Editor's Note Overall healthcare employment in the US was up in June to a seasonally adjusted 16,844,800 workers, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on July 7. That’s up 41,100 since May. Hospital employment also was up by 15,000 jobs. The overall unemployment rate fell in June to 3.7%, for…

Read More

Editor's Note The Joint Commission, on July 5, announced that its surveyors will no longer be evaluating compliance with the COVID-19 vaccination requirement for accreditation. The standard will remain in the current manual until the next standards release later this year, The Joint Commission says.

Read More

Editor's Note On June 29, the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) issued a medical advisory alert "warning of a significant, high-risk vulnerability in Medtronic’s Paceart Optima System, which is used to compile and manage patients’ cardiac device data," the American Hospital Association (AHA) July 6 reports. According to CISA,…

Read More

Editor's Note According to a July 6 report from Challenger, Gray & Christmas, a global outplacement and business and executive coaching firm that examines job cuts by US-based employers, healthcare/products companies and manufacturers, including hospitals, announced 38,279 job cuts in the first half of 2023, which is up by 97%…

Read More

Editor's Note In a June 27 letter, the American Hospital Association (AHA) urged the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) “to avoid disrupting healthcare delivery through the unintentional fracturing” of the medical device supply chain with its proposed ethylene oxide (EtO) standards. The EPA proposes: reducing EtO emissions by 80% adding new…

Read More

Editor's Note The Joint Commission, on June 28, announced that refreshed Accelerate PI Dashboard Reports containing data through the fourth quarter of 2021 are now available for accredited hospitals and critical access hospitals. The reports come from chart-abstracted and electronic clinical quality measures data reported to The Joint Commission under…

Read More

Editor's Note This study from Harvard Medical School, Boston, and Georgetown University, Washington, DC, finds that hospital compliance with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) 2021 Price Transparency Rule is increasing since financial penalties were enforced. Data from 4,377 acute care hospitals operating in 2021 and 2022 were…

Read More

Editor's Note This multi-center study led by Humana Inc, Louisville, Kentucky, finds that a bundled payment program offered by a Medicare Advantage insurer for lower extremity joint replacements was associated with reduced spending without changes in quality. A total of 23,034 lower extremity joint replacement surgical episodes (6,355 bundled, 16,679…

Read More

Editor's Note The Association for Professionals in Infection Control (APIC), on June 26, announced the creation of the APIC Health Equity Fund, which will help underwrite the cost of infection prevention and control (IPC) tools and resources for underserved communities in the US. For the first 3 years, the fund…

Read More

Editor's Note A new survey released June 21 by Deloitte and Workplace Intelligence finds that up to 60% of employees are considering switching to new jobs because stress at work is hurting their mental (58%), physical (63%), social (45%), or financial (35%) well-being. The survey also finds that three in…

Read More