Baton Rouge, La.-based Franciscan Missionaries of Our Lady Health System is working to boost its licensed practical nurse pipeline and welcome more of these clinicians to the hospital setting. 

A group of experts on virtual nursing have launched a new website for leaders nationwide to share insights and strategies surrounding the growing trend. 

Children's Mercy Kansas City (Mo.) is the first freestanding pediatric hospital to open a NASA-inspired "mission-control" center that tracks patients from admission to discharge, reduces clinician administrative burden and centralizes hospital operations.

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.

A half-billion-dollar investment in California's community nursing schools would double the state's capacity to graduate new RNs, according to the United Nurses Associations of California/Union of Health Care Professionals. 

The National Organization for Rare Diseases has designated Cleveland Clinic as a Rare Disease Center of Excellence, making it one of 40 U.S. medical centers with the distinction. 

Six days out from the end of the COVID-19 public health emergency declaration, hospitalizations and deaths are down and the CDC has released details about what will change in its surveillance of the virus going forward. The major changes? Reporting cadence will shift, three surveillance reports will be discontinued and the agency will launch a redesigned data tracker.

At Cooperman Barnabas Medical Center in Livingston, N.J., key emergency department statistics including "left without being seen" and "average time to see a physician" are at record lows, said Maria Aponte, BSN, RN, administrative director of emergency services at the hospital. 

A shortage of nurses at NYC Health + Hospitals is leading to more reliance on temporary nurses and higher staffing costs, New York's state comptroller said May 4. 

COVID-19 has dropped to the fourth leading cause of death after being the third in 2020 and 2021, a May 5 CDC report found. On the same day, World Health Organization Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, PhD, said COVID-19 is no longer a global health emergency. 

Public health officials are investigating an outbreak of unidentified illnesses at an elementary in Detroit, NBC News reported May 4.

Hospitals across the country eagerly await the release of The Leapfrog Group's Safety Grades in the spring and fall each year. Leah Binder, president and CEO of the organization, spoke with Becker's about why her organization's A-F grades are important.

Some states saw "alarming" and "dangerous" increases in three specific healthcare-acquired infections, according to Leah Binder, president and CEO of The Leapfrog Group. The organization's spring 2023 Safety Grades report was released May 3.

International recruiting has emerged as a popular solution to the ongoing nursing shortage, but the strategy fails to address the underlying issues fueling the staffing crisis, three nursing experts wrote in a May 4 commentary published in Health Affairs Forefront.

After an intensive 'tripledemic' virus season where flu, COVID-19 and RSV all peaked at high rates nationwide, physicians at children's hospitals are actively preparing to take on what could be another round this fall, U.S. News reported May 3.

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

The University of Maryland School of Nursing has received a $7 million gift that will fund 218 nursing scholarships over the next four years, the Baltimore-based school said May 3. 

Nurses have a higher rate of suicide than the general population and often go without mental health treatment due to stigma and regulatory requirements, Judy Davidson, DNP, RN, a nurse scientist at the University of California San Diego, said in a May 3 article on MedPage Today.

COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations are nearing a new low after various variants caused spikes and dips, data shows, and some hospitals say they have zero cases.