The COVID-19 pandemic has caused quality leaders to seek innovative solutions to not only maintain but reinvigorate quality efforts, with renewed attention on maintaining measures as hospitalizations have dwindled since the omicron surge.

The nation's flu positivity test rate reached nearly 10 percent in mid-April, making it the first time such an increase has occurred so late in the flu season since 1982, according to an NBC News analysis of CDC flu data from the past seven years.

The omicron subvariant BA.2 accounts for a fewer proportion of new COVID-19 cases in the U.S. as the prevalence of another omicron sublineage — BA.2.12.1 — grows, according to the CDC's latest variant proportion estimates. 

The next generation of COVID-19 shots may only be available this fall to those at high risk of severe illness if Congress does not approve more emergency funding to buy the shots, a senior administration official told NBC News.

National Nurses Week, held May 6-12, is a time to show appreciation for nurses and recognize the crucial role they play in healthcare. 

Hospitals will likely see new COVID-19 admissions increase through the end of the month, federal modeling suggests.

The nurse.com 2022 "Nurse Salary Research Report" found 29 percent of nurses are considering leaving the profession — a dramatic increase from the 11 percent who said the same in the 2020 survey. 

​​Below are five hospitals, health systems or hospital operators that have recently posted job listings seeking chief quality officers.

Researchers around the world are working to understand how a shrinking number of people have managed to avoid contracting the coronavirus for more than two years in hopes of uncovering better preventive measures and more effective treatments, The Washington Post reported May 8. 

The CDC is investigating "hepatitis of unknown cause" in 109 children, including five deaths, agency officials said in a May 5 update. 

The U.S. may see a "pretty sizable wave" of COVID-19 infections this fall and winter as the virus continues to evolve and immunity wanes, White House Covid-19 Response Coordinator Ashish Jha, MD, said May 8 on ABC News' "This Week."

A total of 3,070 people in the U.S. were admitted to hospitals for the flu for the week ending April 30, marking the first time flu hospitalizations have dropped since January, according to the CDC's latest FluView report. 

The U.S. reported double-digit increases in both COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations last week, according to the CDC's COVID-19 data tracker weekly review published May 5.

Healthcare facilities following good hand hygiene and other cost-effective practices can prevent 70 percent of infections, the first infection control report from the World Health Organization found. 

When COVID-19 cases were on the decline in February after reaching pandemic peaks in January, the CDC updated its guidance for informing COVID-19 prevention measures to rely more on hospitalizations and strain on the healthcare system, rather than the number of new cases alone. As hospitalizations now rise across the country, that strategy could be put to the test, The New York Times reported May 6. 

Approximately 14.9 million people have died of COVID-19 since January 2020 directly or indirectly, described as "excess mortality," according to a May 5 report from the World Health Organization.

More than 100,000 nurses left the workforce in 2021, according to an analysis published April 13 in Health Affairs. Now a nurse's criminal conviction for a medical error has the profession worried about how that number might swell. 

At least 228 probable cases of severe hepatitis in children have been reported in 20 countries, the World Health Organization said May 4. Another 50 cases are under investigation. 

Health officials on April 28 confirmed the nation's first human bird flu case after a Colorado man who had been working on a commercial farm with infected poultry tested positive for an H5 virus.

The recent rise in COVID-19 cases has led to a series of euphemisms to describe the uptick, but it's time to refer to the situation as what it is: a surge, The Atlantic writer Katherine Wu wrote May 5.