Vaccine health has been dominating the news amid ongoing measles and whooping cough outbreaks and high influenza activity last season. It is also on the minds of The Joint Commission surveyors, as the organization has updated infection control standards that took effect in July 2024 for hospitals and critical access…

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Editor's Note Influenza and RSV infections more than double the risk of secondary Streptococcus pneumoniae infection, while COVID-19 is associated with a significantly reduced risk, according to a June 2 news brief from the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP). The findings stem from a retrospective study of…

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Editor's Note CMS has rescinded a 2022 guidance that protected clinicians providing emergency abortion care under the Emergency Medical Treatment & Labor Act (EMTALA), removing a key federal safeguard for providers in states with abortion restrictions, according to a June 2 article in Becker’s Hospital Review. The guidance, originally issued…

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Editor's Note The American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) has partnered with Epic to launch the Anesthesia Community Registry (ACR), which is designed to enable easier data collection, benchmarking, and insight generation at scale. Powered by Epic’s new Community Registries platform, the ACR will complement ASA’s existing National Anesthesia Clinical Outcomes…

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Editor's Note A new blood test shows promise in detecting colorectal cancer—the second leading cause of cancer deaths in the US—but was less effective at identifying precancerous polyps, according to a June 2 announcement from Kaiser Permanente. Not yet approved by the US Food and Drug Administration, the test is…

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Editor's Note An experimental compound developed at Duke University School of Medicine provides strong pain relief without the side effects or addiction potential of opioids, according to a May 19 announcement from the university. Known as SBI-810, the drug targets a specific receptor in the nervous system and uses a…

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Editor's Note Greater familiarity between surgeons and anesthesiologists was associated with reduced major morbidity in certain high-risk procedures, according to a Canadian retrospective cohort study published in JAMA Surgery. As detailed in a May 28 report from MedPage Today, the population-based analysis included more than 711,000 index procedures, finding an…

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Editor's Note America’s Blood Centers (ABC) and the American College of Surgeons (ACS) Stop the Bleed program have launched a national collaboration to strengthen trauma response and emergency preparedness, according to a May 30 announcement. The initiative connects public education in bleeding control with efforts to maintain a stable national…

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Editor's Note Simple hysterectomy provides similar long-term survival outcomes to modified radical or radical hysterectomy for patients with low-risk, early-stage cervical cancer, according to a large cohort study published May 15 in JAMA Network Open. Consistent with prior research, the findings add to the growing body of evidence supporting conservative…

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Editor's Note Research shows patients undergoing procedural sedation for endoscopic procedures experience significant and often undetected heat loss comparable to that seen during general anesthesia despite widespread assumptions that sedation preserves thermoregulation. Findings were published May 27 in The Journal of PeriAnesthesia Nursing.   Conducted at a tertiary hospital in…

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