About hospitals and health systems
Care New England, Lifespan to merge: “Two Providence, R.I.-based health systems — Lifespan and Care New England Health System — have signed a letter of intent to combine into one nonprofit organization with Brown University…
If the transaction closes, the combined system would include seven hospitals and have more than 23,500 employees.” This is the second time the merger has been attempted.
13 health systems opening hospitals: The news here is that in this economy, these projects are going forward.
Association of Clinician Health System Affiliation With Outpatient Performance Ratings in the Medicare Merit-based Incentive Payment System: “Publicly reported data on 636 552 clinicians working at outpatient clinics across the US were used to assess the association of the affiliation status of clinicians within the 609 health systems with their 2019 final MIPS performance score and value-based reimbursement (both based on clinician performance in 2017), adjusting for clinician, patient, and practice area characteristics…
Whether this represents differences in quality of care or other factors requires additional research.”
About pharma
Mylan to Acquire Aspen's Thrombosis Business in Europe: Mylan announced “an agreement to acquire the related intellectual property and commercialization rights of Aspen Pharmacare Holdings Limited's thrombosis business in Europe for EUR 641.9 million, subject to customary closing conditions and European regulatory clearances. The transaction is expected to be immediately accretive to Mylan upon closing and is anticipated to be accretive to VIATRIS [a new company to be formed by the planned combination of Mylan and Upjohn, a division of Pfizer] upon the completion of Mylan's previously announced combination with Upjohn that is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2020.”
Covid-19 vaccine trial participant had serious neurological symptoms, but could be discharged today, AstraZeneca CEO says: “The participant who triggered a global shutdown of AstraZeneca’s Phase 3 Covid-19 vaccine trials was a woman in the United Kingdom who experienced neurological symptoms consistent with a rare but serious spinal inflammatory disorder called transverse myelitis, the drug maker’s chief executive, Pascal Soriot, said during a private conference call with investors on Wednesday morning.
The woman’s diagnosis has not been confirmed yet, but she is improving and will likely be discharged from the hospital as early as Wednesday, Soriot said…
[And here is the news update today on this situation:] Soriot also confirmed that the clinical trial was halted once previously in July after a participant experienced neurological symptoms. Upon further examination, that participant was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, deemed to be unrelated to the Covid-19 vaccine treatment, he said.”
GlaxoSmithKline earns FDA nod for triple-drug combo Trelegy in sought-after asthma patients: ”The FDA on Wednesday gave its thumbs-up to GSK's Trelegy as a maintenance therapy for asthma, making it the first once-daily, triple-drug inhaler approved in that indication, the British drugmaker said in a release.
The agency based its review on findings from the phase 3 Captain head-to-head study, which showed Trelegy topped GSK's Breo Ellipta, known as Relvar in Europe, at improving lung function after 24 weeks in patients with uncontrollable asthma.”
Merck & Co. reports positive Phase III data for 15-valent pneumococcal vaccine V114: “Merck & Co. on Wednesday unveiled top-line results from two Phase III studies, including the pivotal PNEU-AGE trial, which showed that V114, its experimental 15-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine, was non-inferior to Pfizer's Prevnar 13 for the 13 serotypes targeted by both vaccines. The company said it intends to apply for V114 approval in adults by year-end…
Merck said V114 was also superior for pneumococcal serotypes 22F and 33F, the two serotypes unique to its vaccine.“
Covid-19 drug rationed in the US is plentiful in developing countries: “A CNN investigation into remdesivir finds that doctors in several developing countries report ample supplies of the drug, while US patients have faced shortages -- even though the drug is made by a US pharmaceutical company and was developed with the help of US taxpayer money.” Read the article for more details.
About the public’s health
Substantial underestimation of SARS-CoV-2 infection in the United States: “We estimate 6,454,951 cumulative infections compared to 721,245 confirmed cases (1.9% vs. 0.2% of the population) in the United States as of April 18, 2020. Accounting for uncertainty, the number of infections during this period was 3 to 20 times higher than the number of confirmed cases. 86% (simulation interval: 64–99%) of this difference is due to incomplete testing, while 14% (0.3–36%) is due to imperfect test accuracy.”
Trump Administration Orders U.S. Diplomats to Curtail Contact With WHO: The headline speaks for itself, “even though the United States will remain a member of the global health agency until next summer…”
Scarcity of key material squeezes medical mask manufacturing: “Meltblown is spun out of plastic pellets made from oil, typically polypropylene or polyethylene. The pellets are fed into a heated metal extruder, and jets of hot air force the liquefied plastic through an array of extremely small holes, producing fine plastic fibers. As the fibers cool, they overlap and stick together, forming a dense mesh.
This year, American meltblown makers have been ramping up supply. But some say they need more government support to meet the demand.” The concern is that return on the investment in ramping up may not be long-lived, leading manufacturers with costly overcapacity.
USAID to shut down its coronavirus task force: “According to the aid agency’s note and people familiar with the issue, the responsibilities of the USAID task force will be handed to other agency bureaus and divisions. ‘As we approach the deactivation of the Task Force on Sept. 9, the entire team is focused on ensuring a smooth transition of key functions back to Bureaus and Independent Offices,’ the note read.” The story is more nuanced than it appears, so read the entire article.
Racial disparities in mortality for patients with prostate cancer after radical prostatectomy: “When adjustments were made for age and year of diagnosis only, Blacks had 51% higher mortality, AAPIs had 22% lower mortality, and Hispanics had 6% lower mortality than Whites. Overall, with adjustments for all clinical factors and nonclinical factors, the Black‐White survival disparity narrowed to 20%, whereas the AAPI‐White disparity increased to 35%. Among the controlled‐for factors, education, median household income, and insurance status contributed the most to the racial disparity.”
Some scientists spot 'unlikely' patterns in Russia vaccine data: letter:”Twenty-six scientists, most of them working at universities in Italy, have signed an open letter questioning the reliability of the data presented in the early-stage trial results of the Russian COVID-19 vaccine, named ‘Sputnik-V’…
The letter, published on the personal blog page of one of the signatories, said the Phase I/II trial results data showed multiple participants reporting identical antibody levels.
‘On the ground of simple probabilistic evaluations the fact of observing so many data points preserved among different experiments is highly unlikely,’ the open letter said.”
How to talk about the COVID-19 Vaccine: “Across all demographic and geographic categories, the Personal Story message was most effective, and Economic Recovery, Safety and Community messages were least effective. But for some subgroups, the magnitude of effect was higher or lower. For example, for people who make less than $75K, Personal Story resulted in a 7% increase in intent, higher than the 5% for the overall sample…
Although personal stories were effective for both flu and COVID-19 vaccine messaging, the ‘community’ theme was most persuasive in the flu research, but ineffective for the COVID vaccine.”
About healthcare IT
Blackbaud security breach hits 11 systems: Atrium, NorthShore University, UK HealthCare & more:”The Blackbaud security breach affected more than 25,000 nonprofit organizations worldwide, including many health systems in the U.S.
Blackbaud is an organization that stores donor information for organizations. Most of the information exposed included the names, birth dates, addresses and phone numbers of donors and some patients. The breach occurred in between Feb. 7 and May 20, and the vendor notified organizations of the breach in July.
Blackbaud paid the ransom for the attackers to destroy their backup file of stolen information. So far, the breach is known to have affected more than 2 million individuals across at least 11 health U.S. health systems.”
7 things to know about VA's reboot of Cerner EHR go-live: An update in this continuing saga.
About health insurance
Cigna plans to expand its ACA exchange presence by 27% in 2021: “Cigna aims to expand its presence in the Affordable Care Act’s insurance exchanges by 27% in 80 new counties next year.
The insurer also announced that it will boost its plans sold on the exchanges, including offering new features intended to lower out-of-pocket costs. Cigna said it will grow its reach to more than 300 counties across 10 states.”
Humana launches value-based programs focused on heart surgery, shoulder replacements: “Humana is launching two new value-based care programs for members of its select Medicare Advantage (MA) plans, including one to cover coronary artery bypass grafting and another for total shoulder replacement procedures…
Under the new episode-based payment model, Humana provides data and analytics and financially incentivizes cardiothoracic clinicians to enhance patient care, deliver better coordinated care and reduce duplicative services, readmissions and complications…
The shoulder program also provides clinicians data and analytics, and it offers incentives for better health outcomes and lower costs derived from site of care selection, such as ambulatory surgical centers. Its inaugural facility participants in the program are located in Florida, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, North Carolina and Tennessee.
The model is Humana’s third orthopedic value-based payment program, following those created for total hip and knee joint replacement surgeries and for spinal fusion procedures.”