating the pill’s high degree of effectiveness in reducing high-risk patients’ risks of hospitalization or death from SARS-CoV-2 infection.

The Department of Health and Human Services announced that later this week it will distribute $9 billion of the $17 billion in Provider Relief Fund “Phase 4” payments to providers who have experienced revenue losses and expenses related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Food and Drug Administration released a discussion paper on 3D printing of medical devices at the point of care to facilitate input from stakeholders and others to inform future guidance. The agency will accept comments on the paper for 60 days.

Health care organizations should survey their information infrastructure to ensure they are not running vulnerable versions of the Apache Log4j Java library, upgrade any vulnerable systems and identify possible exploitation, the Department of Health and Human Services’ Health Sector Cybersecurity Coordination Center advised.