About hospitals
The World’s Best Hospitals 2020: Here is the US News ranking list.
About health insurance
Americans' Approval of ACA Holds Steady: In the latest Gallup Poll:
“52% approve of the Affordable Care Act; 47% disapprove
94% of Democrats, 11% of Republicans and 53% of independents approve
78% haven't had to change doctors nor give up their medical plan”
CVS Health announces COVID-19 resources for Aetna members: For the next 90 days the insurer is waiving copays for diagnostic tests for COVID-19 (assuming the testing meets CDC criteria) as well as telemedicine visits for any reason.
About pharma
Vizient Links FDA’s Unapproved Drugs Initiative to Higher Drug Costs: “Drugs approved through the FDA’s Unapproved Drug Initiative could potentially cost $29 billion in extra healthcare costs, Vizient said in a new analysis.
The agency began the initiative in 2006, aimed at approving drugs that had been marketed prior to 1938. However, the program has been controversial because certain regulatory actions, such as approvals, tend to fluctuate drug prices.”
FDA Warns Chinese API Maker for Heparin Operations:”The FDA issued a warning letter to a Yibin, Sichuan API manufacturer for serious recordkeeping violations related to its crude heparin manufacturing operations.
An agency inspection of the Yibin Lihao Bio-technical revealed batches of crude heparin that lacked any manufacturing and testing records…
Numerous records were found scattered around the floor, desks and cabinets of the quality assurance office, including batch production records for heparin.”
On February 16, 2008 the NY Times reported: “China Didn’t Check Drug Supplier, Files Show.” The violation also involved raw ingredients for heparin. Sad to see we have not solved this problem in 12 years.
About the public’s health
Trump signs $8.3B bill to combat coronavirus outbreak in US: “President Donald Trump on Friday signed an $8.3 billion measure to help tackle the coronavirus outbreak that has killed more than a dozen people in the U.S. and infected more than 200.
The legislation provides federal public health agencies with money for vaccines, tests and potential treatments and helps state and local governments prepare and respond to the threat.”
Silly songs, dances, and skits: The world is using humor to curb coronavirus’s spread: Silly but helpful.
NIH's Fauci on coronavirus: 'The risk group is very, very clear': Excellent summary of where we are with respect to COVID-19- from a taped interview Howard Bauchner, M.D., editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association, conducted with Dr. Fauci.
Flu season easing slightly, but not for children: Remember we are also in flu season. Unlike the surprising lack of childhood symptomatic cases of COVID-19, the flu hits kids hard. “At least 34 million Americans have been sickened with the flu so far this season and an estimated 20,000 people have died from it, with the illness taking a higher-than-expected toll on children, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Friday.
As of Feb. 29, there also were 136 flu-related deaths in children reported this season. That total is higher than every season since reporting began in 2004-2005 with the exception of the 2009 pandemic, the CDC said.”
.About emerging science
Integrated RNA and metabolite profiling of urine liquid biopsies for prostate cancer biomarker discovery: Analyzing metabolites in urine specimens (without prior prostate message) show great promise in distinguishing among patients who are normal and those having prostatitis, benign enlargement of the prostate (BPH) and prostatic cancer.
About healthcare IT
CMS' new interoperability rule requires major changes for payers, hospitals. Here are 6 key elements: “Here are key requirements and timelines in the CMS rule:
Patient Access: CMS-regulated payers, specifically Medicare Advantage, organizations, Medicaid fee-for-service (FFS) programs, Medicaid managed care plans, CHIP FFS programs, and CHIP managed care entities will be required to implement and maintain a secure, standards-based (HL7 FHIR Release 4.0.1) API that allows patients to easily access their claims and encounter information, including cost, through a third-party app of their choice. Payers are required to implement the Patient Access API beginning January 1, 2021.
Provider Directory: CMS-regulated payers will have to make provider directory information publicly available via a standards-based API by January 1, 2021.
Admission, Discharge, and Transfer Event Notifications: CMS is modifying Conditions of Participation (CoPs) to require hospitals, including psychiatric hospitals and critical access hospitals, to send electronic patient event notifications of a patient’s admission, discharge, and/or transfer to another healthcare facility or to another community provider or practitioner. The policy will go into effect six months after publication of the CMS rule.
Payer-to-Payer Data Exchange: Payers will have to exchange certain patient clinical data, specifically the U.S. Core Data for Interoperability (USCDI), at the patient’s request. Organizations will have to implement a process for this data exchange by January 1, 2022. This will allow the patient to take their information with them as they move from payer to payer over time to help create a cumulative health record with their current payer…
Public Reporting and Information Blocking: Beginning in late 2020, and starting with data collected for the 2019 performance year data, CMS will publicly report clinicians, hospitals, and critical access hospitals that may be information blocking based on how they attested to certain Promoting Interoperability Program requirements…
Digital Contact Information: CMS will begin publicly reporting in late 2020 those providers who do not list or update their digital contact information in the National Plan and Provider Enumeration System (NPPES). This includes providing digital contact information such as secure digital endpoints like a Direct Address and/or a FHIR API endpoint.”
The CMS announcement can be found here.