As the pandemic continues to not only drag on but intensify, the toll on institutions and staff is becoming more evident. To get a sense of what was happening, and how it could help, NIH conducted surveys this fall. The findings provide perhaps the first large-scale albeit limited look at the concerns organizations and researchers are wrestling with.
Increased expenses to ensure the safety of staff and students during COVID-19 are among the factors related to the pandemic that have most substantially affected institutions, according to nearly 70% of the more than 200 research administration leaders responding to the survey.
[1] Close to 32% reported “institutional hiring freezes,” and approximately 62% cited reduced access to labs as the factors “most negatively” affecting research functions.
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CMS said Dec. 18 it will audit a sample of hospitals for compliance with price transparency requirements, which take effect Jan. 1, according to
MLN Connects.
[1] In addition, CMS will investigate complaints submitted to CMS and review “analyses of non-compliance, and hospitals may face civil monetary penalties for noncompliance.” CMS has a website for people to report noncompliance.
[2]
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The American Hospital Association (AHA), Association of American Medical Colleges and other groups said Dec. 14 they have filed a lawsuit
[3] against HHS, alleging it failed to enforce the requirements of the 340B drug discount program. “This lawsuit will require the department to take actions that we’ve long called for against drug companies that are disregarding the law by limiting the distribution of certain 340B drugs to eligible hospitals. It’s time to stop these illegal actions from drug companies and protect vulnerable patients and communities,” said AHA Preside
By Jaclyn Jaeger2020-12-22T20:49:00+00:00
Following new guidance from the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission (COSO) on how to better identify, monitor, and mitigate compliance risks, a follow-up, one-day virtual conference was held Dec. 18 to help compliance officers better understand the guidance and apply it in practice.
COSO states in its report, “Compliance Risk Management: Applying the COSO ERM Framework,” that its aim is “to provide guidance on the application of the COSO ERM Framework to the identification, assessment, and management of compliance risks” in alignment with the compliance and ethics (C&E) program framework. In all, COSO’s compliance risk management framework describes 120 key characteristics of an effective C&E program.
- 42 CFR Part 2
There are also tips and guides for privacy professionals.
What makes the book so valuable, they explain, is that the contributors were able to provide not just what the rules say but also a perspective from years of experience, helping to make complex issues easier to understand.
Staying current on these issues is more important than ever, with Homeland Security warning of increased phishing attempts by bad actors during the pandemic, a time when many people are working remotely and on less-secure laptops.
Listen in to learn more about what’s going on in privacy and what you can find inside the pages of the third edition of the Healthcare Privacy Compliance Handbook.
[author: Jane Anderson]
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Suspected North Korean hackers have tried to break into the systems of British drugmaker AstraZeneca in recent weeks as the company races to deploy its COVID-19 vaccine,
Reuters reported.
[1] The hackers posed as recruiters on networking site LinkedIn and WhatsApp to approach AstraZeneca staff with fake job offers,
Reuters’ sources said. They then sent documents purporting to be job descriptions that were laced with malicious code. The hacking attempts targeted “a broad set of people,” including staff working on COVID-19 research, according to one of
Reuters’ sources, but are not thought to have been successful. The tools and techniques used in the attacks indicated that they were part of an ongoing hacking campaign that U.S. officials and cybersecurity researchers have attributed to North Korea, according to the article. Cyberattacks against health entities, vaccine scientists and drugmakers have soared during the COVID-19 pandemic. Micr