CDC nominee declines to say if she'd defy Kennedy; Tactile Systems to pay $500k in settlement; once upon a hospital — Morning Medical Update

CDC nominee declines to say if she'd defy Kennedy

Erica Schwartz, M.D., said she would not betray science but would not commit to overruling the health secretary.

Erica Schwartz, M.D., President Donald Trump's nominee to lead the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), repeatedly declined Wednesday to say whether she would break with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on vaccines, Reuters reported.

Sen. Bill Cassidy, M.D. (R-Louisiana), a physician who chairs the Senate health committee, pressed her on whether she would exert full control of the agency and remove officials who tie vaccines to autism. Schwartz said she would never compromise on or betray science, and that Kennedy would allow her to exercise her authority.

Under questioning from ranking member Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont), Schwartz said she accepts the evidence that vaccines do not cause autism but would not commit to removing CDC website content suggesting such a link, saying she would review it and speak with Kennedy.

Cassidy, who opened the hearing saying he could not support a nominee who equivocated on vaccine facts, said afterward that Schwartz seemed "way overprepped" and had consistently avoided answering his questions. Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kansas), called her among the most qualified nominees he has seen.

The committee also weighed Sean Kaufman, Trump's nominee for assistant secretary for preparedness and response, whose past comments questioning vaccines drew sharper criticism from Cassidy over Kaufman's support for halting mRNA vaccine research. Kaufman sought to distance himself from those remarks, saying vaccines save lives and are safe and effective.

If confirmed, Schwartz would inherit an agency that has lacked a permanent leader for all but one month of Trump's second term, facing the worst U.S. measles resurgence in three decades and an Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda.

Tactile Systems to pay $551,000 in Medicare false claims settlement

The government says sales personnel forged clinician signatures and altered medical records over six years.

Tactile Systems Technology agreed to pay $550,959 to resolve allegations that it billed Medicare for medically unnecessary pneumatic compression devices in violation of the False Claims Act, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Massachusetts said. Medicare covers the devices, which treat chronic swelling from lymphedema and chronic venous insufficiency, only after four weeks of conservative therapy fails and a health care professional documents why.

The government contends that between Jan. 1, 2019, and Dec. 31, 2024, some Tactile sales personnel inserted false statements into medical records about patients' failure to improve with basic compression and forged health care professionals' signatures to make it appear clinicians had prescribed the company's Entre or Flexitouch devices. In other cases, records were altered to state that patients had not improved on the basic Entre model and therefore required the more expensive Flexitouch. Tactile terminated many of the employees involved after learning of the conduct.

The settlement resolves two whistleblower suits brought under the False Claims Act's qui tam provision, and the relators will receive $129,475. The Department of Veterans Affairs and the Defense Criminal Investigative Service assisted the investigation.

Once upon a hospital…

Researchers model a 300-bed hospital where smarter design pays for itself within two years.

Researchers designed a hospital that does not exist to make a case about the ones that do. Writing in BMJ Leader, a team including Texas A&M University's Leonard Berry, Ph.D., modeled "Fable Hospital 3.0," a hypothetical 300-bed community facility developed with architecture firm Perkins&Will. Spending an extra $25 million to $30 million, roughly 3% of construction costs, on airflow, daylight, materials and energy systems would be recouped within two years of opening and return more than $100 million over the first decade, the model projects.

Shorter patient stays account for the largest share of savings at about $7.25 million a year, followed by staff retention at more than $1.2 million and fewer medical errors at roughly $1 million.

"Even a modest reduction in length of stay produces millions in annual savings," Berry said. The estimates are projections built on conservative assumptions drawn from existing evidence-based design research, not results measured at a working hospital.