OSHA has backed off on one of two vaccine mandates after a recent Supreme Court decision. What does this mean for healthcare? I’m Jeff Lagasse with Healthcare Finance News, and we’ll seek the answers in this week’s Top Stories.
Less than two weeks after the Supreme Court blocked a Biden administration rule that employees of large companies get vaccinated or undergo regular COVID-19 testing, the White House has officially scrapped the rule, though it strongly encouraged workers to get their shots. Healthcare Finance News reports (https://www.healthcarefinancenews.com/news/osha-scraps-rule-mandating-vaccines-large-employers-after-scotus-decision) that while that rule was rescinded, the Supreme Court and the administration have upheld the mandate for healthcare workers in facilities that accept Medicare and Medicaid funding. The Justices said the core mission of the Department of Health and Human Services is to ensure that the healthcare providers who care for Medicare and Medicaid patients protect their patients' health and safety.
Akili Interactive, maker of a video game-based digital therapeutic for treating pediatric ADHD, announced it plans to go public through a merger with special-purpose acquisition company Social Capital Suvretta Holdings. As we see in MobiHealthNews (https://www.mobihealthnews.com/news/video-game-therapeutic-developer-akili-interactive-go-public-spac), the deal is expected to net the digital therapeutics startup up to $412 million in gross cash proceeds, valuing the combined company at about $1 billion. The transaction includes a $162 million private investment in public equity raise, with $100 million coming from Social Capital and the rest coming from new and existing investors. The companies are planning for the transaction to close in the middle of the year.
Finally this week, the Health Sector Cybersecurity Coordination Center recently released a threat brief about the vulnerabilities in Log4J, a Java-based logging tool known to have multiple potential security flaws. According to HealthcareITNews (https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/feds-health-sector-bad-actors-actively-leveraging-log4j-vulnerabilities), after the discovery of the vulnerabilities in November 2021, Apache has released multiple Log4J updates, but the healthcare sector remains at high risk – and adversaries are "actively leveraging these vulnerabilities,” including suspected actors from China, Iran, Russia, Turkey and North Korea.
I’m Jeff Lagasse with Healthcare Finance News, and this has been Top Stories.