Bulletin Board
Bulletin Board
Rural Areas Account for Net Loss of U.S. Hospitals
Rural hospitals are closing at a significant rate while the number of urban hospitals in the U.S. is mostly holding steady, according to a new analysis. The Health Care Affordability Lab at Yale found that between 2001 and 2023, 114 new rural hospitals opened – but 348 closed, a net loss of 234 hospitals in rural areas. Thirty-one of the 50 states experienced a net loss of rural hospitals, led by Texas, (24), Tennessee (14), California and Georgia (12), and Kansas (10). States with the biggest net increases in rural [...]
AHRQ Pulls Back Research Funding
Many groups that were awarded multi-year grants by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality are now being informed that they will not be receiving the additional funding they were told they could expect. In letters it is sending to such organizations, AHRQ is informing them it is not providing additional funding because its priorities have changed. Specifically, the letters explain that AHRQ's current priorities include focusing agency resources on patient safety, preventing antibiotic resistance, telehealth, overmedication of children, use of digital health tools to improve health, long COVID, artificial [...]
Federal Health Policy Update for July 30
Don’t Miss: Two new final Medicare payment rules CMS seeks data on 340B prescriptions Agency seeks potentially confidential ER data The following is the latest health policy news from the federal government for July 24-30. Some of the language used below is taken directly from government documents. Congress Senate Republicans remain focused on advancing a short-term continuing resolution (CR) before the August recess; it is expected to differ from the CR the House passed last week. The Senate appears unlikely to consider a budget resolution for a third party-line reconciliation [...]
SAMHSA Reports on the State of the American Mind
The Department of Health and Human Services’ Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration has released its 2025 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, its primary source of data on how Americans report their experience with mental health conditions, substance use and addiction, pursuit of treatment, and recovery. This year’s survey presents five years of data examining trends among key substance use and mental health outcomes. SAMHSA presents its findings are declines as increases in the prevalence of various behaviors, including: mental health substance use suicidal thoughts and [...]
Agency Seeks Confidential Accident Data From Hospitals
The Consumer Product Safety Commission is seeking to require some hospitals to participate in its National Electronic Injury Surveillance System (NEISS), the nation's principal system for tracking consumer product-related injuries. Currently relying on manual review and coding of medical records from roughly 70 of the nation's more than 5,000 hospital emergency departments, the agency has announced that it will expand its surveillance network across all 50 states and to about 100 hospitals and health systems. Under the updated program, NEISS-R would exchange data with participating hospitals through federally designated Qualified Health Information Networks in an effort to strengthen the [...]