Editor's Note This German study finds that expectations and prior experiences were associated with increased adverse effect reports in individuals receiving their second COVID-19 vaccinations. Researchers collected data from 1,678 individuals receiving Pfizer BioNTech and Moderna mRNA vaccines. Severe adverse effect reports were higher in those: expecting a lower benefit…
Editor's Note With the demand for travel nurses rising significantly during the COVID-19 pandemic, some states are proposing measures to control what staffing agencies can charge healthcare facilities that use the temporary staff, the March 17 Kaiser Health News reports. Among 11 states proposing regulations: Missouri is calling for felony…
Editor's Note Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra on March 15 amended the February 4, 2020, COVID-19 emergency use authorizations for: diagnostics for detection and/or diagnosis of COVID-19 personal respiratory protective equipment other medical devices including alternative products used as medical devices drug and biological products. These emergency…
Editor's Note This study led by researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine, New York Presbyterian, New York City, and the University of California, Berkeley, finds that family financial disruptions caused by COVID-19 containment policies worsened children’s mental health. This analysis included a nationwide cohort of 6,030 US children aged 10 to…
Editor's Note The American College of Surgeons (ACS) on March 6 announced that a group of leading medical and public health professional organizations are forming the Healthcare Coalition for Firearm Injury Prevention. The group is using a comprehensive public health approach to advance firearm injury prevention through education of healthcare…
Editor's Note The Biden Administration on March 2 released a National Cybersecurity Strategy that includes a comprehensive approach to accomplish the following: “strengthen collaboration with stakeholders to defend critical infrastructure; disrupt and dismantle threat actors; shape market forces to drive security and resilience; invest in a resilient future; and forge…
Editor's Note More than 900 New York nurses, who studied at the seven Florida-based nursing schools that were shut down for allegedly selling fraudulent degrees, were given 14 days to prove their credentials or surrender their licenses, the February 21 Times Union reports. Another 2,400 New York students, who were…
The headlines are attention grabbing: hospitals forced to pay millions of dollars after employees were found to have stolen opioids and other controlled substances. After being discovered and investigated by the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), the agents uncovered a number of issues: poor record-keeping, inventory, tracking, and other failures that…
Editor's Note The Texas Board of Nursing has charged 23 nurses with “fraudulently obtaining educational credentials” as part of a national scheme involving thousands of fraudulent nursing degrees, the February 20 Becker’s Hospital Review reports. The nursing students paid thousands of dollars to the individuals running the scheme and are…
Editor's Note This study from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, finds that network facilities had higher negotiated prices for surgical procedures, and there is wide variability across facilities in and out of hospital networks. A total of 3,195 hospitals were included in the analysis. Among the findings: For 15…