President Biden will name Susan Orsega—an infectious disease specialist, nurse, and officer in the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps—as acting surgeon general, two people familiar with the matter told the Washington Post, potentially marking the first time a nurse will serve in the role of surgeon general, in today's bite-sized hospital and health industry news from the District of Columbia and Utah.
- District of Columbia: President Biden will name Susan Orsega—an infectious disease specialist, nurse, and officer in the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps—as acting surgeon general, two people familiar with the matter told the Washington Post, potentially marking the first time a nurse will serve in the role of surgeon general. Last week, Jerome Adams, who served as U.S. surgeon general under former President Donald Trump's administration, resigned at Biden's request, and Deputy Surgeon General Erica Schwartz retired. Biden has nominated Vivek Murthy, who served as the country's surgeon general under former President Barack Obama's administration, to resume the role, but the Senate hasn't yet scheduled confirmation hearings on Murthy's nomination (Diamond, Washington Post, 1/25; Coleman, The Hill, 1/25).
- District of Columbia: Biden on Monday implemented travel restrictions on the majority of non-U.S. travelers from Brazil, Ireland, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and 26 other countries in Europe in an effort to stem the spread of the new coronavirus. The restrictions prohibit any foreign nationals who've been in one of the countries on the restricted travel list during the 14 days before their scheduled travel to the United States from entering the country (Madhani/Miller, Associated Press, 1/25).
- Utah: Mike Cotton resigned as president and CEO of SelectHealth, Intermountain Healthcare's health plan, effective Jan. 25, the health system announced Thursday. According to Intermountain, Cotton resigned because of family reasons and will be moving to Atlanta to care for his family. Bob White, SelectHealth's COO, will serve as interim president and CEO (Haefner, Becker's Payer Issues, 1/22).
