Editor's Note The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on October 21 updated its COVID-19 “close contact” definition to being “within 6 feet of an infected person for a cumulative total of 15 minutes or more over a 24-hour period,” even if the time isn’t consecutive. The previous definition…

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Editor's Note ECRI announced October 21 that its President and CEO, Marcus Schabacker, MD, PhD, will tell the Food & Drug Administration Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee on October 22 that a thorough review of 6 months of completed clinical trial data for COVID-19 vaccines is needed to…

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Editor's Note The Joint Commission on October 21 issued a new Heads-Up Report on challenges that accredited organizations are facing during the COVID-19 pandemic. Report topics include: Hospital and critical access hospital emergency privileges Ambulatory healthcare competency assessments Behavioral healthcare identification of environmental risks for suicide Laboratory record keeping for…

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Editor's Note To provide flexibility to healthcare workers responding to the COVID-19 crisis, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) waived reporting requirements for healthcare associated infections (HAIs) through June 2020. Using the experience of hospitals in New York City and St Louis, Missouri, the authors provide commentary on…

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Preventing infection transmission has been a chief concern of healthcare leaders and staff striving to protect their patients and themselves from SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. The virus poses an insidious threat that includes the possibility of bronchoscopy-associated transmission of COVID-19. Long before the pandemic, epidemiologist and researcher Cori…

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Editor's Note The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on October 15 announced that it reissued the Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for certain N95 and other filtering face-piece respirators that are manufactured in China and are not approved by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Institute for Occupational Safety…

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Editor's Note Recently published data from a study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) finds that 70.6% of COVID-19-positive patients report “always” wearing a mask, 14.4% report “often” wearing a mask, and 3.9% report “never” wearing a mask (See Table: Reported use of cloth face covering or…

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Editor's Note The Joint Commission announced October 14 that, effective October 15, surveyors will evaluate the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) reporting requirements for COVID-19 testing results in the Laboratory Accreditation Program. Surveyors will review documentation of COVID-19 test result reporting during the Regulatory Review session of an…

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Editor's Note The Joint Commission on October 7 issued a new Quick Safety that focuses on the use of telehealth to deliver patient care while preventing exposure to COVID-19. Other benefits of telehealth in the Quick Safety include: promoting social distancing monitoring the progression of home-quarantined COVID-19 patients enabling providers…

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Editor's Note The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) on October 9 announced that it is taking action to stop labs that are testing for COVID-19 without proper Clinical Laboratory Improvements Amendments (CLIA) certification. The agency has issued 171 cease-and-desist letters to US facilities that were testing for COVID-19…

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