The following is the latest COVID-19 information from the federal government and others as of 4:00 on Thursday, April 16.

Department of Health and Human Services

• HHS has established a portal for recipients of CARES Act funding designated for hospitals and health care providers to attest to their acceptance of the terms and conditions of these grants. Recipients must complete this attestation within 30 days of receipt of a grant.

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services

• CMS has updated its list of blanket waivers for health care providers. CMS updates this document regularly, with the latest update including changes in Medicare reimbursement for acute-care hospitals, long-term care hospitals, and inpatient rehabilitation facilities required by the CARES Act.

Federal Emergency Management Agency

• FEMA, working with the Department of Health and Human Services through the FEMA Healthcare Resilience Task Force, has developed a “COVID-19 Hospital Resource Package” that addresses such issues as hospital surge, crisis standards of care, staffing surge and resilience, workforce protection, regulatory relief, equipment supply surge, and telemedicine.

Food and Drug Administration

• The FDA has published guidance for a temporary policy for the compounding of certain drugs for hospitalized patients by outsourcing facilities during the COVID-19 emergency.
• The FDA has published guidance on its enforcement policy for digital health devices for treating psychiatric disorders during the COVID-19 emergency. The purpose of this policy is to reduce direct contact between providers and patients.
• The FDA has published an overview of its response to COVID-19, summarizing the information resources it has prepared, its work involving medical products and therapeutics, and the guidance policies it has published.
• The FDA has issued an emergency use authorization (EUA) for two specific commercial serology tests to detect the presence of COVID-19 antibodies. Those EUAs can be found here and here.
• The FDA has issued an EUA for the emergency use of a specific commercial product for use in decontaminating compatible N95 and N95-equivalent masks for single-user reuse by health care personnel.
• The FDA has updated its FAQs on home-use blood glucose meters used within hospitals during the COVID-19 pandemic.
• The FDA is calling on people who have recovered from COVID-19 to donate plasma to be used in the development of blood-related therapies. Convalescent plasma is an antibody-rich product that is thought to limit the severity or shorten the length of illness caused by COVID-19.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

• The CDC has updated its interim guidance and resources for laboratory professionals working with specimens from persons under investigation for COVID-19.
• The CDC has collected and updated various resources for hospitals and health care professionals preparing for patients with suspected or confirmed COVID-19.

National Institutes of Health

• The NIH has announced that its own study has validated three methods for sanitizing N95 masks for reuse.

Industry Groups

• The American Medical Association and American Hospital Association have prepared their own guidance for physicians working at home during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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