Editor's Note Sweeping layoffs at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have gutted the agency’s ability to track overdoses, injuries, and violent deaths, Axios October 15 reports. The National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, once a cornerstone of public health surveillance, now operates with roughly one-third of…
Stress and burnout are more than workforce concerns; they are patient safety issues. Research shows a clear correlation between healthcare provider stress and medical errors. For instance, Zabin et al, a 2023 systematic review, confirmed that job stress negatively influences patient safety culture. Garcia & Abreu et al, a separate…
Editor's Note Healthcare’s workforce crisis stems from systemic trauma—not individual burnout. That’s the central argument of a commentary published April 30 in MedPage Today, in which Taylor Nichols, MD, a board-certified physician in emergency medicine and addiction medicine, calls for a sweeping shift in how healthcare-associated stress is understood and…
Editor's Note A study analyzing data from the National Database of Nursing Quality Indicators (NDNQI) revealed that nursing-sensitive quality indicators (NSIs) worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic and remain elevated years after the onset of the pandemic, reflecting ongoing challenges in nursing practice. Published in the journal Nursing Research, the findings…
Editor's Note This study, led by nurse researchers at the College of Nursing, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, explores the experiences of infection preventionists (IPs) during the COVID-19 pandemic. Responses from 61 IPs surveyed were included in the analysis. Among the findings: The initial phases of COVID-19 was a time of clinical…
Editor's Note This study by nurse researchers at Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing, Baltimore, examines the long-term impact on nurses who completed an experiential educational program to improve their skills in mindfulness, resilience, and competence in confronting ethical challenges. The program called the Mindful Ethical Practice and Resilience Academy…
Editor's Note This study led by researchers at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, Chapel Hill, finds that nearly 72% of healthcare providers in US safety net practices experienced either mild or intense levels of moral distress during the first year of COVID-19 because of issues with patient…