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The Food and Drug Administration today authorized the Moderna and Pfizer bivalent COVID-19 vaccines for emergency use in children as young as 6 months old. Specifically, the agency authorized the Moderna vaccine as a single booster dose for children aged 6 months through 5 at least two months after primary vaccination, and the Pfizer vaccine for children aged 6 months through 4 who have not yet received the third primary series dose.

Formed in 2021, the AdventHealth Orchestra “has been a wonderful experience as well as an effective way to address staff burnout and promote resilience and mental health in the workplace,” writes Vincent Hsu, M.D., an infectious diseases and preventive medicine physician at AdventHealth Orlando, who plays in the orchestra with his wife and other colleagues.

A new report from AHA’s Strengthening the Health Care Workforce series offers frameworks and insights to help health care leaders identify and implement digital workforce solutions.

The AHA today released its 2023 Environmental Scan, which provides key data and insights on the current health care landscape and can help organizations explore the pandemic’s ramifications on the health care field for the upcoming year and beyond.

Members of Congress this week urged House and Senate leaders to include in the upcoming omnibus appropriations package AHA-supported legislation to extend for three years the Conrad State 30 program, which allows states to request J-1 visa waivers for foreign-born physicians who have completed a U.S. residency training program to work in federally designated shortage and underserved areas.

The AdventHealth Orchestra has been a wonderful experience as well as an effective way to address staff burnout and promote resilience and mental health in the workplace.

The AHA’s “Advancing Health” podcast this week reached 100,000 plays in 2022, establishing itself as among the most popular podcasts produced today addressing the issues facing hospitals, health systems and the wider health field in general. 

Johnson & Johnson this month launched a new television and digital campaign celebrating nurses and their contributions to health care.

Nearly 5.5 million people selected a 2023 health plan through the federally facilitated and state-based marketplaces Nov. 1 through Dec. 3, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services reported today.

On Dec. 15, the Department of Health and Human Services will stop collecting hospitals’ COVID-19 data through the TeleTracking portal and begin collecting the data through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Healthcare Safety Network.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services tonight released a proposed rule that would require Medicare Advantage, Medicaid and federally-facilitated Marketplace health plans to streamline processes related to prior authorization.

The EMS for Children Information and Improvement Center invites hospital and freestanding emergency department teams to participate in a 10-month pediatric suicide prevention collaborative beginning in February.

U.S. clinicians should consider cholera in patients with acute diarrhea returning from countries with cholera transmission, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in an advisory yesterday, citing eight cases this year in travelers returning to the United States.

The Institute for Healthcare Improvement today launched Rise to Health: A National Coalition for Equity in Health Care, whose founding collaborators include the AHA.

The Senate Finance Committee last week released draft legislation to improve mental health parity and access to behavioral health services in Medicare and Medicaid.

The 6th Circuit Court of Appeals should affirm a district court’s decision to dismiss a meritless lawsuit that “sought to turn one doctor’s disappointment in not being hired by a hospital as an employed physician into an [False Claims Act] suit for Medicare fraud,” AHA and the four state hospital associations in the circuit said in a friend-of-the-court brief filed yesterday. 

The average hospital stay increased 19% overall in 2022 compared with pre-pandemic levels, and increased 24% for patients discharged to post-acute care, according to a new AHA issue brief based on data from Strata Decision Technology.

More than 250 hospital and health system leaders participated in today’s AHA Advocacy Day to urge Congress to include in a year-end legislative package priorities to support hospitals and health systems to ensure they are able to continue their mission of caring for the communities they serve.

The latest AHA podcast on leading initiatives to transform care and advance equity looks at Jefferson Health’s success in expanding diversity at the supervisory level, an initiative recognized by AHA’s 2022 Carolyn Boone Lewis Equity of Care Award.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky, M.D., today encouraged all eligible Americans to get vaccinated against the flu and COVID-19, noting that hospitals continue to experience the highest flu admissions in a decade this early in the season.