President Obama Marks Midway Point of NIH Recovery Act Awards

Posted on September 30, 2009October 17, 2012

Today, at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), President Obama announced that the Administration has released nearly half ($5 billion) of the funding provided the NIH in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). To date, the University of Washington has drawn roughly $40 million in ARRA NIH awards.

President Obama stated that the more than 12,000 grants awarded at NIH would “support cutting-edge medical research in every state across America.” He added, “We know that this kind of investment will also lead to new jobs: tens of thousands of jobs conducting research, manufacturing and supplying medical equipment, and building and modernizing laboratories and research facilities.”

White House Press Release

New CDC H1N1 Guidance for Universities

Posted on August 21, 2009October 17, 2012

Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Department of Education (ED) Secretary Arne Duncan joined with Dr. Beth Bell, Deputy Director, National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), to announce new guidance for Institutions of Higher Education (IHE) to plan for and respond to the upcoming flu season.

The guidance crafted by the scientists and doctors at the CDC is designed to help colleges and universities start planning and acting now for the impact that seasonal and 2009 H1N1 influenza could have this fall and winter on their students and faculty members, as well as other university employees.

Government officials are especially concerned about the impact of H1N1 on schools because the virus appears to disproportionately affect young people. The CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices recently found that younger Americans, specifically those ages 6 months to 24 years, are one of the top priority groups when it comes to the new H1N1 vaccine.

HHS has created a special toolkit for administrators and students, as well some badges and widgets that can be used on social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter

The new guidance suggests that the most important actions institutions can take are: to encourage and facilitate good hand washing and covering coughs and sneezes; to encourage flu vaccination for recommended groups when vaccine becomes available; and to separate sick people from well people as soon as possible.

The Secretaries and the CDC stressed the need for different institutions to tailor the strategies to their own circumstances, based on their location, student population, resources, and information from local health officials about the severity and spread of flu in their area, and encouraged them to partner with local health officials and others in their community to plan for the upcoming flu season.

For the complete H1N1 guidance for higher education institutions and the special H1N1 Higher Education, please visit http://www.flu.gov/plan/school/higheredguidance.html.

The Toolkit is available at http://www.flu.gov/plan/school/higheredtoolkit.html.

HHS Recovery Act Funding Available to Expand Health Professions Training

Posted on July 28, 2009October 17, 2012

HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius today announced the availability of $200 million to support grants, loans, loan repayment, and scholarships to expand the training of health care professionals. The funds are expected to train approximately 8,000 students and credentialed health professionals by the end of fiscal year 2010. Today’s funds are part of the $500 million allotted to HHS’ Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), to address workforce shortages under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).

The $200 million will be directed to the following program areas:

$80.2 million for scholarships, loans, and loan repayment awards to students, health professionals, and faculty. Of those funds, $39 million will be targeted to nurses and nurse faculty, $40 million to disadvantaged students in a wide range of health professions, and $1.2 million to health professions faculty from disadvantaged backgrounds.
$50 million in grants to health professions training programs. Funds will be used to purchase equipment needed to expand programs and improve the quality of training.
$47.6 million to support primary care training programs. These funds will support the training of residents, medical students, physician assistants, dentists and individuals, many of whom will practice in underserved areas.
$10.5 million to strengthen the public health workforce. Funds will support public health traineeships and increase the number of individuals trained through preventive medicine and dental public health residencies.
$10.2 million to increase the diversity of the health professions workforce.
And $1.5 million to support the efforts of state professional licensing boards in reducing barrier to telemedicine.

HRSA is using a competitive process to award all funds. Some awards will be made over the next several months. In addition, funding opportunities for some programs will be announced over the next several months, giving applicants adequate time to prepare materials. The remaining $300 million in ARRA workforce funds is being used to expand HRSA’s National Health Service Corps, which provides scholarships and loan repayment for primary care providers who serve in health professional shortage areas. In addition, HRSA received $2 billion through ARRA to expand health care services to low-income and uninsured individuals through its health center program.

House Democrats Release Health Care Legislation

Posted on July 15, 2009October 17, 2012

Yesterday, House Democrats finally unveiled their comprehensive health care overhaul legislation, including details on how they intend to pay for it. For the most part, the $1 trillion-plus plan would be paid for through a surtax on upper incomes (families with adjusted gross incomes of more than $350,000) and by more than $500 billion in savings from Medicare over 10 years.

On the Medicare side, some providers would see their Medicare payouts cut directly (with Medicare Advantage seeing a $156 billion reduction). And in other areas, Medicare would “bundle” payments for a number of related services, with the goal of providing better, less costly care for patients. Currently, Medicare typically reimburses providers for every procedure or test they do.

Prevention and wellness measures of the bill include:

Expansion of Community Health Centers;
Prohibition of cost-sharing for preventive services;
Creation of community-based programs to deliver prevention and wellness services;
A focus on community-based programs and new data collection efforts to better identify and address racial, ethnic, regional and other health disparities;
Funding to strengthen state, local, tribal and territorial public health departments and programs.

The bill expands the health care workforce through:

Increased funding for the National Health Service Corp;
More training of primary care doctors and an expansion of the pipeline of individuals going into health professions, including primary care, nursing and public health;
Greater support for workforce diversity;
Expansion of scholarships and loans for individuals in needed professions and shortage areas;
Encouragement of training of primary care physicians by taking steps to increase physician training outside the hospital, where most primary care is delivered, and redistributes unfilled graduate medical education residency slots for purposes of training more primary care physicians. The proposal also improves accountability for graduate medical education funding to ensure that physicians are trained with the skills needed to practice health care in the 21st century.

President Obama Nominates New NIH Director

Posted on July 8, 2009October 17, 2012

Today, President Barack Obama nominated Francis S. Collins as the new Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Dr. Collins served as Director of the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) at NIH from 1993-2008. He is a physician-geneticist noted for his discoveries of disease genes and his leadership of the Human Genome Project. Dr. Collins received a B.S. in Chemistry from the University of Virginia, a Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from Yale University, and an M.D. with Honors from the University of North Carolina. Prior to coming to NIH, he spent nine years on the faculty of the University of Michigan, where he was an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Dr. Collins must now be confirmed by the Senate.

If confirmed, Collins will head a $31 billion agency with roughly 18,000 employees. NIH is on course to receive a modest increase (1.4%) in funding in FY10, over FY09, because of significant funding ($10.4 billion) provided in the Recovery Act. NIH continues to serve as the University of Washington’s largest source of federal grant funding.

White House Press Release