News

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has extended the Medicare deadline for eligible hospitals and critical access hospitals to submit electronic clinical quality measure data and/or attest to meaningful use of electronic health records for calendar year 2017.

The flu hospitalization rate rose last week to 74.5 per 100,000 people, surpassing the rate at the end of the 2014-2015 flu season, another severe season when the H3N2 strain also predominated.

Govs. John Hickenlooper (D-CO), Jon Kasich (R-OH), Bill Walker (I-AK), Tom Wolf (D-PA) and Brian Sandoval (R-NV) today issued a bipartisan plan to transform the nation’s health care system based on certain guiding principles and beliefs and specific strategies to reorient the system on value.

An estimated 28.9 million U.S. residents, or 9%, lacked health insurance when surveyed in the first nine months of 2017.

Our thoughts are with the families of the victims of this senseless tragedy. They are also with the dedicated people of Broward County’s hospitals.

Thirty-five state and regional hospital associations today urged the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to reverse a district court decision and grant a preliminary injunction to stop a nearly 30% Medicare payment reduction for many hospitals in the 340B Drug Pricing Program while the AHA and other hospital groups challenge the payment cut on appeal.

U.S. deaths from alcohol, drugs and suicide increased by 11% in 2016, to nearly 142,000, according to a report released today by Trust for America’s Health and Well Being Trust.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention yesterday released a congressionally-mandated report on the public health burden of traumatic brain injury in children and policy options to support care management for these children.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Food and Drug Administration are investigating a multistate outbreak of salmonella linked to products reported to contain kratom.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Office of Antibiotic Stewardship yesterday released the first in a four-part online training course on antibiotic stewardship.

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration and Department of Veterans Affairs have selected eight cities to participate in the first year of a joint initiative to prevent suicide among service members, veterans and their families.

Andy Bindman, M.D. – professor of medicine, epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of California, San Francisco – has joined Health Services Research journal as co-editor-in-chief.

The departments of Health and Human Services, Labor, and the Treasury today issued a proposed rule that would allow consumers to buy short-term health plans of up to 364-days duration, eliminating the current less-than-three-months limit on short-term plans.

Responding to a request from Senate Finance Committee leaders for policy recommendations to address the opioid epidemic, AHA urged the committee Friday to preserve health insurance coverage through the exchanges and Medicaid.

Anthem last week notified network providers in Missouri, Kentucky and Georgia about changes to its program to prevent “avoidable” emergency department visits.

The AHA and its Health Research & Educational Trust affiliate have released a discussion guide, self-assessment tool and video modules to help hospital and health system trustees as they work to improve patient care in their organizations and communities.

John Riggi, a nationally recognized expert in health care cybersecurity who spent nearly 30 years with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, has joined the AHA as senior advisor for cybersecurity and risk.

The Maryland Hospital Association yesterday named as its new president and CEO Bob Atlas, currently president of EBG Advisors, the consulting affiliate of the health law firm of Epstein Becker Green.

The lower court incorrectly dismissed as premature their lawsuit to prevent a nearly 30% Medicare payment reduction for many hospitals in the 340B Drug Pricing Program, AHA and other hospital groups told a federal appeals court in a brief filed yesterday.

AHA today applauded the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology for pursuing a voluntary “network of networks” approach to the draft framework for trusted health information exchange that builds on existing efforts.