Iowa news
Cass Health awarded grant for new apprenticeship program for nursing careers
Iowa Workforce Development announced that Cass Health received $849,240 in grant funding through Iowa’s Health Careers Registered Apprenticeship Program. With a goal of serving 70 apprentices, Cass Health has developed strategic workforce planning initiatives focusing on growing nursing careers including certified nursing assistants, licensed practical nurses and registered nurses. Cass Health has facilitated conversations with Atlantic Community School District, CAM Community School District, Griswold Community School District and Iowa Western Community College to discuss developing a health care registered apprenticeship program for Cass County, focusing on nursing. (Southwest Iowa News Source)
Northwest Iowa Community College to hold ribbon cutting for new health science building
Northwest Iowa Community College in Sheldon officially opened its new Health Science building with a ribbon cutting and open house on April 27. This project dates back nearly half a decade when the school had to ask local voters for funding. This new structure will serve students in a number of lines of work to build experience in a setting similar to what they may see after graduation. (KICD)
Iowa Senate approves moratorium on new or expanded nursing homes
The Senate advanced legislation putting a moratorium on constructing new nursing home facilities and giving Medicaid payers more power in recovering funds from health insurers. The legislation is intended to ensure Medicaid is the payer of last resort for medical services and gives Medicaid payers, including managed care organizations, more power in pursuing reimbursements and recovering funds that could have been covered by another entity. Many Iowa nursing homes have closed over the course of the pandemic, citing Medicaid reimbursement rates not keeping up with rising costs of business and inflation. Using this taxing process would allow Iowa to collect more in federal reimbursement funds. (Iowa Capital Dispatch)
National news
CMS announces changes to hospital price transparency enforcement process
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced changes to its enforcement process for the hospital price transparency rule. CMS said it will now automatically impose a civil monetary penalty if hospitals fail to submit a corrective plan on time or fail to complete the plan within 45 days. The agency also will no longer issue a warning notice to hospitals that have not posted machine-readable files or a shoppable services list/price estimator tool, but will immediately ask the hospital to submit a plan. (American Hospital Association)
WHO rolls out initiative to improve pandemic preparedness
The World Health Organization has launched an initiative aimed at improving preparedness for another global pandemic like COVID-19. The Preparedness and Resilience for Emerging Threats initiative was created by WHO to provide guidance about integrated planning for responding to any respiratory pathogen. The initiative also seeks to build and share plans and insights between stakeholders globally. Although now, the initiative will primarily focus on respiratory pathogens, plans are in place to expand this initiative to include others, such as arboviruses. (Becker’s Clinical Leadership and Infection Control)
Promising new malaria vaccine has been approved in two countries, with others likely to follow
Ghana and Nigeria both approved a new malaria vaccine this month, an important step in the fight against a disease that kills more than 600,000 people annually. At least 10 other African countries are reviewing trial data for the shot, according to the World Health Organization, so more approvals are expected in the coming weeks. The vaccine, developed by researchers at Oxford University, is the second to become publicly available. The first has been administered through a pilot program in Kenya, Ghana and Malawi since 2019, but is still in limited supply. (NBC News)