News

COVID-19 has prompted many changes in the way hospitals manage and care for their patients. As hospitals across the nation deal with the ebb and flow of COVID-19 patients and shortages of intensive-care-unit beds, North Carolina’s Atrium Health has found a promising solution to increasing their inpatient capacity.

The departments of Health and Human Services and Defense will pay Moderna Inc. about $1.5 billion to produce and deliver 100 million doses of its COVID-19 vaccine candidate to vaccinate Americans if authorized by the Food and Drug Administration, the agencies announced.

The Department of Health and Human Services announced it has expanded the providers eligible for its Public Health and Social Services Emergency Fund “General Distribution.”

The National Center for Healthcare Leadership will present its 2020 Gail L. Warden Leadership Excellence Award to Beverly Malone, CEO of the National League for Nursing.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services released a final report identifying best practices and potential solutions for reducing barriers in the use of telehealth for the treatment of substance use disorders among Medicaid’s pediatric populations.

AHA’s The Value Initiative is providing new resources to support hospitals’ and health systems’ efforts to establish and improve age-friendly care. The Creating Value with Age-Friendly Health Systems issue brief provides best practices for implementing the 4Ms Framework — What Matters, Medication, Mentation and Mobility — and strategies to measure age-friendly progress and enable value.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced the Community Health Access and Rural Transformation Model, a new payment model for rural communities in response to an Aug. 3 executive order calling for a new model “to ensure that rural healthcare providers are able to provide the necessary level and quality of care.”

Houston’s Kindred Healthcare and TIRR Memorial Hermann are among the many post-acute care providers that have incurred increased costs to prepare for and treat COVID-19-positive patients and complex post-COVID-19 patients.

The Food and Drug Administration authorized the emergency use of George Washington University Public Health Laboratory’s GWU SARS-CoV-2 RT-PCR Test.

Researchers have launched two clinical trials to test whether monoclonal (laboratory-made) antibodies can safely prevent SARS-CoV-2 infection or symptoms in healthy adults, the National Institutes of Health announced.

More than 380,000 U.S. children have tested positive for COVID-19 since the onset of the pandemic, which represents 9.1% of cases in states reporting age, according to an analysis released by the American Academy of Pediatrics and Children’s Hospital Association.

The American Medical Association released new Current Procedural Terminology codes for reporting SARS-CoV-2 laboratory testing on medical claims.

The Department of Health and Human Services continues to update its CARES Act FAQ to aid hospitals and health systems in understanding the nuances of the provider relief fund.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced the extension of its Appropriate Use Criteria testing period through 2021.

Health and Human Services posted COVID-19 testing plans for state, local and territorial jurisdictions through the rest of calendar year 2020.

The Food and Drug Administration approved the first liquid biopsy companion diagnostic that uses next-generation sequencing technology to identify patients with specific gene mutations in a deadly form of metastatic non-small cell lung cancer.

The AHA urged the Internal Revenue Services to remove the treatment of health care sharing ministries from a proposed rule issued by the agency in June.

The Food and Drug Administration revoked its emergency use authorization for a SARS-CoV-2 antibody test made by Autobio Diagnostics Co. due to concerns with the accuracy of the test when evaluated at the National Institutes of Health’s Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research.

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.