News

May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and it is a time to raise awareness of and reduce the stigma surrounding behavioral health issues. It’s also a time to recognize how mental illness and addiction can affect all of us — patients, providers, families and our society at large.

Kittitas Valley Healthcare in rural Washington state last year implemented an innovative new model for retaining essential obstetric and other women’s health services in its community.

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality recently released a guide to help health systems and other stakeholders assess and advance equity in health care solutions that involve digital technologies.

NYC Health + Hospitals launched the Helping Healers Heal peer support program to help care teams stay physically and mentally healthy.

The Department of Health and Human Services and National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention, a public-private partnership whose members include the AHA, April 23 released a national strategy and federal plan to prevent suicide over the next 10 years. The updated strategy includes a new pillar prioritizing equity for populations disproportionately impacted by suicide.

The Federal Trade Commission April 23 voted 3-2 to issue a final rule that would ban as an unfair method of competition contractual terms that prohibit workers from pursuing certain employment after their contract with an employer ends.

A new Boardroom Brief from AHA Trustee Services and the American Society for Health Care Risk Management offers guidance and resources to help boards drive value through enterprise risk management.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Food and Drug Administration are investigating adverse effects in 22 people in 11 states who received botulinum toxin injections that were counterfeit or administered in non-healthcare settings or by unlicensed or untrained individuals.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services April 22 finalized rules intended to improve access in both the Medicaid fee-for-service and managed care programs.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services April 22 finalized minimum staffing requirements for nursing homes that participate in Medicare and Medicaid.

The Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology April 22 released

The Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights April 19 launched a webpage answering HIPAA-related FAQs about the Change Healthcare cyberattack.

Commenting last week on a discussion draft of the Hospital Inpatient Services Modernization Act, which would extend the hospital-at-home program through 2027, AHA thanked the sponsors for their ongoing work to extend this innovative program and voiced support for its continuance.

The Department of Health & Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights April 22 released a final rule prohibiting entities regulated by the HIPAA Privacy Rule from using or disclosing protected health information to investigate or prosecute patients, providers or others involved in providing legal reproductive health services.

The AHA has developed a sustainability roadmap for health care. This roadmap provides excellent resources and strategic guidance for hospitals and health systems that are adopting practices to support the environment and their communities.

Stand up. Speak out. Be heard. The stakes for the future of health care are too high to do anything less.

U.S.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services April 19 approved an amendment to a Massachusetts Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program demonstration to add health-related social needs services; expand Marketplace subsidies and cost-sharing assistance; provide pre-release services to eligible incarcerated beneficiaries; and expand continuous eligibility to 24 months for older adults experiencing homelessness and 12 months for other adults.

In clinical trials involving 220,000 patients at 59 HCA Healthcare hospitals, algorithm-driven computerized alerts helped clinicians better identify the appropriate antibiotic for 28% of patients with pneumonia and 17% of patients with urinary tract infections, according to studies funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published April 19 in JAMA.

Racial and ethnic health disparities persist across the United States, even in states with otherwise high-performing health systems, according to the latest Commonwealth Fund report evaluating states based on certain health and health care access measures.