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In one of the few studies of its kind, researchers at the Mayo Clinic reported violent incidents against healthcare workers have more than doubled during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Too often, healthcare workers facing a panoply of mental maladies — burnout, trauma, moral injury — are expected to muster up resilience enough to overcome what is essentially a systems problem. The answer is to fix the coal mine, not build stronger canaries, an expert says.
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Are nurses and physicians of color at your facility at risk of occupational racism? Employee health professionals should be aware of two recent reports that cited racial incidents, which negatively affected productivity and emotional wellness.
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The Bloodborne Pathogens Standard has been on the books for decades. But exposure control plans — the principal component of compliance — should be viewed as a “living document” that changes over time, a needlestick prevention expert noted.
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One answer to the healthcare staffing shortages could be a newly developed antiviral that works against SARS-CoV-2 much like influenza antivirals negate the symptoms of flu.
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Hospitals still struggling to vaccinate all workers received good news on Jan. 13, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the federal government can enforce its COVID-19 vaccine mandate for healthcare workers. Justices threw out two lawsuits representing more than 20 states, ruling that mandating COVID-19 vaccination of healthcare workers is within the limits of federal law.
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The loosening of COVID-19 policies and shortening duration of precautions signal the emergence of what some call the “inevitability camp”: those who believe everyone will contract the rapidly spreading omicron variant, thereby generating herd immunity. There is one major problem with this view. It is becoming increasingly apparent that 14% (estimated range 2%-30%) of those infected with omicron will develop long COVID, a prolonged set of neurological and physical maladies that have haunted some people since the pandemic began in 2020.
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A California public health policy allowing asymptomatic healthcare workers with COVID-19 to remain on duty sparked outrage among some nurses, who say it threatens their prime mission to protect and care for patients.
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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.
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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.
