News

COVID-19 has been a learning experience on many fronts. Every facet of our health care system has been affected by the pandemic — from providers to patients to hospital and health system CEOs — and we will be sorting out lessons learned for some time to come. 

The National Institutes of Health today in its Annual Report to the Nation on the Status of Cancer highlighted an overall decline in can

To mark National Minority Mental Health Awareness Month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shared new resources as part of its Hear Her campaign, which seeks to raise awareness of potentially life-threatening warning signs during and after pregnancy and improve communication between patients and their health care providers.

The National Institutes of Health released a study suggesting one in every four COVID-19 deaths in U.S. hospitals may have been attributed to the dire strain that surges in caseloads placed on hospitals during the pandemic.

The Department of Health and Human Services withdrew requests for proposals on ways individuals could import prescription drugs from other countries where they are typically cheaper and companies could “reimport” insulin to sell at a lower price.

The Commonwealth Fund reported that approximately 279,000 lives have been saved through the U.S.’s vaccination efforts, with 1.25 million avoiding hospitalization.

Responding last month to an AHA letter, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services said it will continue to remain flexible in its approach to surveys if a hospital experiences a COVID-19 surge. 

In addition to the COVID-19 pandemic, events sparked by the murder of George Floyd increased the constant exposure to stress in communities of color, a detriment to one’s physical and mental health, writes Kimberlydawn Wisdom, M.D., senior vice president of community health and equity and chief wellness and diversity officer at Detroit-based Henry Ford Health System, and chairperson of AHA’s Institute for Diversity and Health Equity Leadership Council.

Microsoft has released out-of-band security updates to address a remote code execution vulnerability — known as PrintNightmare (CVE-2021-34527) — in the Windows Print spooler service. The Computer Emergency Response Team Coordination Center (CERT/CC), part of the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, last week reported a critical RCE vulnerability impacting the Windows Print Spooler service that allows a remote authenticated attacker to execute arbitrary code with system privileges on a vulnerable system.

The total number of cancer screening tests women received through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program declined by 87% for breast cancer and 84% for cervical cancer during April 2020 in comparison to the past 5-year averages for that month, the CDC reported recently. 

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services yesterday announced Meena Seshamani, M.D., as its deputy administrator and director of Center for Medicare.

More than 120,000 Oklahomans July 1 started receiving health benefits through the state’s voter-approved Medicaid expansion, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services said.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services last week issued a final methodology and data sources necessary to determine federal payment amounts to be made for program year 2022 to states that elect to establish a Basic Health Program under the Affordable Care Act to offer health benefits coverage to low-income individuals otherwise eligible to purchase coverage through Health Insurance Exchanges.

The FBI and Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency July 4 released guidance to respond to the recent supply-chain ransomware attack leveraging a vulnerability in Kaseya VSA software against multiple managed service providers and their customers

The National Institutes of Health announced it will award up to $400,000 to fund groups or individuals looking to design effective, innovative methods for identifying complication risks in first-time pregnancies.

The Department of Health and Humans Services extended the designation issued Feb. 1 under Executive Order 13910 and section 102 of the Defense Production Act, as amended, for health and medical resources necessary to respond to the spread COVID-19 that are scarce or the supply of which would be threatened by excessive accumulation by people or entities not needing the excess supplies. 

The Food and Drug Administration July 2 authorized for emergency use one more batch of drug substance for the Janssen (Johnson & Johnson) COVID-19 vaccine at an Emergent BioSolutions facility in Baltimore.

The AHA July 2 expressed support for the Drug-Price Transparency for Consumers Act of 2021 (S.2304). 

Implementing a human trafficking prevention program may seem daunting during the COVID-19 pandemic, but simple steps can get every hospital started, write Hanni Stoklosa, M.D., founding CEO of HEAL Trafficking and an emergency physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and George Askew, M.D., chairperson of the HEAL Trafficking Board and deputy chief administrator officer for Health, Human Services, and Education for Prince George’s County in Maryland.

Hospitals and health systems employed 5,500 fewer people in June, as U.S. jobs overall increased by 850,000, according to preliminary data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.