Editor's Note ECRI, on March 14, issued its annual list of Patient Safety Concerns, which is dominated this year by staffing shortages and healthcare workers’ mental health that have been made worse by the COVID-19 pandemic. In the past, the top concerns were typically associated with clinical issues caused by…

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Editor's Note Two years after the COVID-19 pandemic began, inflation, money issues, and the war in Ukraine have pushed US stress to alarming levels, according to the American Psychological Association (APA). APA partnered with the The Harris Poll to conduct a survey between February 7 and 14, 2022, and again…

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Editor's Note This study from the University of Chicago finds an association between social determinants of health measures and COVID-19 mortality rates that varied across racial and ethnic groups and community types. Among 3,142 counties in the study, 531 were identified as concentrated longitudinal-impact counties. Of these, 347 (11%) had…

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Editor's Note In this survey by the American Nurses Foundation, published March 1, 63% of nurses younger than 35 years said they intend to leave or are considering leaving the profession. A total of 12,694 nurses were surveyed. Other findings for nurses under 35 years of age, include: 46% said…

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Editor's Note The International Council of Nurses (ICN) and its more than 130 members around the world, on February 25, issued a statement saying they stand in solidarity with the people, nurses, and healthcare workers caught up in the conflict in Ukraine. In the statement, former American Nurses Association president…

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Editor's Note This study from the University of California, Los Angeles, finds that Blacks had the largest percentage increase in overdose mortality rates in 2020, overtaking the rates among Whites for the first time since 1999. Using data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and National Center for…

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Editor's Note This study by researchers at School of Nursing, University of Wisconsin-Madison, describes the development of a fatigue risk management tool that can be used by nurses to pursue balance between work demands and capacity to meet those demands. Interviews with 21 nurses identified four design goals for the…

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Editor's Note This study led by the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, finds substantial changes in the healthcare workforce during years 2020 and 2021 of the COVID-19 pandemic. Among the findings: Healthcare employment levels fell from 22.2 million in 2019 to 21.1 million in 2020 (a 5.2% decline), and then…

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Editor's Note According to a February 28 Politico article, titled “Want a COVID-19 vaccine exemption? It can be as easy as copy and paste,” hospital executives are starting to doubt the integrity of religious exemption requests, Becker’s Hospital Review reports. According to the Politico article, submitting a religious exemption is…

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Editor's Note This study by Belgium researchers finds that healthcare workers’ (HCWs') fear of COVID-19 and reluctance to work significantly increased between the first phase of the study in May 2020 and the second phase in October 2020. Of 2,661 HCWs analyzed in phase 1 and 2,336 HCWs in phase…

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