HHS Releases Cancer Moonshot Plan, VA EHRM Pause Extended
The Cancer Moonshot plan is taking shape at the HHS, and VA plans for EHR modernization are on hold again.
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By - In the news this week, the ambitious Biden Administration Cancer Moonshot was detailed in a new plan released by HHS. Meanwhile, the beleaguered VA EHR project has been put on the back burner indefinitely, leaving veterans in the lurch.
VA EHR Modernization Project Paused Again
Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) leaders extended their pause of the EHR modernization (EHRM) project last week, stating that decision-makers at the department were not confident that the Oracle Cerner EHR would be ready to deliver for a June deployment. VA Officials will continue to explore ways to renegotiate their contract with Oracle Cerner after a rocky rollout of the multi-billion-dollar program. READ MORE.
KillNet DDoS Attack Targets Healthcare Sector
The Health Sector Cybersecurity Coordination Center (HC3) recently released an analyst note detailing activities conducted by the pro-Russia hacktivist group, KillNet, which has targeted over 90 healthcare organizations and launched distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks on organizations’ Microsoft Azure infrastructure.
“Their signature DDoS attacks on critical infrastructure sectors typically only cause service outages lasting several hours or even days,” HC3 noted. “However, the range of consequences from these attacks on the United States health and public health (HPH) sector can be significant, threatening routine to critical day-to-day operations.” READ MORE.
Federal Judge Reverses Abortion Pill Approval
Texas federal judge Mathew Kacsmaryk ruled against the FDA in the case of the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. United States FDA, invalidating the decades-old approval of mifepristone, a drug used to terminate pregnancies. The decision came Friday around the same time another judge from the Eastern District of Washington State issued a contradictory decision that would assure access to abortion pills in 17 states and the District of Columbia. READ MORE.
HHS Releases Cancer Moonshot Plan
On April 3, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) unveiled details concerning its new plan to combat cancer in the US.
“The President’s Cancer Moonshot has galvanized the goal of advancing the fight against cancer. By working together, we can achieve the Cancer Moonshot goal of reducing the cancer death rate by 50% within 25 years,” said Monica M. Bertagnolli, MD, Director of the National Cancer Institute, in the HHS press release. READ MORE.
HHS Finalizes Medicare Advantage Payments
HHS recently finalized the 2024 Medicare Advantage and Part D rates introducing a 3.32 percent bump for Medicare Advantage (MA) payments. The updated rate represents $13.8 billion in additional dollars for MA plans, which is a massive increase compared to the 1.03 percent increase that was initially proposed. Included in the rate announcement was a reminder that the federal government will begin to recover improper payments issued to MA plans. READ MORE.
