Agencies Look Back at 2020 Accomplishments

The Department Health & Human Services and its agencies report in some way on their year’s initiatives and accomplishments. HHS has not issued the 2020 Annual Report as yet but can be found on their website with previous years.

Follow all the agencies and their reviews on 2020.

Accelerating APIs in Healthcare: A Year in Review and Momentum for 2021

On December 1, 2020, the ONC spotlighted how application programming interface (API)-forward policies and industry actions are accelerating interoperability. This event included updates from federal agencies as well as presentations and demos from industry partners that highlighted how work underway is advancing innovation and competition in the health IT ecosystem. A panel discussion was also held.

New CMS Report Highlights Four Years of Accomplishments In Healthcare

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released “Putting Patients First: The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ Record of Accomplishment from 2017-2020,” a report highlighting the agency’s transformation in ensuring all Americans have access to quality and affordable healthcare.

The report examines CMS’ accomplishments over the last four years, highlighting agency actions that responded to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and furthered CMS’s Four Core Goals identified in 2017: empowering patients and doctors, ushering in a new era of state flexibility and local leadership, developing innovative approaches, and improving the CMS customer service experience.

The CMS Innovation Center: Year in Review

2020 marked the tenth anniversary of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI), and it proved to be a very important year both for the Innovation Center and the broader value-based care movement. At the start of the year, we began a comprehensive process to review every model the Innovation Center has launched over the past decade, including all of our current models. Through this process, we were able to capture a range of key lessons learned. These lessons greatly influenced our work this year, as they impacted the improvements we made to existing models, our intensive focus on operational improvement, and – most importantly – the new models that we chose to launch and the existing models that were certified for expansion.

2020 at FDA: A Year of Unparalleled Contributions to Public Health

It has been a year like no other in recent memory for public health. At the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, much of our focus has been dominated by our response to the COVID-19 pandemic. We’ve continued to make important scientific progress, with each day bringing new knowledge and understanding of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and the disease it causes, leading to the issuance of Emergency Use Authorizations (EUA) for two vaccines, and to increased availability of testing and treatment options.

2020: A Strong Year for New Drug Therapy Approvals – Despite Many COVID-19 Challenges

Throughout 2020, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) was challenged to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic while still working to bring safe and effective new drug therapies for a range of other diseases and conditions to patients in need. Today I’d like to share information on the new drug therapy approval successes we achieved during 2020 despite the unprecedented challenges caused by the pandemic.

For AHRQ in 2020, an Unforgettable Year of Daunting Challenges and Vital Accomplishments

In 2020, one healthcare story eclipsed all others: COVID-19. The pandemic delivered the cruelest of blows to American families, decimated our economy, and revealed lethal vulnerabilities in the Nation’s public health safety net.

AHRQ, like every element of government, urgently revised its priorities. Existing research projects were refocused on COVID-19. New projects were launched to explore strategies for controlling the virus’ spread. Evidence-based information aimed at halting the pandemic was made available to physicians, nurses, and others battling the virus first hand.

2020 Research Highlights — Human Health Advances

Disease Prevention, Diagnosis, and Treatment
With NIH support, scientists across the United States and around the world conduct wide-ranging research to discover ways to enhance health, lengthen life, and reduce illness and disability. Groundbreaking NIH-funded research often receives top scientific honors. In 2020, these honors included one of NIH’s own scientists and another NIH-supported scientist who received Nobel Prizes. Here’s just a small sample of the NIH-supported research accomplishments in 2020. For more health and medical research findings from NIH, visit NIH Research Matters.

HRSA 2020 Year In ReviewTens of millions of Americans receive quality, affordable health care and other services through HRSA’s 90-plus programs and more than 3,000 grantees.

The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, is the primary federal agency for improving health care to people who are geographically isolated, economically or medically vulnerable.

HRSA programs help those in need of high quality primary health care, people with HIV/AIDS, pregnant women, and mothers. HRSA also supports the training of health professionals, the distribution of providers to areas where they are needed most and improvements in health care delivery.

HRSA oversees organ, bone marrow and cord blood donation. It compensates individuals harmed by vaccination, and maintains databases that protect against health care malpractice, waste, fraud and abuse.

Since 1943 the agencies that were HRSA precursors have worked to improve the health of needy people. HRSA was created in 1982, when the Health Resources Administration and the Health Services Administration were merged.