NY health care workers will no longer have religious exemptions to vaccine mandate, court rules

November 6, 2021 Vera

New York State health care workers will no longer have a religious exemption to the state’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate after a federal appeals court vacated a temporary injunction Friday.

The three-judge panel in the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit also sent the two court cases back to the lower courts to continue.

The ongoing court cases stem from former Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s order that all hospital and long-term care facility workers were required to get at least one dose of the vaccine by September 27.

CNN has reached out to the New York State Department of Health for comment, and details of how many exemptions the state has already provided.

An attorney for plaintiffs in one of the cases vowed to take the case to the US Supreme Court Friday.

“New York’s mandate forces an abominable choice on New York healthcare workers: abandon their faith or lose their careers,” said attorney Cameron Atkinson, who represents three nurses. “They have committed their futures to God’s hands, and we remain optimistic that the United States Supreme Court will strike down New York’s discriminatory mandate as violating the First Amendment.”

In the second case, 17 health care workers, many of them unnamed doctors, residents and nurses, filed a lawsuit last month objecting to the New York State Department of Health’s vaccine mandate, which didn’t allow for religious exemptions. A judge issued a temporary restraining order on September 14 related to the religious exemptions.

CNN reached out to an attorney representing these health care workers for reaction.

Gov. Kathy Hochul praised the court’s decision.

“On Day One, I pledged as Governor to battle this pandemic and take bold action to protect the health of all New Yorkers,” Hochul said in a statement. “I commend the Second Circuit’s findings affirming our first-in-the-nation vaccine mandate, and I will continue to do everything in my power to keep New Yorkers safe.”

Religious exemptions granted to almost 16,000 workers before ruling, official said

Nearly 16,000 health care employees in New York State have been granted religious exemptions by their employers prior to Friday’s court ruling, the state’s health department confirmed to CNN Friday night.

That’s 15,844 employees of hospitals, nursing homes, adult homes, Certified Home Health Agencies (CHHA), Licensed Home Care Service Agencies (LHCSA) and hospice facilities, said Jeffrey Hammond, deputy director of communications for the New York State Department of Health.

Hammond provided a

5 Startups Shaping the Future of Health Care

November 6, 2021 Vera

“The fourth industrial age is here,” says Daniel Kraft, a health care futurist and medical doctor. “It’s transforming how we get our digital banking done, how we stream movies. But health care is still stuck in the third — or maybe the second — industrial age, with fax machines and CD-ROMs.”

Specifically, innovations such as artificial intelligence and machine learning have been stubbornly slow to enter the health sector. And the big strides that have been made in data collection — wearables that monitor your vitals, voice biomarker trackers, and genomic sequencing, to name just a few — have so far resulted in only a few widely used, truly useful applications.

“Nobody wants more data, they want the actual insights that are useable,” says Kraft, who prefers the term now-ist to futurist. “How do we make actionable information that translates to the point of care or the bedside?”

Bob Wachter, chair of the UC San Francisco Department of Medicine and author of The Digital Doctor, remains optimistic that some of these new technologies may still have a significant impact. “Whether you’re looking at an X-ray, or trying to predict how many people are going to come to the emergency room next Tuesday, or seeing a patient and being reminded of an alternative diagnosis, A.I. will be useful in all sorts of ways,” he says. “I think it’s going to all work out. But it’s going to take far longer and be far bumpier than anybody anticipates.”

Here are five of the companies industry observers say are leading the charge down that bumpy road and reimagining the future of health care.

1. Youper

Youper designed its A.I.-based chatbot to guide users through the process of cognitive-behavioral therapy, supplemented with remote psychiatrists, health coaches, and an online pharmacy. The chatbot looks and feels like a standard text message exchange: patients talk about their thoughts and feelings and the A.I. responds with questions and advice, as programmed by mental health professionals.

“Some people say the chatbot is even better than talking to a human, because you can say how you’re truly feeling,” says Youper CEO Jose Hamilton. “[You might say,] ‘I’m feeling 100 percent angry’ or ‘100 percent depressed.’ And then the chatbot will start guiding you toward what’s making you feel that way.”

Youper does not intend to replace psychiatrists, but instead to allow them to see more patients than

Arizona Privatized Prison Health Care to Save Money. But at What Cost?

November 2, 2021April 12, 2022 Vera

In 2017, Walter Jordan wrote a memo to a federal judge from the Arizona State Prison Complex in Florence. “Notice of Impending Death,” it said in a shaky hand.

Jordan told the judge that Arizona corrections officials and Corizon Health, the state prison system’s private health care contractor at that time, delayed treating his cancer for so long that he would be “lucky to be alive for 30 days.” Jordan, 67, had a common form of skin cancer that is rarely life-threatening if caught early, but said he experienced memory loss and intense pain from botched care. Other men in his unit were also denied treatment, he wrote, “all falling, yelling, screaming of pain.”

Jordan was dead eight days later.

Reviewing his medical records later, Dr. Todd Wilcox, a physician hired by lawyers for the state’s prisoners, agreed that Jordan’s death was likely preventable. Corizon’s treatment of Jordan’s “excruciating needless pain,” was “the opposite of how cancer pain should be managed,” he said.

Wilcox will take the stand in a landmark trial that begins Monday in Phoenix, the latest chapter in an almost decade-long struggle to determine whether Arizona’s prisoners are getting the basic health care they are entitled to under the law.

The trial pits Arizona against the people held in its prisons, who argue in a class-action lawsuit that the medical services they receive are so poor, they constitute cruel and unusual punishment. The state’s current health care contractor, Centurion, is the latest in a string of companies that have failed to pass muster with the courts.

None of the companies have been named as defendants in the lawsuit, because, the claimants say, the state is ultimately responsible for their care. The suit was originally filed in 2012, shortly before private contractors took over Arizona’s prison medical services. But whether privatization can provide decent care is one of the biggest issues looming over the trial.

The Arizona Department of Corrections declined to comment on pending litigation. Centurion of Arizona and Corizon, based in Tennessee, did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Arizona is one of around two dozen states that use a private, for-profit contractor to provide prison medical care, and almost all have been sued. But a trial is rare, as most states settle to avoid this kind of exhaustive public scrutiny.

Health care in Arizona prisons is “grossly inadequate,” the prisoners have said in

Health care plagued by new supply chain shortages

November 1, 2021 Vera

From medications to gloves to crutches, the strains of the global supply chain are hitting U.S. health care hard.

Why it matters: Shortages of health care supplies can quickly jump from a nuisance to a life-or-death proposition. They indicate serious vulnerabilities in the U.S. health care supply chain.

State of play: After seeing major supply shortages for protective equipment and ventilators in the early months of the pandemic, critical supplies stabilized and, in some places, demand for domestic products later bottomed out.

Now global supply chain tie-ups are rippling across the industry again, leading to extended wait times for commonly used supplies and equipment.

What they’re saying: “We’re experiencing a vast array of global challenges that, layered together, create bottlenecks in a system not designed for such demands,” according to an October report from medical supply giant Premier.

Premier projects the problems for health care to last well into 2022.

Details: Some hospitals around the U.S. recently began seeking donations of aluminum crutches, walkers and wheelchairs.

The FDA is investigating allegations that used medical gloves were washed and resold as new gloves.
Blood tubes and Foley catheters are also among some of the products in short supply at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, ABC 33/40 reported.
There are shortages of raw materials for manufacturing, including semiconductors, or chips commonly used in electronics, and plastic resins that can be used to make everything from car parts to heart valves.
The chip shortage hit ResMed, a company that creates ventilators, sleep apnea machines, and other respiratory equipment, San Diego Union-Tribune reported last week.

What they’re saying: “I am definitely working with some of the biggest names out there and really asking, begging, pleading that we should prioritize medical devices over another cellphone, another electric car, another cloud-connected refrigerator,” ResMed CEO Mick Farrell told the Union-Tribune.

Drug shortages at retail pharmacies and hospitals are also a concern.

Hundreds of drugs are in shortage at hospital pharmacies, including the anti-inflammatory drug tocilizumab, which is given to both cancer and COVID-19 patients, CBS News reported.
A pharmacy in Michigan said inhalers are one of the most difficult items to get, ABC 12 News reported. A South Carolina pharmacy said there are a few blood pressure medications they can’t get in stock, News 19 reported.
And a Nashville pharmacy said they were even having trouble getting prescription vials to

WHO and partners call for action to better protect health and care workers from COVID-19

October 29, 2021 Vera

The World Health Organization and partners^[i] have issued an urgent call for concrete action to better protect health and care workers worldwide from COVID-19 and other health issues.

The organizations are concerned that large numbers of health and care workers have died from COVID-19, but also that an increasing proportion of the workforce are suffering from burnout, stress, anxiety and fatigue.

In a Joint Statement issued this week, WHO and partners are calling
on all Member State governments and stakeholders to strengthen the monitoring and reporting of COVID-19 infections, ill-health and deaths among health and care workers. They should also include disaggregation by age, gender and occupation as a standard
procedure, to enable decision makers and scientists to identify and implement mitigation measures that will further reduce the risk of infections and ill-health.

The Statement also urges political leaders and policy makers to do all within their power to make regulatory, policy and investment decisions that ensure the protection of health and care workers. It highlights the opportunity to align this with a forthcoming
global health and care worker compact and the International Labour Organization’s call for a human-centered recovery from the COVID-19 crisis.

Finally, the partners call upon leaders and policy makers to ensure equitable access to vaccines so that health and care workers are prioritized in the uptake of COVID-19 vaccinations. Available data from 119 countries suggest that by September 2021,
2 in 5 health and care workers were fully vaccinated on average, with considerable difference across regions and economic groupings. Less than 1 in 10 have been fully vaccinated in the African region while 22 mostly high-income
countries reported that above 80% of their health and care workers are fully vaccinated. These rates only account for data reported to WHO through the standard mechanisms.

“We have a moral obligation to protect all health and care workers, ensure their rights and provide them with decent work in a safe and enabling practice environment. This must include access to vaccines”, said Jim Campbell, Director
of the WHO Health Workforce Department. “Beyond vaccines , economic recovery and all new investments in emergency preparedness and response must prioritize the education and employment of health and care workers, linking to the UN Secretary-General’s
Global Accelerator for Jobs and Social Protection,” he added.

A new WHO working paper estimates
that between 80 000 to 180 000 health

Health care costs for people with rare diseases have been underestimated, study shows

October 29, 2021 Vera

A new, retrospective study of medical and insurance records indicates health care costs for people with a rare disease have been underestimated and are three to five times greater than the costs for people without a rare disease. The study, led by the National Institutes of Health’s National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS), provides new evidence of the potential impact of rare diseases on public health, suggesting that nationwide medical costs for individuals with rare diseases are on par with those for cancer and heart failure. The study’s results were published Oct. 21 in the Orphanet Journal of Rare Diseases.

There needs to be greater public awareness of the large and growing medical footprint of rare diseases in society. Only about 10% of rare diseases have an FDA-approved therapy for their treatment. The findings underscore an urgent need for more research, and earlier and more accurate diagnoses of and interventions for these disorders.”

Anne Pariser, M.D., senior author, director, NCATS Office of Rare Diseases Research

Most of the approximately 7,000 to 10,000 known rare diseases disproportionately affect children, adolescents and young adults. Individually, most rare diseases might affect only a few hundred to a few thousand people worldwide. However, rare diseases are collectively common, affecting an estimated 25 million to 30 million people in the United States. Many of these diseases have a genetic cause, are serious or life-threatening and are hard to diagnose and treat.

The pilot study was a collaborative effort among NCATS; Eversana Life Sciences, Chicago; Oregon Health & Science University, Portland; Sanford Health, Sioux Falls, South Dakota; and a health insurer in Australia. Pariser and colleagues analyzed patients’ diagnosis information in medical records and billing codes. They used International Classification of Diseases (ICD) codes, which designate a disease diagnosis and other methods, to determine those individuals with rare diseases and their direct medical costs for 14 rare diseases in four health care systems compared to non-rare disease patients of a similar age.

The pilot study aimed to test the feasibility of this approach in analyzing data on rare diseases prevalence and costs. The 14 rare diseases represented a diverse set of disorders that differ in prevalence, organ systems affected, age of onset, clinical course, and availability of an approved treatment or specific ICD code. Examples of the selected rare diseases include sickle cell disease, muscular dystrophy and eosinophilic esophagitis.

The