Democratic U.S. Senators and the governors of all 55 states and territories have asked the Trump Administration to reverse or delay the COVID-19 data reporting changes announced last week by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS). The extensive changes have prompted serious concerns from healthcare and other leaders across the country.
 
In a letter sent today to Vice President Mike Pence and federal Coronavirus Task Force Coordinator Deborah Birx, MD, Senators including Edward Markey and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts urged withdrawal of the "confusing and harmful changes to hospital reporting requirements" for COVID-19.
 
“In the midst of a global pandemic, these changes pose serious challenges to the nation’s response by increasing the data management burden for hospitals, potentially delaying critical supply shipments, compromising access to key data for many states, and reducing transparency for the public,” the Senators wrote.
 
Separately, the National Governors Association issued a statement seeking "a 30-day delay of these new requirements, in order for hospitals to learn a new system, as they continue to deal with this pandemic.” In addition, the governors urged the administration to make the information collected publicly available.
 
HHS has asked hospitals to begin reporting some of the new data as of last Wednesday, and to report all of the additional data fields included in their latest guidance no later than this Wednesday, July 22. MHA is joining other states in raising concerns at the federal level.
 
"Data plays an instrumental role in our ongoing response to this crisis, both here in the commonwealth and across the nation," MHA president & CEO Steve Walsh said. "But considering the new and significant administrative burden posed by the U.S. Health and Human Services requirements, we hope to learn more about how this data will be used and shared. Our providers are already fulfilling a slew of daily reporting responsibilities, so we take any changes to these requirements seriously – especially if there are concerns around efficiency and clarity of purpose.”

Chairman Neal Releases Report on Longstanding Health Inequities in US

House Ways and Means Chairman Richard E. Neal (D-MA) released a staff report entitled “Left Out: Barriers to Health Equity for Rural and Underserved Communities,” which analyzes the barriers to healthcare in under-served communities and discusses the challenges associated with scalable and sustainable solutions.
 
Working from nearly 200 responses received from a Request for Information issued last November, as well as a thorough review of recent literature, the report provides new qualitative analysis to help inform the current debate. The document identifies broad social, structural, and health inequities facing both rural and urban under-served communities and should serve as a call to action for policymakers in Congress and across the country, Neal said.
 
Click here for a summary of the report.
 
State-by-state health equity maps can be found here.
 

Placing New Nurses in a COVID-19 World

One of the unique but overlooked challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic has been placing nursing students and recent nurse graduates into clinical settings to prepare them for their careers. Getting them embedded within the healthcare system during the pandemic has created a number of unique challenges for new nurses, schools of nursing, and healthcare organizations alike. To tackle these issues, the Organization of Nurse Leaders (ONL) and Massachusetts and Rhode Island League for Nursing (MARILN) recently co-chaired a taskforce to identify collaborative ways for academic and practice-based nurse educators to facilitate such onboarding. Their work culminated in a new report released Thursday, and a support group for new nurses now being offered throughout the summer.
 
With providers already bracing for a significant nursing shortage in the not-so-distant future, it’s essential to keep a steady stream of new clinicians flowing into hospitals and other care settings.
 
The report, Supporting New Nurse Transition into Practice during the Covid-19 Pandemic, offers best practices and strategies that can be broadly adopted to support new nurses' transition into practice during this unprecedented time. The new nurse support group takes place over Zoom, with three online forums a week that are led by teams of expert RNs who specialize in new grad transition-to-practice.
 
The report and flyer are also available on ONL's website.

Family and Medical Leave Regulations Finalized

The Department of Family and Medical Leave (DFML) marked a significant milestone last week, as it concluded its public hearing and comment period for the state's Family and Medical Leave Law (PFML), M.G.L. c. 175M.
 
The PFML entitles workers in Massachusetts to up to 26 weeks of paid leave for medical or family reasons. Funded through taxes, the law was born out of a 2018 ballot proposal that ended in the so-called “grand bargain,” an agreement that also raised the state’s minimum wage and established a permanent sales tax holiday. Healthcare organizations, like all employers, are following the PFML regulation process closely as they adjust to the new law.
 
The final version of the regulations has been submitted to the Secretary of State and is expected to be published on July 24.

COVID-19 Safety Violation Website Unveiled

As Massachusetts continues to reopen its economy, the Baker-Polito Administration announced the launch of a new page on the Mass.gov website with information for the public to report businesses or workplaces that they believe are not complying with mandatory COVID-19 health and safety guidelines. While the Governor praised the thousands of businesses and organizations adhering to reopening guidance, he said the commonwealth wants to provide a mechanism for the public or employees to share their concerns.
 
The website offers several options for residents, including:
• Reporting issues to local public health officials
• Filing a report with the Department of Labor Standards hotline by calling (508) 616-0461, ext. 9488
• Emailing reports to safepublicworkplace@mass.gov
• Calling 2-1-1 to report concerns
 
Through phase 3 of reopening, hospitals and healthcare organizations are continuing to comply with strict public health and safety standards.

BORIM Appoints New Chair

George Abraham, MD, MPH, Saint Vincent Hospital's Chief of Medicine, has been appointed Chair of the Massachusetts Board of Registration in Medicine (BORIM). BORIM is the governing body for licensing physicians and protecting the public by ensuring that doctors who practice in Massachusetts are appropriately qualified.
 
Dr. Abraham is board certified in internal medicine and infectious disease. He is also the President-Elect and a Regent of the American College of Physicians (ACP). He also served as the Governor of the Massachusetts Chapter of the American College of Physicians, as a trustee of the Massachusetts Medical Society, as President of the Worcester District Medical Society, as the Chief Medical Officer of the Central Massachusetts Independent Physician Association and Chair of the Board of Directors of the Health Foundation of Central Massachusetts.

Congressional Caucus Seeks Post-COVID-19 Telehealth Protections

Last Thursday, the Congressional Telehealth Caucus, co-chaired by Representative Peter Welch (D-VT) and Rep. Mike Thompson (D-CA), unveiled bi-partisan legislation that will continue the expanded use of telehealth beyond the COVID-19 pandemic. The legislation provides a bridge for patients currently using telehealth because of the pandemic by:

• removing the geographic requirement for originating telehealth sites, thus removing the requirement that a Medicare beneficiary be located in a federally defined rural area in order to receive telehealth services;

• adding the home of an individual as a qualifying originating site for telehealth services;

• allowing rural health clinics and federally qualified health centers to be eligible distant site providers of telehealth services and permits reimbursement for telehealth services to their patients; and

• adding authority for the Secretary of HHS to waive any requirement for Medicare reimbursement of telehealth services during any public health emergency.

“This unprecedented pandemic has proven that telehealth not only works, but that it’s essential,” said Welch. “These practical telehealth provisions have been successfully implemented and should be continued to ensure that everyone has access to quality healthcare no matter where they live or how mobile they are. This is a commonsense step to make sure our policies keep pace with our technology."
 
Last week, the Massachusetts Telemedicine Coalition (tMED), which is convened by MHA, included these provisions among many of the priority telehealth provisions introduced during the public health emergency that they would like to see made permanent.

Reminder: Face Coverings Are Mandatory

The Baker Administration and Massachusetts healthcare community are reminding residents of a simple message: wear your mask. Despite all the temptations that summer brings, face coverings are still required when social distancing isn't possible. Gov. Charlie Baker, whose face covering orders went into effect in May, said last week that the measure would remain in place "until we don't have an emergency."
 
The efficacy of face coverings was confirmed by a recent study released by researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, which showed that infections among staff decreased sharply after a mask requirement had gone into effect within the facility.
 
The mask requirements apply to everyone except children aged 2 and under, and people who have medical conditions that make mask-wearing untenable.