The rate of maternal deaths during or shortly after pregnancy rose 40 percent in 2021, making the U.S. the most dangerous place among high-income countries to give birth, The Wall Street Journal reported March 16.

Tampa (Fla.) General Hospital's Heart and Vascular Institute has opened a new clinic designated to house what it claims is the "first and only" limb preservation program in the region. 

The FDA reviewed Pfizer's mid-to-late stage clinical trials of Paxlovid and found "no evidence of a higher rate of symptom rebound or moderate symptom rebound."

Quality patient outcomes cannot happen without safety as a foundation, Karla Miller, MD, Nashville, Tenn.-based HCA Healthcare's chief patient safety officer, wrote in a March 13 blog post. The hospital operator, like many others, emphasizes patient safety as a key responsibility for its 294,000 employees, and now it is incorporating new measures to deepen these efforts.

A refreshed federal report shows the healthcare industry's efforts to improve care quality is lagging, with only 44 percent of quality measures improving over the past two decades. 

More than 80 percent of nurses admit that their workload makes it difficult to implement patient safety measures, new research has found. 

Rutland (Vt.) Regional Medical Center started a new safety program for newborn babies involving taking pictures of their feet, CBS affiliate WCAX reported March 13.

Close to 25 percent of patients admitted to hospitals may experience an adverse event that could lead to complications with their condition, medication mishaps or even death, according to data from Harvard Medical School in Boston, but technology may be the prescription that curbs these instances.

The pediatric mental health crisis is the most pressing patient safety concern in 2023, the Emergency Care Research Institute said March 13. 

After historic declines of the virus, cases of the highly infectious strain of group A Streptococcus spiked in the fall of 2022, drawing concern from experts. Now, the CDC says the flu vaccine may reduce the risk for strep A.

The omicron variant is less likely to cause long COVID-19 compared to the coronavirus's original strain, according to a Swiss study of 1,201 healthcare workers. 

The Defense Department is funding animal research to study whether radio frequency waves could cause symptoms consistent with "Havana syndrome," a mysterious illness that has afflicted hundreds of U.S. diplomats and intelligence officers, Politico reported March 9.

Four people are alive after a medical transport helicopter on its way to an Erlanger Health System location crashed on a road in North Carolina on March 9. 

Just weeks ago, Santa Clara Valley Healthcare in San Jose, Calif., was at risk of losing Medicare reimbursements due to patient safety concerns. Now, after an investigation by the California Department of Public Health, the health system is reportedly back in compliance. 

A new viral TikTok drinking challenge dubbed "blackout rage gallons" — "borg" for short — led to the hospitalization of 46 University of Massachusetts students in Boston, CBS News reported. 

A large new study published in Nature Communications found COVID-19 patients are much more likely to experience gastrointestinal problems a year after infection than those who haven't had COVID-19. 

U.K. researchers found adults who had a lower respiratory tract infection before age 2 are at higher risk of dying prematurely from respiratory disease.

The Washington State Nurses Association says that staffing changes made by Wenatchee, Wash.-based Confluence Health in December 2022 "lowered the quality of care" for patients. 

Tampa (Fla.) General Hospital opened a newly renovated burn center that includes a specialized intensive care unit on March 6. 

Seeking to reduce the incidence of critical events in high-risk patients, the NAPA Anesthesia Patient Safety Institute (NAPSI)—NAPA’s certified Patient Safety Organization (PSO)—conducted a systemwide review of NAPA’s adverse events data. NAPA maintains one of the nation’s largest anesthesia clinical outcomes databases, comprising data from more than 2 million patients each year served by NAPA’s nearly 5,000 clinicians.  As one of roughly 100 PSOs federally certified by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, NAPSI is approved to use clinical outcomes data for analysis and performance improvement activities.