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A common misperception that has led to vaccine hesitancy in healthcare workers and the public is the COVID-19 vaccines were produced with undue haste, seemingly coming out of nowhere to respond to the pandemic. The extensive scientific work with many other viruses that enabled the rapid development of the pandemic vaccines often is left out of the equation.
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OSHA has published its Emergency Temporary Standard to protect healthcare workers from COVID-19 as an interim final rule in the Federal Register, allowing only until July 21 to receive comments and feedback.
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OSHA's emergency temporary standard (ETS) to protect healthcare workers from COVID-19 is drawing mixed reviews. There certainly is a broad appreciation of OSHA’s effort to protect healthcare workers, but the benefits of the ETS are somewhat mitigated by the fact that it comes 18 months into the pandemic. Many employees are now vaccinated.
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Disparate public health messaging from political officials, news media, and online outlets has occurred throughout the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. Some have wanted to ascribe lower rates of compliance with public health guidance to political affiliation.
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Researchers found many survivors of COVID-19 exhibited significant loss of health six months after their acute illness, with greater risk associated with severity of the acute infection.
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The University of Pennsylvania’s new texting program, called COVID Watch, could play a key role in the future of monitoring COVID-19 patients after discharge. The program sends automated text messages in English and Spanish twice a day for 14 days, asking patients if their symptoms are better, the same, or worse.
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After 18 months of the COVID-19 pandemic, hospitals are learning how to efficiently and safely transition these patients to community settings. For example, one study showed an ED and hospital patient throughput management program can save hundreds of hospital patient days after discharge from the ED or observation unit stays.
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Right after the FDA issued an emergency use authorization for one drug, feds pressed pause on distributing another.
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The WHO Solidarity Trial Consortium found remdesivir, hydroxychloroquine, lopinavir, and interferon regimens produced “little or no effect” on relevant outcomes.
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Burnout and severe stress brought on by the pandemic may affect risk managers and patient safety professionals more than commonly known. Most attention related to stress is focused on frontline clinicians, but the effect on risk managers appears to be substantial.