Headline
The latest stories from AHA Today.
The Food and Drug Administration issued the first emergency use authorization for a COVID-19 antigen test, which can quickly detect the SARS-CoV-2 virus in a nasal swab sample.
The Department of Health and Human Services distributed $22 billion from the Public Health and Social Services Emergency Fund to hospitals with high numbers of COVID-19 admissions, as well as rural hospitals and clinics.
Employment at the nation's hospitals fell by 2.6% in April to a seasonally adjusted 5,130,000 people, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported.
The CDC reported a notable drop in routine childhood vaccines ordered and administered through the federal Vaccines for Children program during the COVID-19 emergency.
FDA revised its April 3 emergency use authorization for N95 and similar respirators made in China to remove certain respirators that failed to demonstrate at least 95% particulate filtration efficiency when tested by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.
The Food and Drug Administration issued an emergency use authorization to Rutgers Clinical Genomics Laboratory for the first COVID-19 diagnostic test with the option of using home-collected saliva samples.
CMS recently issued new Frequently Asked Questions to aid the Medicaid program and Children's Health Insurance Program in their response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
AHA urged the Federal Communications Commission to grant expedited approval to its request that the agency extend the COVID-19 Telehealth Program to all hospitals and other direct patient care facilities, regardless of their size, location, or for-profit or not-for-profit status.
A federal district court in Washington, D.C., heard oral argument in the AHA’s legal challenge to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ final rule mandating that hospitals disclose their privately negotiated charges with commercial health insurers.
Sens. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, Michael Bennett, D-Colo., and Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, introduced AHA-supported legislation (S. 3615) that would extend for five years the Medicare Rural Community Hospital Demonstration Program.