A year ago at this time, healthcare facilities were busy resuming elective procedures that had been put on hold because of COVID-19—a feat that required agility, innovation, and collaboration to ensure staff and patient safety amid the ongoing pandemic. It’s remarkable that multiple vaccines have since been developed and administered…

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Amendments have been added to the Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI) standard ANSI/AAMI ST79, Comprehensive Guide to Steam Sterilization and Sterility Assurance in Health Care Facilities. The standard, which is used in healthcare facilities to guide their sterilization processes, is considered a useful resource to promote best…

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Unexpected benefits can arise from unexpected circumstances. Relatively new nurse leaders at two different facilities have found this to be true, for different reasons. Both have faced sudden changes that made their jobs more difficult but also gave them opportunities for growth. When the director of ambulatory care at Brigham…

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Editor's Note The American College of Surgeons on May 17 announced that May 20 is the fourth annual national STOP THE BLEED® day. In the US and around the world, more than 1.5 million people have been trained to STOP THE BLEED®, and nearly 80,000 have become instructors. This year,…

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Editor's Note Urban hospitals bounced back faster than rural hospitals from surgical caseload decreases caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, finds a new study released May 13 by Caresyntax, a Boston-based developer of surgical intelligence and automation technologies. The study, “The State of Surgery: An Analysis of Surgical Trends During the…

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Editor's Note The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on May 13 announced that fully vaccinated individuals can discard masks and do away with social distancing outdoors and in most indoor settings. The agency still calls for wearing masks in crowded indoor settings, such as buses, planes, hospitals, prisons, and…

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Editor's Note The New York Times (NYT) reported on May 11 that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) new guidelines for mask wearing are misleading because they treat outdoor transmission of COVID-19 as a major risk. The CDC reports that less than 10% of COVID-19 transmissions are occurring…

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Editor's Note The Joint Commission, on May 12, listed the top 5 standards most frequently identified as “not compliant” during surveys and reviews from January 1 to December 31, 2020. The top five for accredited hospitals are: NPSG.15.01.01: Reduce the risk for suicide. EP1. IC.02.02.01: The hospital reduces the risk…

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Editor's Note This study from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, Boston, finds that COVID-19 mRNA vaccines are immunogenic in pregnant and lactating women, and they induce immune responses against variants. For the study, researchers enrolled 30 pregnant, 16 lactating, and 57 neither pregnant nor lactating women…

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Editor's Note This study by researchers at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, finds that disparities in access to orthopedic care persisted as orthopedic surgical patients were shifted to telemedicine during COVID-19. The researchers analyzed nearly 2,000 orthopedic patients receiving care via telemedicine from March to May…

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