Editor's Note The American Hospital Association (AHA), on August 9, announced that COVID-19 HIPAA rules for telehealth would expire at 11:59 pm. The Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights (OCR) implemented a HIPAA policy for telehealth during the COVID-19 public health emergency, which provided enforcement discretion…

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Editor's Note The Joint Commission, on August 9, announced the publication of a new guide from Joint Commission Resources (JCR) that provides basic knowledge and awareness for healthcare workers (HCWs) about the ways in which patients are diverse. The guide focuses on aspects of diversity that include ethnicity, race, culture,…

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Editor's Note In an opinion piece, Katie Boston-Leary, PhD, MBA, MHA, NEA-BC, director of nursing programs at the American Nurses Association (ANA), says that nurses want to practice nursing and not be the “organizational sponge” that absorbs all other tasks that other professionals will not, can not, or are unavailable…

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Editor's Note This study, led by researchers at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, examines opportunities to improve inequitable postoperative outcomes by evaluating unmet social health needs by race, ethnicity, and insurance type. Outcomes included poor health status (self-reported), socioeconomic status (income, education, employment), and unmet social health needs (food,…

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Editor's Note The American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS), on August 1, released new interactive tools and resources to help collect patient data in advance of mandatory reporting periods. Orthopedic care teams are urged to take note because patient-reported outcome measures (eg, pain, physical mobility, emotional well-being, and experience of…

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Editor's Note The COVID-19 Omicron subvariant EG.5 is now the dominant variant in the US, replacing Arcturus XBB.1.16, according to the August 4 US News & World Report. EG.5 accounts for more than 17% of new COVID-19 cases in the US in the past 2 weeks, and it is increasing…

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Editor's Note Overall healthcare employment in the US was up in July to a seasonally adjusted 16,916,700 workers, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on August 4. That’s up 63,000 since June. Hospital employment also was up by 16,100 jobs. The overall unemployment rate fell in July to 3.5%, for…

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Editor's Note According to a study from health economics consulting firm Dobson | DaVanzo, submitted to the American Hospital Association (AHA) on August 1, physician-owned hospitals (POHs) "publicly report on fewer Medicare quality measures and perform worse on readmission penalties than full-service community hospitals" AHA August 3 reports. "The study…

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Editor's Note The Joint Commission, on August 2, announced that it had updated its Health Care Equity (HCE) Accreditation Standards & Resource Center and its HCE Certification Resource Center. A new resource available in the HCE Accreditation Standards & Resource Center is an On Demand Accelerate PI Webinar that provides…

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Editor's Note The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), on August 1, identified the recall by Baxter Healthcare Corporation of its SIGMA Spectrum Infusion Pump with Master Drug Library (Version 8) and Spectrum IQ Infusion System with Dose IQ Safety Software (Version 9) as Class I, the most serious. The recall…

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