May 20th, 2022 - Nurse fatigue was a concern long before March 2020, but the pandemic has spurred more discussions about the effects that long hours and mandatory overtime have on patient safety and employee well-being. When an internal memo from the University Medical Center of Southern Nevada circulated online recently, detailing the hospital's plans to enact mandatory overtime, the pushback was immediate and...

May 19th, 2022 -   When you speak to Santiaga Nunez, right away, you can sense her deep and unwavering devotion to her son, Lloyd Tyler Rochez, born in 2002 with trisomy 13, a genetic disorder that can involve severe learning problems and health woes that affect nearly every organ. Lloyd's diagnosis was confirmed shortly after he was born, when his doctors noticed that his facial features weren't measuring righ...

May 18th, 2022 - Editor's Note: This commentary was recorded before nurse RaDonda Vaught was sentenced to probation in the death of one of her patients. This transcript has been edited for clarity. Hi. I'm Art Caplan. I run the Division of Medical Ethics at New York University's Grossman School of Medicine. Much in the news over the past couple of months is the fate of a nurse who, at one of the most prestigiou...

May 18th, 2022 - In April, the Iowa Supreme Court dismissed a knotty claim against a local doctor and hospital accused of concealing a woman's renal cancer, according to a story in the Iowa Capital Dispatch, among other news outlets. In 2004, Linda Berry visited Mercy Medical Center in Cedar Rapids for an unspecified ailment. At the hospital, Berry underwent a CT scan, which revealed a benign cyst on her right ...

May 18th, 2022 - Mental health hospitalization rates rose for Canadian children and youth between ages 5 and 24 years in 2020, despite a slight decrease in the overall number of hospital visits, according to new data. Hospitalizations for eating disorders increased significantly, rising nearly 60% for girls between ages 10 and 17 years. "One of the key questions throughout the pandemic has focused on the uninte...

May 18th, 2022 - A recent report is critical of the steep increase in staffing costs for contract nurses. But experts say it’s important to look at what’s causing nurses to leave the profession and search for ways to improve their experience at work. The workforce report by healthcare consulting firm Kaufman Hall found that hospitals’ use of contract labor for nurses during the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in...

May 18th, 2022 - Just because many people seem more than ready to put the COVID-19 pandemic behind us doesn't mean it's really over. In fact, case numbers are rising again – with new infections reported in about 95,000 Americans each day – and hospitalizations are up 20% as well. It's yet another reminder of the dangers that remain from a virus that has now killed more than 1 million Americans. "There needs to ...

May 18th, 2022 - Nursing is a profession that requires collaboration with other healthcare personnel. While we may be thinking and processing the immediate needs of patients, it is the ability of the nurse to communicate patient data with others that sets us apart. We understand the patient's progress, how they might educate themselves further about their diagnosis, potential discharge needs, and what details m...

May 18th, 2022 - Good hand hygiene and other cost-effective infection prevention and control (IPC) practices can eliminate between 35% and 70% of healthcare-setting infections in all countries regardless of economic status, the World Health Organization (WHO) reports. IPC uses a practical, evidence-based approach to help patients, healthcare workers, and visitors to healthcare facilities avoid harmful infection...

May 18th, 2022 - Marthe Gautier, a French physician who was involved in the discovery of the extra chromosome that causes Down syndrome, died on Saturday, April 30. She was 96. This is an opportunity for us to look back and reflect on this discovery and the key role Gautier played in it. Like so many other women of her generation, she was a victim of what has come to be known as the Matilda Effect (see box). Tr...

May 17th, 2022 - SAN FRANCISCO — Children who live in neighborhoods that are at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder are at significantly greater risk for being admitted to a pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) and of dying there, a study of Medicaid data showed. Among more than 4 million children and adolescents in 12 US states, those in the most socioeconomically deprived quartile had a significantly highe...

May 17th, 2022 - Being identified as someone that was advised to stay at home and shield, or keep away from face-to-face interactions with others, during the COVID-19 pandemic was indicative of an increased risk for dying from COVID-19 within 28 days of infection, a U.K. study of inflammatory arthritis patients versus the general population suggests. In fact, shielding status was the highest ranked of all the r...

May 17th, 2022 - THOMASVILLE, Ala. (AP) — A whole town celebrated in 2020 when, early in the coronavirus pandemic, Thomasville Regional Medical Center opened, offering state-of-the-art medicine that was previously unavailable in a poor, isolated part of Alabama. The timing for the ribbon-cutting seemed perfect: New treatment options would be available in an underserved area just as a global health crisis was un...

May 17th, 2022 - Americans generally don't spend much time thinking about the nation's blood supply. That's mainly because the collection and distribution system is safe and efficient. But there's a new behind-the-scenes challenge, according to some hospital officials, who fear a change in how blood platelets are handled will sharply increase the cost — and, in some cases, the number of transfusions needed — to...

May 17th, 2022 - Editor's note: Find the latest COVID-19 news and guidance in Medscape's Coronavirus Resource Center. Federal health officials will extend the COVID-19 public health emergency past mid-July, which will continue pandemic-era policies as coronavirus cases increase again. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has renewed the emergency order since January 2020. The declaration allows the ...

May 17th, 2022 - May 17, 2022 – The FDA expanded an emergency use authorization (EUA) today allowing the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 booster shot for children between the ages of 5 to 11 who are at least 5 months out from their first vaccine series. According to the most recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 28.6% of children in this age group have received both COVID-19 vaccines in the ...

May 16th, 2022 - The shortage of iodinated contrast media (ICM) due to a General Electric (GE) manufacturing shutdown in Shanghai, China, is having profound effects on radiology practices globally. As previously reported by Medscape Medical News, shortages of contrast media for CT imaging have been brought on by recent COVID-19 lockdowns in China. These shortages are expected to last until at least the end of J...

May 16th, 2022 - MI. HTN. hx. Although these abbreviations might make it easier for physicians and other healthcare professionals to create and consume clinical documentation, the shorthand confuses patients, according to a study published May 13 in JAMA Network Open. Researchers, who conducted clinical trials at three hospitals, found that expansion of 10 common medical abbreviations and acronyms in patient he...

May 16th, 2022 - The incidence of COVID-19 in long-term care facilities (LTCFs) in Quebec, Canada decreased by 92% after an initial vaccine dose was administered in early 2021, according to new research. In the community, where vaccine eligibility was still limited, the incidence decreased by 49%. By 6 weeks post-vaccination, almost no LTCF reported a "severe" outbreak of five or more cases per 100 beds per wee...

May 16th, 2022 - The U.S. baby formula shortage has sparked a surge of interest at milk banks around the U.S. with some mothers offering to donate breast milk and desperate parents calling to see if it's a solution to keep their babies fed. It's a pathway that won't work for every formula-fed baby, especially those with special dietary needs, and it comes with challenges because the country's dozens of nonprofi...