University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center will be prepared to provide medical care to attendees of Tuesday's presidential debate—which will take place at Case Western Reserve University—if needed, in today's bite-sized hospital and health industry news from Indiana, Maryland, and Ohio.
- Indiana: Indiana State Health Commissioner Kristina Box on Wednesday announced that the state's Department of Health at the end of this month will release a new dashboard tracking the number of novel coronavirus infections reported among Indiana schools. Box said the tool, which will be updated weekly, will provide new and cumulative numbers for coronavirus cases among students and teachers at a given school. According to Box, more than 70% of the 2,000 schools in Indiana have contributed data to the dashboard so far, and preliminary data shows more than 900 schools have reported at least one case of the novel coronavirus (Smith, Associated Press, 9/24).
- Maryland: FDA on Thursday finalized a rule allowing states—and in some cases, pharmacists and wholesale distributors—to import certain lower-cost prescription drugs from Canada. Under the final rule—which does not apply to biologic and certain other drugs—states, pharmacists, and wholesale distributors would need to ensure their importation plans save consumers a substantial amount of money without posing safety risks to the public, and they'd need to submit their proposals for importing drugs to FDA for review. The final rule is scheduled take effect 60 days after it is published in the Federal Register (Brady, Modern Healthcare, 9/24; Galewitz, Kaiser Health News, 9/25; Cohen, Inside Health Policy, 9/24 [subscription required]).
- Ohio: University Hospitals (UH) Cleveland Medical Center will be prepared to provide medical care to attendees of Tuesday's presidential debate—which will take place at Case Western Reserve University—if needed. UH said, in the instance that an attendee needs care, they will have access to the medical center's Level 1 Trauma Center, which can provide immediate treatment and is close to Case Western. According to News 5 Cleveland, "The hope is that UH Cleveland Medical Center is not deemed necessary during the debate, but having a contingency plan with a more-than-capable facility nearby is always a good thing" (Justice, News 5 Cleveland, 9/24).