The preparations for COVID-19 vaccine distribution are well underway and will be a priority for health system CIOs heading into 2021.

While the COVID-19 pandemic has increased the number of employees working from home across industries, hospitals and health systems have taken tailored approaches to which workers they still need to provide in-person support. 

St. Louis-based Ascension saw its net income reach $1.2 billion in the first quarter of fiscal 2021, which ended Sept. 30, according to recently released financial documents. 

Virginia Mason Memorial, a 256-bed hospital in Yakima, Wash., is transitioning back to an independent hospital and reverting to its old name, according to the Yakima Herald-Republic. 

The U.S. surpassed 12 million total COVID-19 cases Nov. 21, according to data from Baltimore-based Johns Hopkins University.  

Cleveland Clinic has about 1,000 employees away from work due to COVID-19, the health system told Becker's Nov. 23.

Thousands of employees from UW Health, the academic health system for the University of Wisconsin in Madison, issued an open letter to state residents Nov. 22 pleading for cooperation with COVID-19 safety measures. 

CMS chose 916 primary care practices and 37 regional health plan partners as participants in its new payment model called Primary Care First.

A coding error within Kaiser Permanente's EHR caused the health system to send bill-related mailings of some Georgia members to their dependents instead of the main policyholder, according to a statement from Kaiser Permanente.

The following hospital and health system CFO moves have been reported in November.

Several Michigan health systems have told employees that if they had close or household contact with someone who has COVID-19, they are still expected to report to work until they get their test results, according to the Detroit Free Press. 

UW Medicine in Seattle is suspending nonemergency surgeries that require hospitalization, effective Nov. 23 through Feb. 1, according to The Seattle Times. 

The number of Henry Ford Health System employees who are exposed to COVID-19 in the community remains high, putting additional stress on staffing at the Detroit-based health system, Adnan Munkarah, MD, executive vice president and chief clinical officer, said during a media briefing Nov. 20. 

Nurses at Albany (N.Y.) Medical Center plan to strike Dec. 1 for improvements in staffing and infection control standards, according to the union that represents them.

The federal government has awarded a $590 million loan to ApiJect Systems America for a novel injection device the company said could be used instead of traditional glass vials and syringes for vaccinations. 

CMS issued a final rule Nov. 20 that modifies the Stark Law, which prohibits physician self-referrals.  

President Donald Trump announced two new drug-pricing rules Nov. 20, one that would link Medicare Part B drug prices to those paid in other countries and one to eliminate rebates drugmakers pay to pharmacy benefit managers, The Hill reported. 

Companies most often cited the cost of COVID-19 testing as the primary reason they weren't testing their workers, rather than test availability or turnaround times, The New York Times reported. 

Here are some of the recent leadership changes affecting health IT:

The U.S. Department of Agriculture granted the Georgia Cancer Center at Augusta University $576,035 Nov. 19 to expand access to skin cancer care, particularly for melanoma, in the state.