This study describes demographic characteristics and hospital bed capacities of the 5 New York City boroughs, and evaluates whether differences in testing for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), hospitalizations, and deaths have emerged as a signal of racial, ethnic, and financial disparities.

IMPORTANCE The Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program (HRRP) has been associated with a reduction in readmission rates for heart failure (HF), acute myocardial infarction (AMI), and pneumonia. It is unclear whether the HRRP has been associated with change in patient mortality. OBJECTIVE To determine whether the HRRP was associated with a change in patient mortality.

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Understanding and addressing the unique health needs of people residing in rural America is critical to the American Heart Association’s pursuit of a world with longer, healthier lives. Improving the health of rural populations is consistent with the American Heart Association’s commitment to health equity and its focus on social determinants of health to reduce and ideally to eliminate health disparities. This presidential advisory serves as a call to action for the American Heart Association and other stakeholders to make rural populations a priority in programming, research, and policy. This advisory first summarizes existing data on rural populations, communities, and health outcomes; explores 3 major groups of factors underlying urban-rural disparities in health outcomes, including individual factors, social determinants of health, and health delivery system factors; and then proposes a set of solutions spanning health system innovation, policy, and research aimed at improving rural health.

National projections suggest that hospitals may be overwhelmed with patients with coronavirus disease 2019 infection in the coming months. Appropriately, much attention has addressed the acute challenges in caring for this surge of critically ill patients. What has received less attention, however, is what happens as patients-most of whom will recover, even in the highest-risk groups-begin to do so. Many patients with COVID-19 will need postacute care to recuperate from their infection. However, postacute care facilities currently lack the capacity and capability to safely treat patients with COVID-19 as they transition from the hospital to other care settings or to their homes. In this Viewpoint, we present the scope of the problem and outline a series of steps that may be helpful as postacute care organizations prepare for the coming increase in patients with COVID-19.Postacute care includes rehabilitation or palliative services that beneficiaries receive following a stay in an acute care hospital. 1 Depending on the patient's needs, treatment may include a stay in a facility, such as a skilled nursing facility, inpatient rehabilitation facility, or long-term care hospital, or care in the home via a home health agency. Although data are limited regarding the proportion of patients with COVID-19