News

The Department of Health and Human Services May 11 amended its Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act declaration for COVID-19 to extend liability protections for certain COVID-19 countermeasure activities beyond the May 11 end of the public health emergency

The Food and Drug Administration May 11 finalized revised recommendations for assessing blood donor eligibility, which use the same risk-based questions for every donor regardless of sexual orientation, sex or gender.

Health sector organizations should immediately patch a vulnerability in Veeam software used to back up, replicate and restore data on virtual machines, the Department of Health and Human Services’ Health Sector Cybersecurity Coordination Centers (HC3) said in an alert May 10.

In recognition of Mental Health Awareness Month, AHA’s People Matter, Words Matter campaign has released a new poster to support child and adolescent behavioral health.

Learn about tools and resources to help hospitals and health systems support workforce well-being.

The AHA has released a “We Are Hospitals” video that tells the story of the hospital and health care workers who care for their communities and keep them healthy, through the lens of employees at Meritus Health in Hagerstown, Md, Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles, and UnityPoint Health—Grinnell (Iowa) Regional Medical Center.

Get screened for breast cancer every other year starting at age 40 with biennial mammograms, as recommended by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force.

The Department of Health and Human Services yesterday released a fact sheet reviewing how the May 11 end of the COVID-19 public health emergency will affect the flexibilities the declaration enabled.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this week recommended health care facilities use a risk-based assessment, stakeholder input and local metrics to determine how and when to require universal masking to prevent COVID-19 transmission.

While various reports and rankings of hospital performance in recent months might lead you to believe that hospitals have taken their foot off the gas, this couldn’t be further from the truth, writes Akin Demehin, AHA’s senior director of quality and patient safety policy

AHA’s Hospitals Against Violence initiative, Jones Day and HEAL Trafficking (Health, Education, Advocacy, Linkage) hosted Forced Labor in Health Care Supply Chains: What Hospital Leaders Need to Know, an event in New York where speakers from Northwell Health shared practical information and resources to help health care providers prevent human trafficking, with a focus on health care supply chain issues.

A new Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services bulletin reviews the anticipated end dates for certain COVID-19-related Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance coverage flexibilities.

A bipartisan group of senators recently reintroduced the Resident Physician Shortage Reduction Act (S. 1302), AHA-supported legislation that would increase by 14,000 the number of Medicare-funded residency positions to help alleviate physician shortages that threaten patients’ access to care.     

AHA urged leaders of the House (LINK) and Senate (LINK) Appropriations Subcommittees on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education to give favorable funding consideration in fiscal year 2024 to health care programs shown to improve access to quality health care for patients and communities.  

As urged by the AHA, the Drug Enforcement Administration and Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration released a temporary rule extending telehealth prescribing flexibilities for buprenorphine and other controlled substances through Nov. 11, 2024, while they develop final regulations “consistent with public health, safety, and effective controls against diversion.”

Consumers and health care providers should not use certain SD Biosensor Pilot COVID-19 At-Home Tests distributed by Roche Diagnostics due to bacterial contamination, but throw them in the trash, the Food and Drug Administration announced.

America’s hospitals and health systems each year deliver 3.5 million babies, care for 32 million people admitted to hospitals, employ 6.3 million people, and provide emergency care to 123 million people, notes an AHA and American Organization for Nursing Leadership ad published May 8.

This week as we celebrate National Hospital Week (https://www.aha.org/ahia/get-involved/national-hospital-week) and National Nurses Week (https://www.aonl.org/about/nurses-week), it’s a perfect time for telling the hospital story.

A new AHA case study showcases a real-world example of ways hospitals are mitigating violence risk to build a safe workplace.

A nursing leader from the University of Vermont Health Network shares creative ways to help attract and retain nurses, a major workforce challenge, particularly in rural health care settings.