California pharmacists to begin testing patients for COVID-19
Editor's Note On May 12, California's Governor Gavin Newsom announced that California pharmacists will be allowed to collect specimens and order COVID-19 tests. Specimens will be are processed at public health, university, or commercial labs. The move is an effort to increase the state’s testing capacity as it modifies its…
Provider burnout, fatigue during COVID-19 pandemic
Editor's Note This article from Houston Methodist Hospital and Texas A&M University researchers shares the lessons learned by an interdisciplinary team of ICU healthcare providers and their experiences of occupational fatigue and burnout as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The researchers documented four major areas of stress with the…
FDA accelerates development of COVID-19 prevention, treatment options
Editor's Note The Food & Drug Administration on May 11 took new actions to accelerate the development of novel prevention and treatment options for COVID-19. The agency is providing guidance documents to make the process for submitting applications to initiate studies for new drugs and biological products more efficient. The…
University of Kentucky researchers studying COVID-19 immunity
Editor's Note The University of Kentucky (UK) announced May 11 that researchers have begun antibody testing that will help to understand what immunity to COVID-19 really means. Several research labs within the UK College of Medicine and Pharmacy will be testing antibodies of recovered COVID-19 patients to see how long…
AI diagnostic predicts COVID-19 without testing
Editor's Note In this study, researchers at the Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston; King’s College, London; and health science company Zoe Global, Accra, Ghana; developed an artificial intelligence (AI) diagnostic that can predict whether someone is likely to have COVID-19 based on their symptoms. The researchers analyzed data from 2,618,862 people…
Dr Gawande stepping down as Haven CEO
Editor's Note The May 8 Wall Street Journal reports that Atul Gawande, MD, is stepping away from the day-to-day operations of Haven—the Amazon, JPMorgan, Berkshire Hathaway healthcare venture. Instead Dr Gawande will be chairman of the joint venture so he can focus more on policy and advocacy work, particularly related…
OR leaders chart new territory for resuming elective surgery
Elective surgical procedures that were temporarily suspended in mid-March are now on the table—or soon will be—at some US facilities. The ban, announced on March 18 by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), was enacted to free up resources for facilities overwhelmed by surges of COVID-19 patients. On…
Children's hospital revises patient care criteria for COVID-19
The COVID-19 pandemic is having a major impact on all aspects of healthcare delivery worldwide. For children’s hospitals, the crisis has created unique challenges in ensuring patient and provider safety as well as helping to contain the spread of COVID-19 through their communities. According to the Centers for Disease Control…
Editorial
Coronavirus cases in the US topped 1 million in late April. Although total numbers of cases and deaths change daily and vary greatly among urban vs rural regions of the country, it’s safe to say we haven’t yet seen the last of the surges. Despite ongoing shortages of personal protective…
Pandemic has altered perceptions of healthcare industry
Although COVID-19 cases are still emerging in many parts of the country, some businesses have reopened and some elective procedures are once again being performed. Many events that did not take place in the spring will be held in the fall, including the annual OR Manager Conference, September 30 to…
Free Daily News
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