Becker's Hospital Review

93 FINANCE CMO / CARE DELIVERY How CMS ranked US News' 20 Honor Roll hospitals By Erica Carbajal C MS updated its Overall Hospital Quality Star Ratings April 28, and 11 of U.S. News & World Report's 2020-21 20 Honor Roll hospitals received a five-star rating. Here are U.S. News' 20 Honor Roll hospitals ranked in order (including ties), along with their overall CMS star rating: 1. Mayo Clinic (Rochester, Minn.) — 5 stars 2. Cleveland Clinic — 5 stars 3. Johns Hopkins (Baltimore) — 4 stars 4. NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital-Columbia and Cornell (New York City) — 4 stars 4. UCLA Medical Center — 4 stars 6. Massachusetts General Hospital (Boston) — 5 stars 7. Cedars-Sinai Medical Center (Los Angeles) — 5 stars 8. UCSF Medical Center (San Francisco) — 4 stars 9. NYU Langone Hospitals (New York City) — 5 stars 10. Northwestern Memorial Hospital (Chicago) — 5 stars 11. University of Michigan Hospitals-Michigan Medicine (Ann Arbor) — 5 stars 12. Brigham and Women's Hospital (Boston) — 4 stars 13. Stanford Health Care-Stanford Hospital (Palo Alto, Calif.) — 5 stars 14. Mount Sinai Hospital (New York City) — 4 stars 15. Hospitals of the University of Pennsylvania-Penn Presbyterian (Philadelphia) — 4 stars 16. Mayo Clinic-Phoenix — 5 stars 17. Rush University Medical Center (Chicago) — 5 stars 18. Barnes-Jewish Hospital (St. Louis) — 3 stars 18. Keck Hospital of USC (Los Angeles) — 4 stars 20. Houston Methodist Hospital — 5 stars n 6 studies behind the CDC's decision to ease indoor mask guidance By Erica Carbajal T he CDC's May 13 announcement that masks are no longer required in most indoor settings for ful- ly vaccinated Americans was backed by "numerous reports in the literature that demonstrate the safety and real-world effectiveness of the authorized vaccines," ac- cording to Rochelle Walensky, MD, the agency's director. Here are six studies that supported the CDC's updated mask guidance, as referenced by Dr. Walensky: Vaccine effectiveness in real-world settings 1. Among 6,710 healthcare workers in Israel, Pfizer-BioN- Tech's vaccine demonstrated 97 percent effectiveness at protecting against symptomatic infection, and 86 percent effectiveness against asymptomatic infection, according to a study published May 6 in the Journal of the American Medical Association. 2. In a U.S.-based study involving nearly 4,000 healthcare workers, Pfizer and Moderna's mRNA vaccines were 90 per- cent effective at preventing any COVID-19 infection. The research was published April 2 in the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. 3. A separate MMWR report from the CDC found mRNA vac- cines were 94 percent effective at preventing COVID-19-re- lated hospitalizations among adults aged 65 and older. Protection against variants 4. Pfizer's vaccine demonstrated 89.5 percent effective- ness against the B.1.1.7 variant, first detected in the U.K., which became the dominant U.S. strain in April, according to a May 5 study published in The New England Journal of Medicine. The vaccine was also 75 percent effective against the B.1.351 variant, which first emerged in South Africa, the findings showed. "Additional studies confirm that the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines are also effective against circulating variants," Dr. Walensky added. Reinfection 5. Among those who experienced a rare case of reinfec- tion after getting vaccinated, the subsequent infection was more likely to have a lower viral load, indicating decreased transmissibility, according to research published March 29 in Nature Medicine. 6. An April 21 MMWR report from the CDC found no facil- ity-associated secondary transmission among vaccinated nursing home residents. n

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