Healthcare compliance in a post-pandemic world | Health Care Compliance Association (HCCA)

Compliance Today – May 2023

On January 31, 2020, pursuant to Section 319 of the Public Health Service Act, the secretary of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) determined that a public health emergency (PHE) exists due to the soaring number of COVID-19 cases in the United States. In March 2020, President Donald Trump issued a national emergency declaration according to Section 201 of the National Emergencies Act. Nobody knew at the time that the PHE would last 1,196 days, or the extent to which the pandemic would strain the country’s healthcare system. Despite the best efforts of public health officials and healthcare providers, 102 million Americans would suffer from COVID-19, and 1.1 million would die. The pandemic was an event that happens once in a hundred years—an extreme situation requiring an extreme response.

The declaration of a national emergency and PHE gave the secretary of HHS, under Section 1135 of the Social Security Act, authority to waive or modify certain Medicare, Medicaid, and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) requirements. A complete list of waivers was updated almost daily on the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) website.[1] The flexibilities granted by CMS were designed to promote access to care and reduce the administrative burden on providers.

Both the national emergency and the PHE will cease at the end of the day on May 11, 2023. The fact that the pandemic lasted for over three years presents a special challenge for compliance officers. A report published in 2022 noted that in the previous five years, the average hospital turned over 100.5% of its workforce.[2] The average annual hospital turnover rate increased by 6.4% to 25.9%. The impact on hospitals is likely not a unique experience for other healthcare providers. This means that a significant percentage of the workforce can’t just go back to business as usual because they were not around when the flexibilities were not in effect. Compliance officers will have a significant lift to educate their staff on changes required with the expiration of the PHE.

This article aims to identify key waivers that will continue or expire to assist compliance officers in adapting policies and procedures to the post-pandemic world. This article also focuses on certain types of providers and discusses only certain issues. CMS has published provider-specific fact sheets that identify flexibilities issued during the pandemic and whether they will

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good health news from across the world

In 2022, Vanuatu eliminated trachoma, the world’s leading infectious cause of blindness. Above, a young student in Rangusuksuk, Pentecost Island. ©UNICEF/Bobby Shing

This year, WHO worked with countries and other partners to fight outbreaks and eliminate diseases, while building toward the goal of health for all.

We have selected a few news items from countries as 2022 bright spots:

Milestones: Malawi and Vanuatu eliminate blinding eye infection

Trachoma infection mainly affects children in underserved, remote rural communities. Above: children in Malawi. ©WHO

In 2022, Malawi became the first country in Southern Africa to eliminate trachoma, and Vanuatu became the first Pacific Island country to do so.

“This is a proud moment for Vanuatu,” said Minister of Health Bruno Leingkone. “This combined effort has already saved hundreds of people from lifelong blindness.”

Malawi’s success is the culmination of its multi-pronged Trachoma Action Plan, launched in 2014 and supported by donors, among them Sightsavers and the Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Trust.

The two countries join 13 others in the achievement: Cambodia, China, Iran, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Gambia, Ghana, Mexico, Morocco, Myanmar, Nepal, Oman, Saudi Arabia and Togo.

Trachoma is the second neglected tropical disease to be eliminated in the archipelago nation of 83 islands, after lymphatic filariasis in 2016. Above: students on Pentecost Island. ©UNICEF/Bobby Shing

See more about Malawi and
Vanuatu

Related news: WHO Director-General congratulates Togo on becoming the first West African country to eliminate four neglected tropical diseases

Orinoco expedition brings vital health services deep into the Amazon

A PAHO team seen from behind is walking on a field.A PAHO team treks to isolated communities in Venezuela to provide health services. ©PAHO

The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) makes three boat excursions a year deep into Venezuela’s rainforest to bring vaccinations and other health services to 22 indigenous ethnic groups.

On its September trip, the PAHO team reached 126 communities and administered thousands of vaccinations for polio, measles/rubella and COVID-19.

“Most people don’t know that inside Venezuela there are communities that are eight days’ travel away (from health services),” said Vicente Baretta, who supported PAHO in the expedition. “Organizing a journey like this presents problems
that cannot be imagined from the outside, such as the need to buy new freezers for each trip, because fifteen days spent wobbling around in a boat usually renders them unfit for use again.”

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Some successes in 2022 from WHO’s Eastern Mediterranean region

A WHO officer is talking to a boy and taking notes.A boy displaced by floods in Pakistan visits

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Attacks on Health Care Bi-Monthly News Brief: 02 – 15 November 2022 – World

Attachments

SHCC Attacks on Health Care

The section aligns with the definition of attacks on health care used by the Safeguarding Health in Conflict Coalition (SHCC).

Africa

Burkina Faso

03 November 2022: In Bondokuy village, Mouhoun province, Boucle du Mouhoun region, an ambulance and a motorcycle were seized by suspected JNIM militants. Source: ACLED1

Cameroon

03 November 2022: In Batibo town and subdivision, Northwest region, unidentified perpetrators abducted nine health workers from a government-run hospital. Sources: FX Empire and Reuters

Democratic Republic of the Congo

22 October 2022: In Some village, Mambasa territory, Ituri province, suspected members of rebel group Allied Democratic Forces looted pharmacies during an attack. Source: Radio Moto

07 November 2022: In Djugu territory, Ituri province, the International Committee of the Red Cross restarted their activities in the area after having been suspended since 2001 following the killing of six Red Cross aid workers. Sources: Actualité and Radio Moto

09 November 2022: In Kabasha village, located on the road between Butembo and Beni cities,
North Kivu province, more than 200 heavily armed members of the rebel group Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) entered the village and looted the hospital centre of Kabasha before setting it on fire.
A male doctor found at the hospital centre was also kidnapped, while hospital patients were threatened. The perpetrators burnt down fourteen local shops including pharmacies. Sources:
Actualité I, Actualité II, La Prunelle, Radio Moto I, Radio Moto II, and Radio Okapi

Attacks on Health Care in the DRC

At least 25 health workers have been kidnapped in the DRC between 01 January and 20 October 2022. Download the dataset with details on the reported perpetrator and weapons used on HDX. The dataset does not yet include incidents reported in this News Brief. Registered HDX user? Follow us for the latest dataset updates.

Kenya

01 November 2022: Near Mandera town and county, along the Kenya-Ethiopia-Somalia border, al Shabaab militants hijacked a government ambulance that was on its way to the Elwak Referral Hospital, and abducted four men – the driver, two paramedics of the Lafey Health Centre, and a 40-year-old patient – taking them towards Somalia. The medics and the patient were released the next day, while the driver was set free on 03 November. Sources: AA, Al Jazeera, All Africa, Garowe,
Nation, Reuters, The Standard, The Star and Voice of America

Niger

05 November 2022: Between Arlit and Tchibarakaten departments, Agadez

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Kremlin Denies Putin Suffers From Lousy Wellness as Rumors Persist | Entire world Report

Moscow denied rumors – once more – that Russian President Vladimir Putin suffers from a debilitating illness, with one of his leading advisers stating publicly that he is not in weak well being.

“President Vladimir Putin seems in general public just about every working day,” Overseas Minister Sergei Lavrov told French tv channel TF1 over the weekend. “You can see him on the screens, read through his speeches, listen to his speeches.”

“I really don’t believe sane people today can discern any sort of symptom of ailment in this gentleman,” he concluded.

Political Cartoons on Planet Leaders

Lavrov, among quite a few leading Russian officers to come under Western sanctions given that Putin requested the invasion of Ukraine far more than 3 months back, has grow to be only the newest in a long line of Kremlin officials to answer to unsubstantiated – but persistent – rumors about the 69-calendar year-outdated leader’s well being. Even though couple of specifics about Putin’s condition have turn into general public, Moscow’s acknowledgements of these types of stories are almost definitely not comfortable for an autocrat who has worked diligently and intentionally to venture an graphic of actual physical toughness and virility throughout additional than two a long time in electric power.

Footage circulated broadly on social media and on-line in the latest weeks seems to clearly show Putin exhibiting symptoms of some sort of neurological or physiological condition. 1 unique clip from April supposedly shows him quivering uncontrollably and appearing to grip on to a desk for assistance. One more seems to demonstrate his correct hand shaking prior to he grabs it with his remaining hand times just before embracing Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.

Christopher Steele, the previous British spy who grew to become infamous for his dossier of unsubstantiated intelligence observations relating to previous President Donald Trump, has also lobbed disturbing assessments of Putin’s overall health and grip on electric power, declaring the Russian leader is consistently surrounded by a group of medical professionals and that state business enterprise is routinely interrupted for the president to bear medical therapy. Small business Insider quoted him as saying Putin “probably” is going through Parkinson’s ailment, though he acknowledges that the specific information of any prospective ailment are unknown.

1 unique unfounded rumor, originating from an anonymously operate Telegram channel and recurring by various news stores, claimed Putin was preparing to bear extreme surgical procedure

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PCBs Still a Wellness Threat Around the Entire world | Health and fitness News

By By Robert Preidt HealthDay Reporter, HealthDay Reporter

(HealthDay)

THURSDAY, June 2, 2022 (HealthDay Information) — Nations are falling short in their efforts to get rid of harmful PCB substances that pose a hazard to human health and the environment, scientists report.

“We’re only six a long time out from the Stockholm Convention’s deadline to responsibly eradicate PCB shares, but shockingly small development has been built,” claimed analyze co-author Lisa Melymuk, an assistant professor of environmental chemistry at Masaryk College in the Czech Republic.

PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) were widely employed for their insulating and flame-retardant homes, but had been banned in the late 1970s by quite a few international locations, together with the United States, simply because of their menace to environmental and human wellbeing.

Having said that, the chemicals are still existing in transformers, capacitors and creating supplies in a lot of nations around the world.

A new analyze discovered that only 30% of nations that agreed to responsibly eradicate their stocks of PCBs by 2028 under a treaty named the Stockholm Conference are on track to satisfy the deadline, and 42% really don’t know the amounts and locations of PCBs in their international locations.

Far more than 10 million metric tons of PCB-containing resources continue being throughout the world, in accordance to the paper, released June 1 in the journal Environmental Science & Technological know-how.

The United States, the world’s premier producer and consumer of PCBs, is not celebration to the Stockholm Convention. It has lowered its sizeable shares of the chemicals by only about 3% because 2006, the exploration crew reported.

The researchers also warned that the incapability of worldwide agreements like the Stockholm Convention to successfully control PCBs raises concerns about working with other harmful chemical compounds found in a lot of products and solutions, like really persistent PFAS (for each-and poly fluoroalkyl substances) and chlorinated paraffin chemical compounds.

“Global mismanagement and inequities make elimination of these persistent chemical compounds not likely. This analysis is an intercontinental wake-up simply call to restrict the manufacturing of harmful chemicals, like PCBs. We just cannot clear up the mess that they generate,” research co-creator Veena Singla, a senior scientist with the Pure Sources Protection Council, said in a College of Toronto information release.

Source: College of Toronto, information launch, June 1, 2022

Copyright © 2022 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

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Actual physical Health and fitness Tools 2022-2027 – World wide Market place Trajectory & Analytics Report – Major Gamers are Cybex Global, ICON Wellbeing & Conditioning, Nautilus & Reebok Global Amongst Other individuals – ResearchAndMarkets.com

DUBLIN–(Small business WIRE)–The “Bodily Fitness Gear – World wide Market Trajectory & Analytics” report has been extra to ResearchAndMarkets.com’s presenting.

World-wide Bodily Physical fitness Products Current market to Achieve $19.4 Billion by 2027

Amid the COVID-19 disaster, the international marketplace for Actual physical Conditioning Machines approximated at US$13.5 Billion in the 12 months 2020, is projected to attain a revised dimensions of US$19.4 Billion by 2027, expanding at a CAGR of 5.3% about the evaluation period of time 2020-2027. Cardiovascular Coaching, a person of the segments analyzed in the report, is projected to report a 5.7% CAGR and access US$11 Billion by the conclusion of the evaluation period of time. After an early assessment of the small business implications of the pandemic and its induced financial disaster, expansion in the Toughness Schooling section is readjusted to a revised 5% CAGR for the future 7-calendar year period of time.

The U.S. Sector is Believed at $4.5 Billion, When China is Forecast to Improve at a 7.3% CAGR

The Physical Exercise Equipment sector in the U.S. is believed at US$4.5 Billion in the 12 months 2020. China, the world`s next major financial state, is forecast to achieve a projected marketplace dimension of US$3.2 Billion by the 12 months 2027 trailing a CAGR of 7.3% more than the analysis period of time 2020 to 2027. Between the other noteworthy geographic markets are Japan and Canada, each and every forecast to mature at 3.9% and 4.5% respectively more than the 2020-2027 time period. Within Europe, Germany is forecast to develop at somewhere around 4.5% CAGR.

Other Tools Forms Section to History 4.2% CAGR

In the world wide Other Gear Styles section, United states, Canada, Japan, China and Europe will push the 3.9% CAGR estimated for this segment. These regional marketplaces accounting for a merged current market measurement of US$652.7 Million in the year 2020 will get to a projected sizing of US$852 Million by the shut of the assessment period. China will keep on being between the quickest expanding in this cluster of regional marketplaces. Led by countries these types of as Australia, India, and South Korea, the industry in Asia-Pacific is forecast to reach US$2.5 Billion by the yr 2027, though Latin The us will expand at a 5.4% CAGR by means of the examination period of time.

Crucial Subject areas Included:

I. METHODOLOGY

II. Government SUMMARY

1. Sector OVERVIEW

  • Influencer
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