Regulations/Legal
Pfizer, BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine 95% effective in final analysis, will seek EUA within days
Editor's Note Just a week after Pfizer revealed an interim analysis showing its COVID-19 vaccine to be more than 90% effective, the company on November 18 released its final efficacy analysis showing the vaccine is 95% effective, and that it protects older people who are most at risk of dying…
Editorial
Most respondents to a July 2020 American Organization for Nursing Leadership survey said they felt prepared for a future surge of COVID-19. That future is now, with nearly 150,000 new cases being reported daily across the country and multiple hospitals at capacity. Survey respondents said their biggest challenges early in…
Access OR Manager Conference sessions by December 31
For the first time in its history, the annual OR Manager Conference was held virtually September 30 to October 2. Many things were different this year, but the robust educational content and advanced technology were the same as in previous years. In a post-conference survey, more than 60% of respondents…
New recommendations issued for instrument care and cleaning
New recommendations developed from evidence-based research have been added to AORN’s Guideline for Care and Cleaning of Surgical Instruments. Several of these changes will have an impact on the quality of processing in sterile processing (SP) areas. This latest version, released on October 12, 2020, includes industry changes that have…
Shifts in case mix bode well for future of outpatient surgery
Before COVID-19 emerged as the biggest disruptor of 2020, many ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs) had been growing volume and receiving Medicare reimbursements for an increasing number of procedures. Stopping elective procedures in the spring was a significant setback, especially for smaller, independent facilities, notes a Global Healthcare Advisors (GHA) brief,…
CDC: Impact of COVID-19 stress on children’s mental health
Editor's Note The number of children’s mental health emergency department (ED) visits decreased sharply from mid-March through early April 2020, coincident with the implementation of community mitigation measures enacted to prevent COVID-19 transmission, and then visits increased steadily through October, this study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention…
Moderna announces 94.5% efficacy for COVID-19 vaccine
Editor's Note Moderna Inc (Cambridge, Massachusetts) on November 16 announced that its vaccine is 94.5% effective at preventing COVID-19. Their analysis of a 30,000-person trial (half received the vaccine and half received a placebo) finds that 90 of the 95 COVID-19 documented cases are in the placebo group. The Moderna announcement…
Joint Commission modifies Environment of Care survey process
Editor's Note The Joint Commission announced November 11 that it has modified its Environment of Care (EC) survey process for ambulatory surgery centers (those deemed and/or assigned life safety code surveyors), critical access hospitals, and hospitals, effective January 1, 2021. The change eliminates the 1-hour, sit-down discussion with members of…
Medicare to cover monoclonal antibody COVID-19 treatments
Editor's Note The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) on November 10 announced that Medicare will cover out-of-pocket costs for monoclonal antibody drugs for COVID-19 during the public health emergency. The agency’s coverage includes Eli Lilly’s bamlanivimab, which recently received an emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug…
FDA issues EUA for first test to detect neutralizing antibodies after COVID-19
Editor's Note The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on November 6 issued an emergency use authorization (EUA) for the first serology test (GenScript USA Inc) to identify patients with neutralizing antibodies after a COVID-19 infection. Neutralizing antibodies have reduced the infection of cells in the laboratory, but their effects in…
Free Daily News
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