• MedPage Today offers experts recommendations that “‘Failing Wisely’ Can Promote a Safer Healthcare System. — Don’t assume old strategies and new technologies will improve patient safety.”

• Modern Healthcare reports,
  • “The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is launching a program to help hospitals reduce diagnostic errors and provide more safe, accurate patient care, the agency announced Tuesday.
  • “Missed, delayed or wrong diagnoses can occur due to a variety of factors, including communication breakdowns and technological issues, said Dr. Preeta Kutty, deputy associate director for science in the division of healthcare quality promotion at the CDC. Every year, diagnostic errors contribute to around 371,000 deaths and 424,000 permanent disabilities, according to a 2023 study published in The BMJ, a peer-reviewed medical journal.
  • “The Agency for Healthcare Research Quality and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services worked with the CDC on recommendations for clinicians and healthcare leaders to cut down on those diagnostic errors as part of the new core elements for diagnostic excellence.
  • “The program will add to the CDC’s core elements for antibiotic stewardship and sepsis management.”

• AHRQ released a report to Congress on September 16,
  • “The number of sepsis-related inpatient stays at non-federal acute care hospitals in the United States increased from 1.8 million in 2016 to 2.5 million in 2021, with a faster rate of increase following the emergence of COVID-19 in 2020, according to a report to Congress by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The COVID 19 pandemic led to a noticeable rise in sepsis-related hospitalizations, hospital costs, and in-hospital mortality, particularly for patients with a COVID-19 diagnosis.
  • The report, titled “An Assessment of Sepsis in the United States and its Burden on Hospital Care,” responds to language in the Joint Explanatory Statement that accompanied the Consolidated Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2023, which directed the agency to conduct a comprehensive set of studies that calculate the morbidity, hospital readmissions, and mortality related to sepsis.  The report examines sepsis among all patients as well as among specific patient populations, including adults, pregnant women, children, and newborns.  The report also examines the association of pandemic-related changes in the healthcare system with the burden of sepsis.”

From Washington, DC,

• Roll Call tells us,
  • “The House is set to vote Wednesday on Speaker Mike Johnson’s six-month stopgap spending plan despite near certain defeat in the face of GOP defections and almost unanimous Democratic opposition. 
  • “The bill has remained unchanged from last week, when Johnson pulled it from the floor before an expected vote. It includes a controversial elections bill that would require those registering to vote to show proof of citizenship, which Democrats say will make it more difficult for legal voters who can’t obtain the right documentation in time.
  • “Johnson, R-La., confirmed the plan in a statement Tuesday morning. He said that Congress has “an immediate obligation to do two things: responsibly fund the federal government and ensure the security of our elections.”

• Per STAT News,
  • “The Senate failed again Tuesday to advance legislation that would protect access to in vitro fertilization, the latest partisan battle over reproductive health care amid the 2024 presidential election.  
  • “The 51-44 vote on the Right to IVF Act, which would bar state restrictions on the procedure and require insurance coverage, fell short of the 60 votes needed to pass, just as it did in June — and as Democrats expected it would. For them, the vote put many Senate Republicans on the record again as seemingly opposing broad IVF access and delivered new attack lines for an election that many see as a referendum on reproductive rights.”

• Fedweek informs us
  • “Plans that will participate in the new Postal Service Health Benefits program, which will replace the FEHB for postal employees and retirees effective in January, will offer largely the same options they have offered in the FEHB, a fact sheet recently posted by the USPS shows.”
    
• Healthcare Dive lets us know,
  • “Cigna is following through on promises to more aggressively defend its pharmacy benefit manager.
  • “On Tuesday, the healthcare company’s PBM, Express Scripts, sued the Federal Trade Commission over the agency’s recent report showing how the drug middlemen could be contributing to rising drug prices, calling the report “unfair, biased, erroneous, and defamatory.”
  • “The lawsuit asks a federal judge to order the FTC to withdraw the report and recuse FTC Chair Lina Khan from further action against Express Scripts.
  • “We don’t take this step lightly, but … we cannot let the FTC’s unlawful actions and false information stand,” Andrea Nelson, Cigna’s chief legal officer, said in a statement.”

• The American Hospital Association News points out,
  • “The Health Resources and Services Administration Sept. 17 told Johnson & Johnson that the company’s publicly announced plans to implement a 340B rebate model “violates J&J’s obligations under the 340B statute, and HRSA expects J&J to cease implementation of it.”  
  • “Because J&J’s rebate proposal, if implemented, violates J&J’s obligations under the 340B statute, it subjects J&J to potential consequences, such as termination of J&J’s Pharmaceutical Pricing Agreement (PPA),” HRSA wrote Sept. 17. In addition, HRSA told J&J that the 340B statute provides for “[t]he imposition of sanctions in the form of civil monetary penalties” on “any manufacturer with an agreement under this section that knowingly and intentionally charges a covered entity a price for purchase of a drug that exceeds the maximum applicable price under subsection (a)(1).”

• Per HHS press releases,
  • Today, the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), announced nearly $100 million in awards to grow, support, and strengthen the health workforce and improve access to quality care in high-need areas across the country. The announcement was made in conjunction with an HHS Health Workforce Roundtable convened as part of HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra’s Health Workforce Initiative. * * * “For a list of awards, visit: https://www.hrsa.gov/about/news/fy24-workforce-award-announcements.”
• and
  • “Today the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, through its Administration for Community Living (ACL), delivered to Congress a progress report on federal implementation
     of the 2022 National Strategy to Support Family Caregivers
  • “The strategy presents a vision, establishes goals, and provides recommendations for ensuring that family caregivers have the support and resources they need. The strategy also includes commitments from 15 federal agencies to nearly 350 actions to implement these recommendations. Today, nearly all these actions have been completed or are in progress, and federal agencies have committed to almost 40 new actions since the strategy’s release.” * * * “Learn more about the RAISE Family Caregiving Advisory Council at ACL.gov/RAISE and the Advisory Council to Support Grandparents Raising Grandchildren at ACL.gov/SGRG.”

From the public health and medical research front,

• The New York Times offers tips on training your tendons.
  • “When it comes to exercise, muscles and bones are clearly the stars of the show. But to feel your best and age well, you also need to take a little time each week to exercise the body’s supporting cast: connective tissues like ligaments and tendons, especially if you’ve injured them in the past.
  • “How you do it matters. What works for ligaments doesn’t work for tendons, and vice versa.
  • “Each part responds to different stimulus,” said Jay Dicharry, a professor of physical therapy at Oregon State University and the author of “Running Rewired.” “Just as you don’t treat each of your children the same, you shouldn’t treat all of your body parts the same way.”

• The National Institutes of Health posted its latest Research Matters newsletter on topic of “Blood test for CVD risk | Smart mask | Heat-seeking mosquitoes.”

• Per an NIH press release,
  • “Adults who use the prescription drug metformin to treat their type 2 diabetes have a lower risk of developing long COVID or dying after a COVID-19 infection than people with diabetes who take other anti-diabetes medications, according to a large study supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The findings, published in the journal Diabetes Care, were based on health data from millions of U.S. patients and could have broader implications for use of metformin in long COVID prevention generally. The study is part of the NIH-funded Researching COVID to Enhance Recovery (NIH RECOVER) Initiative.”
    
• MedTech Dive notes,
  • “A patient with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis has used Synchron’s brain-computer interface (BCI) technology to control his smart home, the company said Monday.
  • “The patient can use Synchron’s BCI and the Tap to Alexa feature on an Amazon Fire tablet to turn on lights, make video calls, play music and shows, read books and buy products online without using his hands or voice. 
  • “Synchron is trialing the integration between its BCI and Alexa to allow people who are severely paralyzed to interact with Amazon’s smart speaker and other connected devices in their homes.”

From the U.S. healthcare business front,

• Modern Healthcare reports,
  • “Multispecialty care provider Summit Health is expanding its footprint in New Jersey this fall.
  • “New York-based Summit, part of Walgreens-backed VillageMD, opened a 78,000-square-foot hub facility in Fair Lawn, New Jersey, this week and plans to open another 34,000-square-foot location in Bridgewater in late October, according to a Tuesday news release. Details of the financial investment were not disclosed.
  • “Hub locations are larger than other Summit clinics, which are typically 20,000 square feet or less, and offer more specialties in one place, a spokesperson said. Patients will have access to service lines including gastroenterology, obstetrics and gynecology, orthopedics, urology and dermatology, according to the release.”

• Per Fierce Healthcare,
  • “Amazon has added virtual behavioral health provider Talkspace to its health conditions program, a service it rolled out in January to help connect customers with virtual care benefits.
  • “Talkspace is Amazon’s second digital health partner following the initial rollout of the health conditions program with virtual-first chronic care provider Omada Health.
  • “The online retail giant launched its health conditions program to collaborate with digital health companies and help customers find and enroll in virtual care benefits available to them through their employer or health plan at no extra cost. With Omada Health, Amazon offered easier access to virtual care benefits for managing conditions like diabetes and hypertension. 
  • “Omada and Amazon announced their collaboration and the rollout of the health conditions program at the 2024 J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, marking the first virtual diabetes prevention, diabetes and hypertension provider available in Amazon’s digital health benefits program.
  • “By adding Talkspace to the program, individuals can discover and enroll in their health insurance benefits for mental health services at no extra cost or for a small copay, according to the companies.”
• and
  • “Cigna is rolling out a new E-Treatment program for its members in partnership with its MDLIVE unit.
    Beginning this month, Cigna members can quickly connect for urgent care from board-certified doctors without the need for phone or video calls. They can connect to MDLIVE’s portal and submit a virtual clinical interview and typically receive a personalized diagnosis and treatment plan within an hour.
  • “The program is designed to assist in a convenient way with many common, low-risk needs like allergies, ear infections, urinary tract infections and respiratory conditions like the flu, Cigna said.
  • “Our customers lead busy lives, and getting care shouldn’t be put on the backburner,” said Heather Dlugolenski, U.S. employer strategy officer at Cigna Healthcare, in the press release. “By offering customers multiple ways to conveniently connect with board-certified clinicians, they can be more effective with their time and continue putting their health and vitality first.”

• Per FiercePharma,
  • “An FDA approval has officially lifted the curtain on a blockbuster market showdown between Novartis and Eli Lilly in early breast cancer.
  • “The FDA has greenlighted Novartis’ Kisqali, used in combination with an aromatase inhibitor, for the adjuvant treatment of HR-positive, HER2-negative stage 2 and 3 breast cancer that’s at high risk of recurrence following surgery, the company said Tuesday.
  • “The expanded label separates Kisqali from Lilly’s Verzenio by covering patients who don’t have cancer cells in their lymph nodes. Verzenio’s first-in-class nod in HR+/HER2- breast cancer is limited to patients with nodal involvement. 
  • “Kisqali’s broad indication almost doubles the size of the patient population eligible for postsurgical adjuvant therapy within the CDK4/6 inhibitor class, Novartis noted.
  • “In November, Novartis estimated that an inclusive node-agnostic label in the adjuvant setting could translate into more than $3 billion in additional annual peak sales for Kisqali, bringing the drug’s total peak projection to $7 billion.”

• MedCity News tells us “Three-quarters of U.S. providers and payers say they have increased their IT spending over the past year, according to a new report from Bain & Company and KLAS Research. Both providers and payers are investing in cybersecurity technology, as well as AI tools.”