Editor's Note In a May 2 news release, the American College of Surgeons (ACS) announced that to raise awareness on how to learn skills to stop serious bleeding, May 19 will observe the fifth annual national STOP THE BLEED day, which falls during the broader observance of national STOP THE…

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Editor's Note According to a multi-institutional study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, titled “Effectiveness of 2-Dose BNT162b2 (Pfizer BioNTech) mRNA Vaccine in Preventing SARS-CoV-2 Infection Among Children Aged 5–11 Years and Adolescents Aged 12–15 Years” and published on March 18, two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine…

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Editor's Note In 2020, the American Nurses Association expanded National Nurses Week to National Nurses Month to increase opportunities to elevate and celebrate nursing. National Nurses Week begins on May 6 and ends on May 12, Florence Nightingale’s birthday. The theme this year is “Nurses Make a Difference.” The American…

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Editor's Note This study from Meharry Medical College, Nashville, Tennessee, finds that COVID-19 testing and contact tracing are beneficial among African Americans, but mistrust, COVID-19 stigma, location, and perceived costs are major barriers. Of 62 study participants, the majority (69.4%) were female, had never been tested (62.9%), and had an…

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Editor's Note In response to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) interim final rule regarding COVID-19 vaccinations for healthcare workers (HCWs), The Joint Commission has approved a new Infection Prevention and Control (IC) Standard IC.02.04.02 and new elements of performance, the regulator announced on April 27. The new…

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Editor's Note In a letter to healthcare providers published on April 27, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) alerted it is evaluating the potential risk of airway obstruction when using silicone-based electromyogram (EMG) endotracheal tubes (Medtronic NIM Standard Reinforced EMG Endotracheal Tube and Medtronic NIM Contact Reinforced EMG Endotracheal…

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Editor's Note In a survey of 100 health system executives conducted by Sage Growth Partners in February 2022 and published in Panda Health’s Hospital Digital Health Technology Report: 2022, more than 90% of the health systems surveyed said “a strong digital health strategy is essential to improving clinical outcomes, boosting…

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Editor's Note In an April 28 news release, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), through the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), announced new measures that will allow American consumers to more easily find affordable healthcare coverage on HealthCare.gov during the next Open Enrollment Period, which will…

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Editor's Note Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, and chief medical advisor to President Joe Biden, said in an April 26 interview with PBS NewsHour that "we are certainly right now in this country out of the pandemic phase,"…

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Editor's Note In this study, titled “Clinician Distress and Inappropriate Antibiotic Prescribing for Acute Respiratory Tract Infections [RTIs]: A Retrospective Cohort Study” and published in the May 2022 issue of The Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety, the researchers examined the association between clinician distress and the inappropriate…

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