Extreme heat, cyberattacks impact blood supply
Editor's Note The Red Cross is reporting a 25-percent drop in its national blood inventory due to hot weather a month after the American Hospital Association (AHA) warned about the impact of cyberattacks on critical supplies at hospitals. According to an August 6 report in The Hill, heat-related challenges have…
Healthcare pays dearly for data breaches
Editor's Note Responding to and recovering from data breaches in healthcare is more expensive than any other industry, according to a report by IBM and the Ponemon Institute. Healthcare Dive reported on the results August 1. According to that article, the $9.8 million average cost for a breach this year…
OR am – 8-1-2024
August 1, 2024 Postoperative recovery Listen now: Pain management, surgical technique advances improve patient outcomes Study reveals puzzling paradox on bilateral mastectomy, breast cancer survival outcomes Medical professionals have long accepted that bilateral mastectomy does not improve survival outcomes for breast cancer patients. However, a study…
Health systems learn lessons from CrowdStrike global IT outage
Editor's Note Hospitals and health systems have largely returned to normal operations in the wake of a global IT outage caused by a faulty update from cybersecurity company CrowdStrike, according to a July 29 article in Becker’s Health IT. The outage, which began July 18, resulted in many health systems'…
North Korean hackers extort hospitals to fund attacks on US government
Editor's Note North Korean hackers targeted U.S. hospitals and healthcare systems with ransomware to fund a covert information exfiltration campaign against American military and scientific entities, according to a July 25 report from CBS News. The first attack was a May 2021 ransomware infiltration of a hospital in Kansas. The…
OR am – 7-25-2024
July 25, 2024 Physician survey illuminates negative impact of prior authorization The American Medical Association (AMA) annual, nationwide prior authorization survey reveals that over 90% of physicians believe prior authorization negatively impacts patient clinical outcomes. “More telling,” AMA reported July 17, is the fact that 78%…
ASC Leader Weekly 7-24-24
July 24, 2024 HCA reports strong Q2 performance, sees decline in labor costs HCA Healthcare reported nearly $1.5 billion in net income for the second quarter (Q2), exceeding expectations, Modern Healthcare July 23 reports. The Nashville-based system attributed part of this success to a significant reduction…
OR am – 7-24-2024
July 24, 2024 Survey: Nurse retention problems persist amid slight improvements in working conditions Although fewer Michigan nurses planned to leave the profession in 2023 compared to 2022, the profession still faces unsafe conditions, understaffing, and high rates of abuse, according to a two-year, statewide survey…
Mass Brigham cancels surgeries amid worldwide tech outage
Editor's Note A global Microsoft server outage disrupting critical services from airline operations to banking is also having a significant impact on healthcare, according to multiple news reports. On example is a Friday, July 19 report from CBS News reporting that Mass General Brigham, the largest health care system in…
OR am – 7-18-2024
July 18, 2024 Bipartisan healthcare cybersecurity bill introduced Introduced by a bipartisan group of Senators, the Healthcare Cybersecurity Act aims to bolster the cyber-defenses of healthcare entities through the collaboration of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security……Read…