News

UR Medicine Thompson Health, a nonprofit health care system which provides care for 165,000 residents of Upstate New York’s greater Finger Lakes area and is the largest employer in Ontario County, shared how the COVID-19 pandemic has caused significant financial challenges for the organization and why Congress needs to provide additional support to hospitals and health systems.

The AHA, along with the American Medical Association, urged the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to delay by at least one year the Jan. 1, 2021, implementation of the appropriate use criteria for advanced diagnostic imaging services.

The Department of Veterans Affairs July 8 will host a webinar featuring clinicians who will present a case-based educational session on performing cognitive evaluations for veterans with dementia warning signs when face-to-face care is not possible due to COVID-19.

The Food and Drug Administration authorized the emergency use of the BD (Becton Dickinson) Veritor System for Rapid Detection of SARS-CoV-2.

The Environmental Protection Agency approved two Lysol products following testing indicating that both safely and effectively kill the virus that causes COVID-19.

The AHA, Association of American Medical Colleges and Catholic Health Association of the United States requested the Department of Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service extend the deadlines for tax-exempt hospitals and health systems to prepare community health needs assessments that occur during the COVID-19 public health emergency.

The AHA is hosting calls for all hospital and health system leaders to provide the latest information on and answer questions about the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Department of Health and Human Services and Department of Defense announced a $1.6 billion agreement to demonstrate commercial-scale manufacturing of Novavax, Inc.’s investigational COVID-19 vaccine.

On this AHA on-demand webinar, the team that developed the Battelle Critical Care Decontamination SystemTM discuss the preservation service, while representatives from Mass General Brigham and University Pittsburgh Medical Center share individual strategies for collecting and redistributing decontaminated N95 respirators and how they increased utilization of Battelle’s system.

The Department of Health and Human Services Wednesday at 4 p.m. ET will host a webinar on the Provider Relief Fund application process.

The Food and Drug Administration authorized the emergency use of a third diagnostic test that detects and differentiates flu and COVID-19 viruses from one another.

The Food and Drug Administration warned of methanol’s toxic and “not acceptable” suitability for use as an active ingredient in hand sanitizer. Methanol is a wood alcohol more commonly used for the creation of fuel or antifreeze. FDA said it has seen an increase in methanol’s use in hand sanitizers, resulting in adverse events among adults and children that include blindness, hospitalizations and death.

A group of 34 state hospital associations urged the Department of Health and Human Services to delay the effective date of the agency’s hospital price transparency rule, which requires hospitals to that hospitals publicly disclose negotiated rates with commercial health plans.

The Small Business Administration and Treasury Department today released detailed data regarding the loans made under the Paycheck Protection Program.

The AHA, American Medical Association, and American Nurses Association sent a letter urging the public to take simple steps known to help stop the spread of COVID-19 — wearing a face mask, maintaining physical distancing and washing hands.

The AHA releases Stem the Tide: Opioid Stewardship Measurement Implementation Guide, a new data-driven guide as the “how to” part of the Stem the Tide initiative. It connects knowing to doing, offering hospitals and health systems actionable ideas for program development and implementation.

The departments of Homeland Security and Health and Human Services and the National Security Agency alerted the field to a significant vulnerability affecting the Palo Alto Networks’ PAN-OS firewall software that cyber attackers could easily exploit remotely via the internet.

The AHA, California Hospital Association, and Washington State Hospital Association urged the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit to reverse a district court decision in a lawsuit brought by data analysis company Integra Med Analytics that “gives private plaintiffs broad license to file suits under the False Claims Act in ways that Congress never intended and expressly barred.”

The Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention July 7 at 12 p.m. ET will host a webinar on decontaminating respirators for health care personnel during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The health care field added 358,000 jobs in June, increasing 2.3% to a seasonally adjusted 15.6 million, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported.