Editor's Note This study by researchers at Elevance Health, Inc, Indianapolis, Indiana, finds increased rates of adverse outcomes over a 1-year period in adults who survived the acute phase of COVID-19. A total of 13,435 individuals with post-COVID-19 condition (ie, long COVID) and 26,870 individuals with no evidence of COVID-19…

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Editor's Note Although most people have largely returned to normal activities, mental health is still a concern, finds surveys conducted between March 2020 and September 2022 by Pew Research Center and other organizations. Among the findings: 41% of adults experienced high levels of psychological distress at some point in the…

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Editor's Note California health officials, on March 3, announced plans to relax guidance on masking in healthcare and other indoor high-risk settings and to end vaccination requirements for healthcare workers, effective April 3, the March 3 Los Angeles Times reports. Also, starting March 13, those who test positive for COVID-19…

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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…

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Editor's Note This study led by researchers at the VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System and David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Los Angeles, finds that postoperative mortality was higher in Black men than Black women, White men, and White women. A total of 1,868,036 Black and White Medicare…

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Editor's Note The Joint Commission on March 1 announced a revision to Performance Improvement (PI) standard PI:01.01.01, Element of Performance (EP) 4, which has to do with data collection on significant discrepancies between preoperative and postoperative diagnoses. The revision was made after healthcare organizations expressed confusion with the requirement. The…

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Editor's Note This study from the Mayo Clinic finds that despite calls for the expansion of outpatient surgery to mitigate the growing backlog of surgical cases during COVID-19, the transition of general surgery procedures from inpatient to outpatient settings occurred in only a small subset of procedures. This cohort study…

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Editor's Note The Joint Commission on March 1 announced that updated Accelerate PI Dashboard Reports, which provide performance measurement data on certain quality measures, are available for hospitals (HAPs), critical access hospitals (CAHs), ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs), and nursing care centers (NCCs). ASC reports contain data through the fourth quarter…

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Editor's Note This study led by researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine, New York City, finds no significant improvements over the last decade in postoperative outcomes in women undergoing coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) surgery. This retrospective cohort study included 1,297,204 (317,716 were women) patients who had primary CABG surgery between…

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Editor's Note Researchers at Mayo Clinic Healthcare in London are investigating how artificial intelligence (AI) can be used to identify colon polyps that might otherwise get overlooked during colonoscopy. The AI system works alongside the physician in real time, scanning the colonoscopy video feed and drawing small, red boxes around…

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