- Rural Hospitals Built During Baby Boom Now Face Baby Bust
- Food Stamps Go Further in Rural Areas — Until You Add Transportation Costs
- CMS Announces Resources and Flexibilities to Assist with the Public Health Emergency in the State of Texas
- CMS Proposes New Payments for Digital Health Under CY2025 PFS Draft Rule
- Improving Public Health by Strengthening Community Infrastructure
- Biden Harris Administration Proposes Policies to Reduce Maternal Mortality, Advance Health Equity, and Support Underserved Communities
- Nearly Half of U.S. Counties Don't Have a Single Cardiologist
- Randolph County, Ill. Turns Unused Part of Nursing Home Into State-Of-The-Art Behavioral Health Center
- Rural RPM Program Is a Lifeline for Pregnant Women
- Safe and Stable Housing Is a Foundation of Successful Recovery
- Expert: Rural Hospitals Are Particularly Vulnerable to Increasing Cyberattacks Targeting Healthcare Facilities
- Biden-Harris Administration Invests Over $200 Million to Help Primary Care Doctors, Nurses, and Other Health Care Providers Improve Care for Older Adults
- AJPH Call for Papers Special Section on Intersections of Public Health And Primary Care
- NIH HEAL Initiative Turns Attention to Pragmatic Trials in Rural Communities
- Limited Continuing-Care Options in Rural Virginia Create Challenges for an Aging Population
2021 Basic Screening Survey in Pennsylvania: PHDHPs Needed
Pennsylvania has few state-level data on dental caries rates in children. In response, the state is launching a program called the Basic Screening Survey (BSS). A list of 80 schools have been identified based on enrollment, demographics, geography, and other factors to serve as a representative sample of the state as a whole. Public Health Dental Hygiene Practitioners (PHDHPs) will serve as screeners during the 2021-2022 school year and will conduct a quick screening (less than 2 minutes) on all third grade students. Screeners will enter data for each school visited and attend a paid virtual training session this summer. Screeners will be paid a stipend for every school site they complete and all materials will be provided.
Applications are due April 8, 2021.
Click here for more information.
Click here for qualifications.
Click here for the application.
PHDHP Site Expansion Finalized in Pennsylvania
The Public Health Dental Hygiene Practitioner (PHDHP) site expansion to medical settings in Pennsylvania has been published in the Pennsylvania Bulletin and is effective upon this final-form rulemaking publication January 16, 2021. Please access this link for further information.
CMS Releases Final Annual Notice of Benefit and Payment Parameters for Plan Year 2022
On January 14, 2021, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued a final annual Notice of Benefit and Payment Parameters for plan year (PY) 2022 (final 2022 Payment Notice). CMS anticipates continuing to review comments in response to the proposed rule and finalizing other proposed policies in a subsequent final rule to be published at a later date. Working to address comments and feedback from the public after publishing the proposed 2022 payment notice in November 2020, CMS is using this this final rule to address a number of critical priorities. The rule finalizes changes to reduce consumer costs, empower states to develop their own unique plans, accelerate innovation, and clarify program requirements.
The final rule is currently posted for public inspection on the Federal Register at the following link: https://www.federalregister.gov/public-inspection/2021-01175/patient-protection-and-affordable-care-act-benefit-and-payment-parameters-for-2022-updates-to-state. For more information, please review the fact sheet or press release posted on the CMS website.
President-elect Biden Picks Pennsylvania Health Secretary to be Assistant Secretary of Health
President-elect Joe Biden has tapped Pennsylvania Health Secretary Rachel Levine to be his assistant secretary of health, leaving her poised to become the first openly transgender federal official to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate.
A pediatrician and former Pennsylvania physician general, Levine was appointed to her current post by Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf in 2017, making her one of the few transgender people serving in elected or appointed positions nationwide. She won past confirmation by the Republican-majority Pennsylvania Senate and has emerged as the public face of the state’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.
“Dr. Rachel Levine will bring the steady leadership and essential expertise we need to get people through this pandemic — no matter their zip code, race, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability — and meet the public health needs of our country in this critical moment and beyond,” Biden said in a statement. “She is a historic and deeply qualified choice to help lead our administration’s health efforts.”
A graduate of Harvard and of Tulane Medical School, Levine is president of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials. She’s written in the past on the opioid crisis, medical marijuana, adolescent medicine, eating disorders and LGBTQ medicine.
Biden and his transition team have already begun negotiating with members of Congress, promoting speedy passage of the president-elect’s $1.9 trillion plan to bring the coronavirus, which has killed nearly 400,000 people in the United States, under control. It seeks to enlist federal emergency personnel to run mass vaccination centers and provide 100 immunization shots in his administration’s first 100 days while using government spending to stimulate the pandemic-hammered economy,
Biden also says that, in one of his first acts as president, he’ll ask Americans to wear masks for 100 days to slow the virus’ spread.
Levine joins Biden’s Health and Human Services secretary nominee Xavier Becerra, a Latino politician who rose from humble beginnings to serve in Congress and as California’s attorney general.
Businessman Jeff Zients is Biden’s coronavirus response coordinator, while Biden picked infectious-disease specialist Rochelle Walensky to run the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Vivek Murthy as surgeon general and Yale epidemiologist Marcella Nunez-Smith to head a working group to ensure fair and equitable distribution of vaccines and treatments.
The government’s top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, will also work closely with the Biden administration.
National Slavery & Human Trafficking Prevention Month
January is National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month, and the National Human Trafficking Training and Technical Assistance Center (NHTTAC) is offering free training about trafficking as well as offer resources, and information about COVID-19 in the field on their website. They also offer SOAR Online – a series of on-demand continuing education/continuing medical education training modules that you can complete in your own time. They discuss the SOAR framework, how to apply it to identify individuals who are at risk of, currently experiencing, or who have experienced trafficking and connect them with the resources they need. Access the full CE/CME information and start your online training.
Top 5 Clinical Risk Management Program Resources in 2020
A look at the top 5 Clinical Risk Management Program from ECRI that were accessed during 2020:
- Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA) Risk Management Virtual Conference
- Guidance: Managing Risks in Ambulatory Care
- Sample Risk Management Plan for a Community Health Center
- Guidance: Overview of the Risk Management Process
- Practice Alert! Conducting Risk Assessments: A Checklist
Login to the Clinical Risk Management Program website to review these tools and more. If you need help navigating the site or finding resources, email clinical_rm_program@ecri.org.
Healthy People Launches 2030 Benchmarks
The Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion has launched the Healthy People 2030 Leading Health Indicators (LHIs) and Overall Health and Well-Being Measures (OHMs). Together, LHIs and OHMs will help you set priorities and track nationwide progress toward improving health and well-being. LHIs are a small subset of high-priority Healthy People 2030 core objectives that help you focus resources and efforts on critical public health issues to improve health and well-being in your community. OHMs are broad, global outcome measures that help health professionals evaluate the health of the nation. When OHMs improve, it reflects efforts to achieve Healthy People objectives, particularly LHIs. And improvements in OHMs mean the nation is moving closer to fulfilling the Healthy People 2030 vision: “A society in which all people can achieve their full potential for health and well-being across the lifespan.”
National Viral Hepatitis Strategic Plan Released
The U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) has released a Viral Hepatitis National Strategic Plan for the United States: A Roadmap to Elimination (2021-2025). The plan is a crucial element to advancing elimination efforts and will serve as a framework to implement strategies and address the rising number of hepatitis cases. The plan also recognizes the syndemic of viral hepatitis, HIV, STIs and substance use disorders, the mitigation of which will require integrated, interventional strategies that address whole-person health. The integrated approach is critical for the success of prevention and treatment strategies as the opioid use crisis continues to drive increases in hepatitis cases.
Adolescent Screening, Brief Intervention and Referral to Treatment
The National Opinion Research Center (NORC) launched the Adolescent Screening, Brief Intervention and Referral to Treatment Project (SBIRT). This is a four-part webinar series which introduces health professionals to the SBIRT model to learn from adolescents about their substance use, talk about what might motivate them to decide to reduce or abstain (if needed) from substances, and execute a plan to do so. This program is free and allows you to mix and match the many offered dates. View the schedule and register here.
Partnership Seeks to Increase Black Physicians
A recently announced partnership between Morehouse School of Medicine and CommonSpirit Health will invest $100 million over 10 years to train more Black physicians and work toward health equity for underserved communities. The partnership will create five new regional campuses and graduate educational medical programs in at least 10 markets to be announced in the spring, according to an announcement this week. Read the article from the Atlanta Constitution.