Editor's Note Demand for temporary nursing staff is on the rise as COVID-19 cases surge across the country, the November 13 Healthcare Dive reports. Surge capacity plans include the following: Utah-based Intermountain Healthcare is hiring 200 traveling nurses. The 24-hospital system also brought on 31 nurses from New York-Presbyterian, a…

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Editor's Note A new nationwide survey by National Nurses United of more than 15,000 RNs finds that hospitals are failing to prepare for a surge of COVID-19 during flu season. Among the nurses’ complaints: inappropriate pursuit of profits resulting in lack of proper infection control measures ongoing issues of both…

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Release of the National Academy of Medicine’s (NAM) report, Future of Nursing 2020-2030, has been delayed until spring 2021. The report is expected to address “newly emerging evidence related to the COVID-19 global pandemic and include recommendations regarding the role of nurses in responding to the crisis,” according to the…

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Streaming music apps and access to music through smartphones and similar devices make it easy to provide many different genres of music and modalities that can ease surgical patients’ fears. The use of music in both pre- and postoperative settings has been extensively researched, but less is known about how…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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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,…

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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…

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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…

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