Issue 40, May 19, 2023
America faces daunting and complex healthcare challenges that include and go beyond the current pandemic. In myriad ways, innovative healthcare companies are developing solutions to improve access to care, battle disease, strengthen population health, and meet the needs of underserved communities. This newsletter will offer examples of Healthcare Leadership Council members answering the call. |
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HLC Webinar
Optimizing the Healthcare Workforce
The healthcare workforce shortage is a challenge with which the industry has been wrestling and, with decreasing population growth, there is even greater concern about recruiting the numbers of healthcare professionals needed to meet patient demands. Join an expert panel to learn how the private sector is addressing these challenges and what answers are taking shape for both the short and long term. Speakers from: AMN Healthcare Surescripts Texas Health Resources When: June 14, 2023 2:00 - 3:00 p.m. ET |
| Atrium Health Expands Access, Bringing Virtual Care to Residential Housing
North Carolina-based Atrium Health, a Healthcare Leadership Council member, is expanding care into the Charlotte community, placing a virtual care clinic into one of the city's affordable housing apartment complexes. The clinic in Charlotte's Peppertree Apartments will include a telemedicine platform with digital health tools, including a connected otoscope, stethoscope, and high-resolution camera for comprehensive examinations overseen by Atrium Health providers. It will also offer on-site testing for such concerns as COVID-19, flu, strep throat and some infections.
Kinneil Coltman, executive vice president and chief community and social impact officer for Advocate Health, part of the Atrium Health network, said, "The opening of this virtual primary care location at Peppertree represents the first time Atrium Health has established a virtual location directly in a housing community. With this virtual care location, we are taking a step toward closing the gap in healthcare access and making it easier for our patients to get the care they need and deserve."
Coltman added, "At Atrium Health, we believe that it is essential for people to have safe, sustainable and affordable housing, not only because it is integral to overall health and well-being, but because everyone deserves a secure space to call home. We also believe that healthcare is a fundamental right to which everyone should have access, regardless of their background, income or where they live." |
FDA Advisory Committee Moves Pfizer RSV Vaccine Closer to Approval
A Food and Drug Administration advisory committee has endorsed the safety and effectiveness of an experimental Pfizer vaccine for respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), increasing its chances for full FDA approval to become the first available maternal immunization to protect babies from the illness.
RSV is a contagious virus and a common cause of respiratory illness that can potentially cause severe illness in young infants. Worldwide, there are an estimated 6.6 million cases of RSV annually in infants less than six months of age, with approximately 45,000 dying each year from complications associated with the infection. In the U.S., approximately 500,000 to 600,000 cases of medically attended lower respiratory tract disease due to RSV occur annually in infants less than a year old.
Annaliesa Anderson, Ph.D., senior vice president and chief scientific officer, vaccine research and development for Pfizer called the advisory committee approval "a critical step forward in the scientific community's long-sought-after goal to help prevent RSV disease in infants during the most vulnerable first six months of life. If approved, our RSV vaccine candidate has the potential to be the first maternal immunization vaccine to help protect infants at first breath through their first six months of life from this potentially serious infection."
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