The White House’s coronavirus task force has unveiled a three-phase approach to “opening up America again,” offering recommendations to state and local officials as they consider whether to ease the physical distancing rules that are helping to contain the spread of COVID-19.

The AMA also is weighing in with its advice on what must be in place before relaxing the stay-at-home orders that have upended American life and taken a toll on the economy yet have helped throttle the spread of the highly infectious and deadly respiratory illness.

The goal is “to minimize the risk of another surge in COVID-19 infections and to ensure our health system’s capacity to care for newly infected patients,” said AMA President Patrice A. Harris, MD, MA. “People in our country should be confident that decisions are being made with public health as the top consideration.”

My latest for the AMA. The whole shebang.

The AMA is calling on the Federal Emergency Management Agency to lead a national system of procuring and distributing personal protective equipment (PPE).

“This would not only provide critical clarity and reduction in administrative burden, but would also allow states and hospitals to benefit from the tremendous bargaining power of the federal government,” AMA Executive Vice President and CEO James L. Madara, MD, wrote in a letter to Rear Adm. John Polowczyk, who is heading FEMA’s Supply Chain Stabilization Task Force.

The AMA also is urging FEMA “to serve as the single national coordinator of distribution of these supplies, ensuring that states, hospitals and other facilities have one centralized agency to work through to acquire essential PPE.”

My latest for the AMA. The whole shebang.

As hospitals, clinics and health systems seek to maximize capacity in alternate care sites to deliver supportive care for patients with COVID-19, one stumbling block has been U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) rules governing DEA-registered hospitals, clinics, manufacturers and distributors.

The satellite care locations may lack the DEA registration usually needed to handle controlled substances essential to critical care. Now the agency has announced it is making an exception to that requirement for the duration of the nationwide COVID-19 public health emergency.

My latest. The whole shebang.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is sending out the first $30 billion of a planned $100 billion in financial relief that Congress allocated to hospitals, physician practices and other health care organizations.

The relief comes under the Public Health and Social Services Emergency Fund in the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act and reflects the recommendations made to HHS Secretary Alex Azar by the AMA and more than 130 other state and medical specialty associations.

To understand this and other provisions of the CARES Act, the AMA has developed a “Physician Practice Financial Relief Guide” to help doctors take advantage of the $2.2 trillion package’s loans, grants and accelerated payment options.

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After completing another shift as an emergency physician treating many patients with influenza-like illnesses amid the COVID-19 global pandemic that has reached every state in the nation, Megan L. Ranney, MD, MPH, changes her clothes before heading home to her husband and their two children, 11 and 8 years old.

She leaves her shoes outside, along with a plastic bag filled with her clothes, then immediately gets in the shower to wash away the pandemic gunk before touching another soul. She wipes down her smartphone, her keys and the steering wheel of her car.

But what remains safely stored inside her car’s trunk, tucked inside of a paper bag, are two increasingly precious items in a world wracked by a global shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE): a procedural mask and a medical grade N95 respirator.

The items, designed to be used once and then disposed of, will be reused “for as long as possible,” Dr. Ranney said in an interview.

That’s the lede to a notable story of mine recently published on the AMA website. Read the whole shebang.

Also check out these other recent stories I’ve written that address various elements of the COVID-19 global pandemic:

• Physician practices: Learn how to get help under CARES Act
• Why stronger federal leadership is needed to buy, distribute PPE
• 6 keys for retired physicians considering return to practice
• What the $2 trillion coronavirus relief plan means for doctors
• COVID-19 national emergency: 6 top insights from 2 AMA presidents
• This is war: We must tackle shortages hampering COVID-19 effort
• How JAMA Network quickened pace to deliver critical COVID-19 info
• Doctors, hospitals, nurses seek $1 billion to combat COVID-19
• New CPT code for COVID-19 testing: What you should know
• Planning for COVID-19 patient surges requires doctors’ input

Nothing pierces through the noise like your child’s scream.

That was the sound that echoed through the smoky airwaves aglow with the flames of the Tubbs Wildfire in California, a state where millions live through the summer and fall months at the burning edge of climate change.

That dreadful cry stretched from one end of a telephone conversation to the other—to a phone held by Joshua Weil, MD, on duty that fateful 2017 night as the assistant physician-in-chief at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Santa Rosa.

My latest for the AMA. The whole shebang.

A settlement reached with the owners of now-closed Hahnemann University Hospital would—if approved by a federal bankruptcy judge—pay for the long-tail medical liability insurance coverage for more than 1,400 residents, fellows and alumni of the hospital’s training programs. The AMA is underwriting legal representation of the orphaned residents and fellows in the case.

The settlement, filed in Chapter 11 proceedings in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware, would also provide the legally required coverage for the 100 attending physicians who lost their jobs when Hahnemann closed in the summer of 2019. Legal representation on behalf of displaced residents and fellows in the case is being conducted by Jeremy Ryan and the firm of Potter Anderson & Corroon, whose work is being underwritten by the AMA. Premiums for this long-tail coverage can run into the tens of thousands of dollars per physician.

My lede. The whole shebang.

The AMA Foundation has recruited a powerhouse philanthropist to lead its efforts to address LGBTQ health disparities through a national fellowship program that will create a cadre of physician specialists targeting the issue.

My latest for the AMA. The whole shebang.

With voting for the 2020 presidential race officially underway, health care will again take center stage in the political and policy discussion. To meet the need for “high-quality content to inform the debate about the future of health care in the United States and globally,” JAMA Network™ has launched JAMA Health Forum™, a new way “to assemble and highlight health policy content from the JAMA Network with interpretive commentary and analysis.”

My latest for the AMA. The whole shebang.

Physician use of technology to provide televisits or virtual visits has doubled since 2016, with nearly 30% of doctors adopting the digital health technology, according to an AMA survey of 1,300 physicians.

The survey found that rising shares of physicians are using many digital health tools to enable:

• Consumer access to clinical data—58%.
• Point of care or workflow enhancements—47%.
• Clinical decision support—37%.
• Patient engagement—33%.
• Remote monitoring and management for improved care—22%.
• Remote monitoring for efficiency—16%.

Nearly 90% of doctors see at least some advantage in digital health tools, and more doctors are likely to see a definite plus to using them. That’s more likely to be the case among primary care physicians, 40% of whom see the sure upside in these digital health tools, compared with 33% of specialists—a change from the 2016 results.

My latest for the AMA. The whole shebang.

A man hospitalized in Everett, Washington, has been diagnosed with the 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) after returning to the U.S. from travels to Wuhan, China, the city of 11 million people. At this article’s deadline, the infectious respiratory disease had already killed 18 people and spread to nine countries since first being identified last month.

Because there’s so little known so far about 2019-nCoV, there’s no vaccine or specific treatment available and the care is primarily supportive rather than curative. The World Health Organization is declining, for now, to declare a public health emergency of international concern but will meet again in early February and has offered recommendations to China and other countries.

My latest for the AMA. The whole shebang.

Lawmakers in New Jersey this week opted against moving forward with legislation that would have allowed advanced practice registered nurses (APRNS) to prescribe without any physician oversight. The legislation (Senate bill 1961 and the identical Assembly bill 854) would have also given APRNs full signatory authority, meaning they could have signed off on any document requiring a physician signature by law.

The New Jersey Senate’s health committee moved the bill to the floor in June 2019, but the state’s physicians were able to persuade lawmakers against taking up the bill to weaken the physician-led health care team during the 2018–2019 legislative session that closed Monday. Most states do not allow APRNs to prescribe independently.

My latest at the AMA. The whole shebang.

Eight Americans are killed every day in a car crash involving a distracted driver, and more than 1,000 are injured daily in such accidents, says the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Six percent of drivers in fatal crashes were distracted at the time, the NHTSA says, yet most states are coming up short when it comes to cracking down on a major cause of distracted driving.

While 48 states bar texting and driving, only 20 states ban drivers from using hand-held cellphones entirely while operating a motor vehicle, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

My latest for the AMA. The whole shebang.