In past years, leaders at St. Bernard Hospital on Chicago's South Side weren't fans of The Leapfrog Group's safety grades that are handed out twice a year. "F" grades in both spring and fall of 2021 had been stinging reminders that the safety net hospital wasn't doing enough to focus on patient safety.

Bedside manner advice for physicians is coming from an unlikely source: hospital clowns. New research from Tel Aviv University in Israel and the Ramat Gan-based Israel Center for Medical Simulation identified 40 skills medical clowns use to bring joy to difficult situations.

Drugs prescribed for weight loss including Wegovy and Ozempic could lead to loss of muscle mass, CBS News reported May 3.

Vermont Gov. Phil Scott signed a bill May 2 allowing adults who do not live in the state to access life-ending care.

Matt Bivens, MD, the EMS medical director at St. Luke's Hospital in New Bedford, Mass., and a Harvard Medical Faculty-associated physician, criticized an Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality study on emergency department errors and accused the agency of fearmongering in a March Emergency Medicine News article. 

A 16-year-old boy in North Carolina has burns covering most of his body and is expected to stay in a hospital's burn unit for six months after partaking in the "Flamethrower Challenge" on TikTok, according to Fox News and NBC affiliate WRAL News. 

A newly developed unit at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston was created out of a need to treat patients following a serious neurological event like a stroke even more quickly, according to a May 1 press release.

Three more patients who contracted Klebsiella pneumoniae at Seattle-based Virginia Mason Medical Center have died, bringing the total to seven patient deaths, the hospital said in an April 28 update.

Amid rapidly increasing gun violence across the U.S., the American College of Physicians issued a statement saying it is time for physicians to prioritize having conversations about gun violence and safety with patients.

The birthing center at Cape Cod Hospital in Hyannis, Mass., has become one of nine hospitals in the state to participate in a new, national labor and delivery care model, capecod.com reported April 27.

Connecticut Children's Specialty Care Center in Hartford has received a $14 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to learn why some children respond differently than others to treatment of GI conditions related to Crohn's disease, according to an April 20 press release.

Hassenfeld Children's Hospital at NYU Langone in New York City has recruited three renowned specialists in pediatric hepatology to establish a pediatric liver disease and transplant program. 

Michigan Medicine has issued a new policy regarding employees' responsibility to report alleged acts of patient abuse or neglect by colleagues, the Ann Arbor-based system said April 26.

Medical errors kill up to 9,000 patients per year.  The death of Betsy Lehman, a cancer patient — and former columnist for The Boston Globe — as a result of a medical error in Boston nearly 30 years ago, has now prompted Massachusetts to embark on revamped efforts to address medical errors in health facilities. 

Orthopedic services are the most frequently cited in wrong-site surgery claims, according to an analysis of closed claims data published in the May edition of The Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety.

The CDC has not uncovered any evidence that COVID-19 vaccines may cause tinnitus, despite anecdotal reports from thousands of people reporting the side effect, NBC News reported April 23.

Hawaii's Department of Health announced the launch of a new medication dosing system designed to enhance pediatric emergency care and create better patient outcomes, according to an April 21 news release.

Hospitals can decrease their use of antibiotics and shorten hospital stays of some pneumonia patients by switching from IV antibiotics to oral antibiotic treatments sooner, according to a study conducted by Cleveland Clinic researchers. 

Banner Health helicopters are now equipped with two bags of O-negative blood — an effort to improve outcomes for trauma patients who need to be airlifted to a hospital. 

COVID-19 infections are linked with a higher risk for Type 2 diabetes, according to a study conducted by researchers in Canada and published April 18 in JAMA.