Is technology part of the answer for nursing staff woes? As COVID-19 patients continue to fill hospital beds, caregivers are feeling exhausted, burned out, and unappreciated. OR nurses have been especially hit hard, as shifts in surgeries and overflowing patient wards stretch OR nurses beyond their limits and comfort zones.…

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Ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs) are one of the fastest-growing and highest-margin segments of the healthcare industry. As ASCs continue to expand, facilities need to enhance their workflow processes and procedures to help divert staff more toward actual patient care. Crash cart management is an aspect for ASCs where time and…

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Editor's Note The Joint Commission and the American Heart Association, on April 20, announced the launch of a Comprehensive Heart Attack Center certification program, which recognizes hospitals providing care to the most complex and critically ill patients. To be certified, hospitals must provide 24-hours-a-day, 7-days-a-week on-site coverage for primary percutaneous…

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Editor's Note The International Council of Nurses (ICN) and its more than 130 members around the world, on February 25, issued a statement saying they stand in solidarity with the people, nurses, and healthcare workers caught up in the conflict in Ukraine. In the statement, former American Nurses Association president…

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Editor's Note This study from the University of California, Los Angeles, finds that Blacks had the largest percentage increase in overdose mortality rates in 2020, overtaking the rates among Whites for the first time since 1999. Using data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and National Center for…

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Editor's Note This study from the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing, Philadelphia, finds that social and physical features of the environment impact the survival of injured Black men. Analyzing interviews of 43 injured Black men in a northeastern city identified four themes: Challenges to recovery—feeling uprooted because of having…

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Editor's Note This study by researchers at Indiana University and the University of Michigan finds that emergency departments (EDs) are a significant factor in preventing readmissions after major surgery. Researchers analyzed the electronic health records of nearly 2 million Medicare beneficiaries who had one of five surgical procedures (ie, percutaneous…

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Editor's Note In this study, researchers from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, Boston, find that most readmissions and emergency department (ED) visits (ie, revisits) of COVID-19 patients following initial admission were not preventable. Of 576 COVID-19 hospitalizations, 76 resulted in a 30-day revisit (13.2%)—21 ED visits…

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Editor's Note The Joint Commission on September 1 announced that it is seeking comments on new and revised emergency management (EM) requirements for its hospital and critical access hospital accreditation programs. The aim of the proposed standards is to help healthcare organizations develop and improve their actions and responses to…

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Editor's Note In this study, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) researches find that COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness in frontline workers diminished with the rise of the Delta variant. Effectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccines declined to 66% after the Delta variant became dominant, compared with 91% before its spread. The…

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