News

A coalition of 13 health care organizations, including the AHA, voiced support for the Accountable Care in Rural America Act, bipartisan legislation that would revise the benchmarking formula for the Medicare Shared Savings Program to ensure participating accountable care organizations have an equal opportunity to share in savings regardless of their geographic location.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Milwaukee-based Advocate Aurora Health used its broad resources to ensure adequate supplies and equipment, develop a flexible staffing strategy, create surge predictive models and increase operational efficiencies.

The Senate Finance Committee held a hearing to examine how to improve access to mental health and substance use disorder treatment and address inequities. 

More than 1 million Americans selecting a 2021 health plan through the federally facilitated marketplace since April 1 will pay $10 or less per month, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced.

The Health Resources and Services Administration awarded 14 organizations grants to hire people to support COVID-19 vaccination and outreach in vulnerable and medically underserved communities.

The Food and Drug Administration added sodium citrate tubes used to collect blood specimens to its device shortage list and recommended health care providers only use the tubes when medically necessary, among other conservation strategies.  

The Food and Drug Administration Friday authorized for emergency use two batches of drug substance manufactured for the Janssen (Johnson & Johnson) COVID-19 vaccine at an Emergent BioSolutions facility in Baltimore.

Novavax announced phase 3 trial results for its COVID-19 vaccine, saying it provides 100% protection against moderate and severe disease, with a 90.4% overall efficacy.

Back in 2011, the first wave of Baby Boomers — people born from 1946 to 1964 — celebrated their 65th birthday. That marked a new demographic trend: the aging of the U.S. population.

The Health Care Payment Learning and Action Network has created an advisory team to help identify and prioritize opportunities to advance health equity through alternative payment models and inform its priorities and initiatives.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention alerted clinicians to an increase in Respiratory Syncytial Virus since late March in certain Southern states.

A study comparing suspected emergency department visits for adolescent suicide attempts between February and March of this year to the same period in 2019 showed an increase of 50.6% among girls aged 12-17 years and 3.7% for boys in the same age range, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported.

Nancy Myers, AHA vice president of leadership and system innovation, talks with Mikelle Moore, senior vice president and chief community health officer at Salt Lake City-based Intermountain Healthcare, about community health improvement during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.

Hospital and community collaborations drive meaningful change to meet basic human needs, improve care and advance innovation, writes AHA Board Chair Rod Hochman, M.D., president and CEO of Providence, in an op-ed published today in Modern Healthcare.

The Food and Drug Administration warned health care providers and the public not to use an antigen test for COVID-19 made by Innova Medical Group and distributed under several names.

The Health Resources and Services Administration awarded $100,000 each to more than 4,200 rural health clinics to maintain and increase COVID-19 testing; expand access to testing for rural residents; and broaden efforts to mitigate COVID-19’s spread in ways tailored to their local communities.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is asking jurisdictions to distribute portions of their COVID-19 vaccine allocations to enable administration at hospitals, emergency departments and urgent care facilities following patients’ discharge.

As urged by the AHA and other groups, the Department of Health and Human Services announced that it is extending the deadline by which hospitals and other providers that received Provider Relief Fund money after June 30, 2020, must use their COVID-19 PRF payments.

The Healthcare and Public Health Sector Coordinating Council, whose members include the AHA, urged President Biden to include support for health care cybersecurity in a future phase of his infrastructure plan.

The AHA’s opposition to UnitedHealthcare’s now-delayed policy on emergency coverage was picked up by the media and was mentioned in numerous publications, including The New York Times, USA Today, Modern Healthcare, Minneapolis Star Tribune, as well as a local TV interview with AHA President and CEO Rick Pollack on Minneapolis’ KARE 11 News, where UnitedHealthcare is headquartered.