Articles Tagged With: COVID-19
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Contraceptive Visits Declined in the United States During the COVID-19 Pandemic
Using a nationwide sample of insurance claims, researchers found that large declines occurred in contraceptive visits in the first month of the COVID-19 pandemic (April 2020 compared to May 2019). Although visit numbers improved over time, they remained below pre-pandemic levels through the end of 2020.
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Missed Nursing Care and Declining Patient Safety
While the immediate effect of the COVID-19 omicron variant on the healthcare workforce is the pressing issue, there were serious concerns about staff shortages and the effect of “missed nursing care” on patients well before the pandemic. Missed nursing care is defined as delaying, omitting, or rationing care by nursing staff. -
Worker Safety Is Critical to Patient Safety
As the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbates the national nursing shortage, healthcare workers are finally seen as a valuable commodity that should not be routinely lost to injuries trying to manually lift and mobilize patients. Ultimately, understanding worker safety equals patient safety improves the well-being of an organization. -
Are Boosters Prolonging the Pandemic?
Some people have raised the question of whether booster shots are unethical from a global perspective, and even counterproductive to ending the pandemic because highly mutated variants will continue to arise in unvaccinated patients. -
Winter of Our Discontent: Omicron Variant Pushes Healthcare to Brink
With omicron causing much higher breakthrough infection rates than previous COVID-19 variants, there is concern infected healthcare workers must isolate amid an ongoing nursing shortage. The previous recommendation for 10 days has been changed to seven, and shorter than that under certain conditions. -
The Latest on COVID-19 Vaccination
The COVID-19 pandemic has led to an infodemic of misinformation affecting the ability of the general public to make good decisions about vaccination. Vaccine hesitancy is a byproduct of this infodemic. After reviewing the current available data, the vaccines have an excellent risk/benefit ratio.
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Screening Ineffective for Identifying HCWs with Respiratory Illness
Ubiquitous employee temperature screening and symptom questions upon entry during the pandemic have not yielded much success in identifying sick healthcare workers and reducing the long-standing problem of presenteeism. -
Study Author Explains How Care Coordination Failures Create Healthcare Waste
Hospital Case Management asked Joseph J. Fifer, FHFMA, CPA, president and chief executive officer of Healthcare Financial Management Association, about his findings that failures in care coordination lead to costly waste in the healthcare industry. -
Addressing Vaccine Hesitancy Among Staff and Patients
In other national crises when lives were at stake, including the 9/11 terrorist attacks and World War II, the nation pulled together and largely embraced restrictions and calls to action. In the case of the COVID-19 pandemic, with the death toll heading toward 1 million Americans, many are placing their individual beliefs or desires ahead of public health and the national welfare. Healthcare professionals are caught in the middle of the fight over vaccines and masking mandates. -
Nirmatrelvir and Ritonavir Tablets (Paxlovid)
The FDA has issued an emergency use authorization for the first oral regimen for the treatment of COVID-19.