News

Trust for America’s Health released its latest annual report assessing states on 10 public health readiness indicators ranging from whether they have a nurse licensing compact so jurisdictions can borrow medical personnel and a plan to surge public health laboratory testing to the share of hospitals participating in health care coalitions and people receiving a seasonal flu vaccine.

In this AHA Physician Alliance podcast, Dawn Sears, M.D., a gastroenterologist at Baylor Scott and White Medical Center in Temple, Texas, shares how she applied skills learned from the Women’s Wellness through Equity and Leadership Project to the COVID-19 public health emergency.

AHA urged the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights to take a holistic approach as it deliberates changes to the HIPAA Privacy Rule.

The AHA released AHA Hospitals in Action: Supporting Care Teams, compiling hospitals’ and health systems’ stories on ways they are supporting health care workers’ well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic, including the use of “lavender carts,” time-out rooms and easily accessible mental health programs.

President Biden, citing the need for maximum flexibility in the nation’s vaccination program, announced a deal for the U.S. government to purchase an additional 100 million doses of Johnson & Johnson’s single-shot COVID-19 vaccine.

The House of Representatives voted 220-211 to approve the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, a $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package, which includes a number of provisions that affect hospitals and health systems.

Health care systems must partner in effective community-based approaches in caring for populations, write three leaders from Providence.

To advance its efforts and achieve stated broader goals of ending structural racism in biomedical research, NIH has issued a Request for Information focused on best practices to identify opportunities, make recommendations, and develop and implement strategies to eliminate or lessen health disparities and inequities.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services revised the application process for the Medicare Shared Saving Program to give accountable care organizations more time to apply to participate beginning Jan. 1, 2022.

The Food and Drug Administration issued an emergency use authorization for a next generation sequencing test to aid in identifying individuals with an adaptive T cell immune response indicating recent or prior infection with SARS-CoV-2. 

Cities, counties and other local governments may apply through April 20 for grants to work with community-based organizations to encourage COVID-19 safety and vaccination in vulnerable and underserved populations.

The Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions Committee held a hearing to examine the COVID-19 response and receive an update from the front lines of the pandemic.

In honor of International Women's Day, Priya Bathija, AHA’s vice president of strategic initiatives, embraces this year’s theme, Choose to Challenge, and urges health care leaders to take action to improve the health of all women before, during and after pregnancy.

The Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response urged the health care and public health sector to patch on-premises Microsoft Exchange Server vulnerabilities announced last week, noting that additional criminal and state actors have been observed trying to compromise the critical infrastructure by exploiting these vulnerabilities.

The National Academy of Medicine has named an international committee to assess how COVID-19 vaccine development and other policies could facilitate global efforts to prepare for seasonal flu and a flu pandemic.

Regulators should prohibit health insurers from preventing hospitals and physicians in their networks from directly acquiring and storing drugs used in patient care, according to a white paper released today by AHA.

The Food and Drug Administration authorized the first molecular test to detect the SARS-CoV-2 virus in a nasal swab at home without a prescription. Cue Health expects by summer to daily produce more than 100,000 of the tests, authorized for use in patients age 2 and older.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released interim guidelines for fully vaccinated individuals’ social practices. CDC said that those who are fully vaccinated — whether the two doses required by the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, or the single Johnson & Johnson dose — may eschew masks or physical distancing when gathering with other fully vaccinated individuals in small groups in their homes.

In the 55 years since Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke those words, our nation has made some progress to ensure all individuals have an equal opportunity to reach their healthiest life — but we still have a long way to go.

The AHA invites hospitals and health systems to participate in the Better Maternal Outcomes Improvement Sprint, a free, six-week program focused on the safe reduction of primary cesarean births, also known as NTSV cesarean births.