Editor's Note In response to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) relaxation of recommendations for universal healthcare personnel masking, the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC) on October 3 strongly urged its 15,000 members to continue masking in patient care areas. Requiring masks for anyone…

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Editor's Note Burnout in the healthcare workforce is a significant challenge hospitals and healthcare systems face, and a September 27 webinar hosted by US News and World Report tackled the many efforts hospital leaders are undertaking to address it. Among the various reasons cited as contributing to the problem—including rising…

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Editor's Note The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on October 3 amended the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act declaration for smallpox medical countermeasures to expand the categories of providers authorized to administer vaccines and therapeutics against smallpox, monkeypox, and other orthopoxviruses during the declared emergency, Healthcare…

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Editor's Note The Department of Labor (DOL) on October 3 announced an $80 million funding opportunity through its Nursing Expansion Grant Program to support nursing education programs designed to expand the pipeline of nursing professionals while advancing equity and diversity. The grants will support organizations that use worker-centered strategies to…

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Editor's Note The Joint Commission on October 5 announced that refreshed Accelerate PI Dashboard Reports are available for primary and comprehensive stroke centers to provide performance measurement data on the quality measures selected for advanced certification. The reports contain data through the first quarter of 2022 and are intended to…

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Editor's Note The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will discontinue COVID-19 travel warnings for foreign countries, the October 3 New York Times reports. The CDC instead will issue travel health notices when there are COVID-19 variants of concern or other related factors that would affect travel for certain…

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Editor's Note The Joint Commission on October 4 announced that it has joined the White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health’s Sync for Social Needs coalition, committing to a role to end hunger and reduce diet-related diseases in the US by 2030. The coalition brings together leading healthcare organizations…

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Editor's Note The National Academy of Medicine (NAM) Action Collaborative on Clinician Well-Being and Resilience has finalized its National Plan for Health Workforce Well-Being, the October 3 AHAToday reports. The plan, which builds on 6 years of work among 200 participants, including the American Hospital Association (AHA), identifies goals and…

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Editor's Note This study from Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut, finds that hospital occupancy greater than 85% was linked to increased emergency department (ED) boarding beyond the 4-hour standard, during the COVID-19 pandemic (January 2020 through December 2021), and ED boarding increased even when hospital occupancy did…

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Editor's Note The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on September 30 identified the recall by LivaNova (TandemLife) of its LifeSPARC System, Model LS-1000, as Class I, the most serious. The recall was initiated because of the risk of unintentional extended pump stop during Controller Critical Failure mode, caused by a…

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