Health Resources and Services Administration 2006 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The President's Health Center Initiative, which began in fiscal year (FY) 2002, was established to significantly impact 1,200 communities by creating new or expanded health center access points. Building on the successes of this Initiative, a second health center initiative has been proposed by the President for FY 2007 to continue to increase access to high quality comprehensive primary health care for the most vulnerable populations in the Nation. The goal of the President's new High Poverty Counties Health Center Initiative is to increase access to primary health care in 200 of the Nation's poorest counties that do not have a health center. This new Initiative is subject to the availability of funds in the FY 2007 Health Center Program appropriation. The President's High Poverty Counties Health Center Initiative contains two components, New Access Point and Planning grants to be funded under the Consolidated Health Center Program, as authorized by section 330 of the Public Health Service Act (42 U.S.C. 254b, as amended). New Access Point grants will be made for the provision of high quality comprehensive primary and preventive health care services through a new delivery site to a designated medically underserved area or population located in an eligible high poverty county. As part of the Initiative, it is anticipated that the New Access Points in High Poverty Counties grant opportunity will contain a funding priority. A funding priority is defined as the favorable adjustment of combined review scores of individually approved applications when applications meet specified criteria. The adjustment is typically made by a set, pre-determined number of points. For this grant opportunity, a funding priority is planned for applicants proposing to serve multiple counties (i.e., the proposed target population comes from other county(ies) in addition to the eligible high poverty county). Please note that this priority will not be given to applicants applying for the Planning opportunity of the High Poverty Counties grant opportunities as Planning grant applicants may not have a defined service area, and will not be providing health services through the grant funding. More detailed information about the funding priority will be included in the funding opportunity guidance.

This document announces a scheduled CHGME PP conference call for Federal fiscal year (FY) 2007. The purpose of this conference call is to discuss new annual reporting requirements as required under Public Law (Pub. L.) 109-307 for children's hospitals participating in the CHGME PP.

The Health Resources and Services Administration published a document in the Federal Register of September 22, 2006, regarding a meeting date for the Advisory Committee on Heritable Disorders and Genetic Diseases in Newborns and Children. The meeting scheduled for November 2-3, 2006, has been cancelled.

Funding opportunities for the Service Area Competition (SAC) funding for the Consolidated Health Center Program were published on grants.gov on August 10, 2006 (HRSA Announcement Numbers 07-008, 07- 111, and 07-112). Appendix D of the SAC program guidance (HRSA-07-008) is amended to remove the opportunity in Pierre, South Dakota, with a project period end date of February 28, 2007. Prior to the end of the project period and subsequent projected competition for that service area, the grant was relinquished to another neighboring organization. This is now part of the service area for another grantee in Pierre, South Dakota. The competitive application for that opportunity will now be due December 15, 2006, under HRSA 07-112.

Pursuant to Public Law 92-463, the Federal Advisory Committee Act, as amended (5 U.S.C. Appendix 2), notice is hereby given of the eleventh meeting of the Advisory Committee on Organ Transplantation (ACOT), Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The meeting will be held from approximately 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. on November 2, 2006, and from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on November 3, 2006, at the Bethesda DoubleTree Hotel, 8120 Wisconsin Avenue, Bethesda, MD 20814. The meeting will be open to the public; however, seating is limited and pre-registration is encouraged (see below).

The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) is publishing this notice of petitions received under the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (the Program), as required by Section 2112(b)(2) of the Public Health Service (PHS) Act, as amended. While the Secretary of Health and Human Services is named as the respondent in all proceedings brought by the filing of petitions for compensation under the Program, the United States Court of Federal Claims is charged by statute with responsibility for considering and acting upon the petitions.

The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) published in the Federal Register of May 12, 2006 (71 FR 27606), a direct final rule to amend the regulations to consider as part of an organ those blood vessels recovered with the organ that are intended for use in organ transplantation; and to exclude such blood vessels from the definition of human cells, tissues, and cellular and tissue-based products. The comment period closed July 26, 2006. HRSA and FDA are withdrawing the direct final rule because FDA received significant adverse comment. The agencies will consider the comments received under our usual procedures for notice and comment in connection with the notice of proposed rulemaking that was published as a companion to the direct final rule (71 FR 27649).

The Health Resources and Services Administration published a document in the Federal Register on August 11, 2006, concerning changes to the organization and functions of the Office of the Administrator (RA) and the HIV/AIDS Bureau (RV). The document omitted information regarding movement of the Center for Quality and also erroneously included the Telehealth function within the HIV/AIDS Bureau, which was moved to the Office of Health Information Technology (RT) on 12/27/05 (70 FR 76463-76465).

This is a Notice of Availability and request for comments on certain draft policy documents prepared by HRSA's Bureau of Primary Health Care (BPHC). HRSA plans to periodically make some draft policy documents (including draft Program Information Notices (PINs)) available for public comment on the Internet at https://bphc.hrsa.gov. Comments will be reviewed and analyzed, and a summary and general response will be published as soon as possible after the deadline for receipt of comments.