Hospital Medicine News

• CMS Launches Hospital-at-Home Program to Free Up Hospital Capacity The agency's move is likely to prompt more hospitals to start similar initiatives and persuade more private insurers to cover hospital-at-home care.
  Medscape Medical News, November 30, 2020
• California Urges Hospitals to Test All Workers for Virus A letter from the California Dept of Public Health recommended hospitals test healthcare workers weekly because they are at high risk of contracting COVID-19 and spreading it to other patients.
  Associated Press, November 30, 2020
• FDA Says It Won't Object to Dry Heat Use on N95 Respirators The new policy, which recognizes the ongoing PPE shortage amid the COVID-19 pandemic, goes into effect immediately.
  Medscape Medical News, November 30, 2020
• Employers Decide Whether to Report Healthcare Worker Deaths Workplace safety regulators have given employers broad discretion to decide internally whether to report worker deaths. Scores of deaths were not reported to occupational safety officials.
  Kaiser Health News, November 30, 2020
• Biden Fractures Foot, Will Wear Orthopedic Boot Follow-up CT scan confirmed hairline fractures of President-elect Biden's lateral and intermediate cuneiform bones. It is anticipated that he will likely require a walking boot for several weeks.
  WebMD Health News, November 30, 2020
• COVID-19 May Hurt Male Fertility Evidence of testes damage from COVID-19 has been accumulating in a series of small autopsy studies, suggesting that the new coronavirus could have an impact on male fertility.
  Reuters Health Information, November 26, 2020
• Are More Women Physicians Leaving Medicine as Pandemic Surges? The added burden of the COVID-19 pandemic, on top of an already tenuous work-life balance, has some women quitting medicine, at least for now.
  Medscape Medical News, November 30, 2020
• Moderna Filing for FDA Emergency COVID Vaccine Approval Today Moderna announced final results of its phase 3 COVID-19 vaccine trial and plans to file for an FDA emergency use authorization on Monday.
  Medscape Medical News, November 30, 2020
• AstraZeneca Will Do More Testing of COVID Vaccine, CEO Says 'Now that we've found what looks like a better efficacy, we have to validate this, so we need to do an additional study,' CEO Pascal Soriot said.
  WebMD Health News, November 30, 2020
• Blood Glucose on Admission Predicts COVID-19 Severity in All Observational data from more than 11,000 COVID-19 patients finds significant link between high blood glucose on admission and COVID-19 severity, independent of diabetes status.
  Medscape Medical News, November 30, 2020
• US Hospitalized COVID-19 Patient Number Hits Record 90,000 Ahead of Expected Case Surge The number of COVID-19 patients being treated in hospitals across the United States reached 90,000 on Friday after nearly doubling in the last month, just as holiday gatherings are expected to propel the next wave of infections.
  Reuters Health Information, November 27, 2020
• Hospitals in the Midwest Strapped for Beds, Staff With the number of COVID-19 inpatients tripling in the past 2 weeks alone, staff at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics say they feel like they've been called to war.
  Medscape Medical News, November 25, 2020
• 'We're Drowning': COVID Cases Flood Hospitals in America's Heartland Dr. Drew Miller knew his patient had to be moved. The vital signs of the 30-year-old COVID-19 victim were crashing, and Kearny County Hospital in rural Lakin, Kansas, just wasn't equipped to handle the case.
  Reuters Health Information, November 24, 2020
• Rural Areas Send Their Sickest Patients to Cities Critically ill rural patients are often sent to city hospitals for high-level treatment, and as their numbers grow, some urban hospitals are buckling under the added strain.
  Kaiser Health News, November 25, 2020
• CDC Panel Delves Into Priorities for COVID Vaccine Distribution The CDC's ACIP panel saw a need to get early doses of COVID-19 vaccines to hospital support staff. They also debated whether nursing home residents should be in the first wave of vaccinations.
  Medscape Medical News, November 25, 2020
• North Dakota Nurses Fight Policy Asking Infected HCWs to Stay on Job In a highly controversial move, the North Dakota governor has said that symptomatic healthcare workers who are positive for COVID-19 can continue working, much to the dismay of the nursing community.
  Medscape Medical News, November 24, 2020
• These Frontline Workers Could Have Retired An investigation by KHN and The Guardian shows that 329 health care workers age 65 or older have reportedly died of COVID-19.
  Kaiser Health News, November 24, 2020
• HHS Shipping 30K Doses of Regeneron COVID Monoclonal Antibody Today Federal officials say they do not anticipate shortages and are hoping to ignite interest in monoclonal therapy.
  Medscape Medical News, November 24, 2020
• Hundreds of Bodies Remain in Mobile Morgues in New York City While some are unclaimed bodies, many of the deceased have families who still can't afford to pay for the burial, or the families couldn't be reached.
  WebMD Health News, November 24, 2020
• Earnings for CRNAs, the Highest-Paid APRNs, Top $200K: Survey Pay increased last year for all APRNs. Again this year, fewer APRNs are working full time.
  Medscape Medical News, November 24, 2020