June 2024 – The Journal of Healthcare Contracting
Hospitals no longer required to report COVID-19 data to CDC
COVID-19 data reporting requirements, including COVID-19 admissions, ICU capacity, and other related statistics for hospitals have recently changed. The Department for Health and Human Services stated that April 30, 2024 is the last day hospitals must report their COVID-19 data to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN).
Required data included how many adult and pediatric patients were admitted to a reporting hospital for COVID-19, whether those patients’ conditions were laboratory-confirmed or suspected and whether they were being cared for in an ICU.
The CDC is continuing to encourage voluntary self-reporting of hospital data. It will begin making voluntary data available for online viewing beginning May 10, per its COVID Data Tracker webpage.
New pilot program to make Cleveland Child care sites lead safe
Lead Safe Cleveland Coalition, Starting Point and Cleveland Clinic have launched the Lead Safe Child Care Pilot Program to award 30 selected Cleveland child care providers with grant funds and services to address and eliminate lead hazards at their sites.
This program, funded by Cleveland Clinic, is the first-of-its-kind in the nation and an urgent response to eliminate lead poisoning in Cleveland children, who are four times more likely to have elevated blood lead levels than the national average. Currently, 12,604 children receive care at 509 child care sites in Cleveland—273 of which operate out of facilities built before 1978, according to Starting Point’s data bank.
The pilot program is part of an expansion of the coalition’s Lead Safe Home Fund, which provides families and owners with the resources they need to live lead safe. Extending services to child care providers will reduce children’s exposure to lead outside of their homes.
CommonSpirit Health announces plans to expand in-house GPO
CommonSpirit Health, one of the nation’s largest nonprofit health systems, recently announced its plans to grow its internal Group Purchasing Organization (GPO) – Edgewise. Edgewise is CommonSpirit Health’s in-house GPO and also provides GPO services to member organizations outside CommonSpirit. By growing Edgewise’s reach and scope, CommonSpirit will be able to serve the diverse needs and provide even greater value to its members.
CommonSpirit is also releasing a Request For Proposal for a support Group Purchasing Organization (GPO). While a third-party GPO will continue to play a role in CommonSpirit’s procurement strategy, the scope of this partnership will be redefined to meet CommonSpirit’s changing needs.
Mayo Clinic, Terasaki Institute launch collaboration for transplant innovation
Mayo Clinic and Terasaki Institute for Biomedical Innovation announced a research collaboration centered on improving organ transplant outcomes. Beginning in April 2024, Mayo Clinic biomedical researchers and Terasaki Institute scientists will work together on two core areas: real-time monitoring of donated organ health from procurement to transplant surgery and developing predictive technologies to determine which transplant recipients have a higher likelihood of rejection.
This will be done by creating prognostic signatures and assays for antibody-mediated rejection of organ transplant. These initial projects are expected to take 24 to 30 months to complete.
This latest collaboration is part of Mayo Clinic’s Transforming Transplant initiative, which has the goal of providing organ transplants for everyone who needs one