With quality and safety underpinning nearly every aspect of healthcare work, one might assume hospitals and health systems have well-established ways of finding out what their total investments in quality and safety look like. Not so, leaders told Becker's. 

Healthcare leaders are closely watching respiratory virus trends heading into fall. Overall, there is a healthy dose of optimism that the U.S. won't see the same levels of severe disease that strained hospitals nationwide last year, though it's still too early to determine whether a "tripledemic" of COVID-19, flu and respiratory syncytial virus will play out in some capacity. 

Despite the nationwide healthcare staffing shortage and the industry still recovering from a global pandemic, 92.1 percent of Magnet-certified hospitals have achieved recertification from the American Nurses Credentialing Center since 2020.

Meta's new social media platform Threads is blocking searches related to COVID-19, a move that has been met with scrutiny from public health officials, The Washington Post reported Sept. 11.

The technology healthcare will use in 50 years is impossible to predict, but nursing leaders agree that the one thing that will not change is the importance of caring individuals at the bedside.

Members of the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices will vote Sept. 12 on for whom the new COVID-19 vaccination will be recommended, but some critics say it should be only for older and immunocompromised populations, KFF Health News reported Sept. 11.

Patients with hepatitis C should consider being vaccinated again for hepatitis B, a study found.

The Biden administration has halted a $125 million research program that aimed to collect and isolate thousands of exotic pathogens amid concerns from lawmakers and scientists that the research could trigger an accidental outbreak, The Washington Post reported Sept. 7. 

The CDC has started publishing weekly updates on respiratory viruses, with the latest focused on flu shot efficacy and the BA.2.86 COVID-19 variant. 

Meghan Huffman, senior director of digital health at Winston-Salem, N.C.-based Novant Health, survived the Sept. 8 Moroccan earthquake that has killed at least 2,500 people, the Charlotte Observer reported.

Only 45 percent of nurses report being "fully engaged" at work while 14.1 percent report being "unengaged," according to the 2023 "PRC National Nursing Engagement Report."

A patient shot and killed himself inside Inspira Medical Center in Vineland, N.J., on Sept. 9 in an incident that prompted lockdown of the hospital, according to the Courier Post. 

Flu season in the Southern Hemisphere is winding down and health officials in the Northern Hemisphere are reviewing data on the flu vaccine's effectiveness in anticipation of the fall. According to a CDC report released Sept. 8, the flu vaccine helped reduce influenza-associated hospitalizations by 52 percent in the Southern Hemisphere.

The COVID-19 pandemic forced healthcare organizations to think differently about the workplace. Hospital and health system employees, particularly certain non-clinical staff, started working remotely when the crisis struck. 

A Rhode Island nurse is in critical condition after he was assaulted by a patient, ABC affiliate WPRI reported Sept. 8. 

The national organization behind the annual hospital safety grade rankings Leapfrog Group, is praising the new patient safety recommendations published Sept. 7 by the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.

Researchers from Boston-based Massachusetts General Hospital discovered that the exercise-induced hormone, irisin, lowers levels of a main component in the plaques found in individuals with Alzheimer's disease.

In May, some hospitals started reporting a positive trend: Former nurses who left their full-time positions for travel gigs or earlier in the pandemic were interested in returning. 

COVID-19 hospital admissions are up almost 16 percent from the week prior, according to the CDC's most recent data. Deaths due to the virus have also risen nearly 11 percent in the same time. 

A federal patient safety coordinator should be appointed to advise the president on ways to improve safety at hospitals nationwide — that's one of the initiatives the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology recommended in a Sept. 7 report.