Respiratory virus season is in full swing across the U.S., with flu, COVID-19 and respiratory syncytial virus metrics all on the rise. 

Women may be more prone to developing Alzheimer's disease because of differences in immune function, cellular metabolism and communication between brain cells, according to Cleveland Clinic researchers. 

For the third straight week, flu hospitalizations have climbed in the U.S., according to new CDC data.

A CDC-recommended hospital disinfectant is ineffective against Clostridioides difficile, according to a study published Nov. 21 in Microbiology. 

The World Health Organization is monitoring a surge of respiratory illnesses among children in China, which health officials in the country say is due to known pathogens and not "any unusual or novel pathogens." 

Kelley Holdren, MSN, chief flight nurse at the University of Chicago Hospital, died Nov. 21 at age 48.

Police are searching for a man who escaped custody at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital on Nov. 27, according to ABC affiliate WPVI.

Only 14% of Americans have received the latest COVD-19 vaccine, which the CDC said is below where the agency would like vaccine uptake to be. 

Drug overdose deaths have tripled for U.S. mothers between the age of 35 to 40, but also substantially increased across all ages, races, ethnicities, educational and marital status, according to a Nov. 22 report from the National Institutes of Health.

An emerging method to retrieve hearts from organ donors has the potential to significantly expand the number of hearts available for patients awaiting transplant. However, not all hospitals are on board, with many experts citing ethical and legal concerns about the definitions of life and death, The New York Times reported Nov. 22. 

Rochester, Minn.-based Mayo Clinic has reduced the number of unnecessary antibiotic prescriptions by half by implementing an outpatient antibiotic stewardship program.

Omicron is circumventing precedents set up by earlier COVID-19 strains, alpha and delta, and the two-year anniversary of its arrival is teaching a new lesson on why one mutation is continuing to dominate, The New York Times reported Nov. 21. 

Jill Evans, MSN, RN, associate chief nursing officer of clinical informatics at Cleveland-based MetroHealth System, sees nurse informaticists as "interpreters" between technology and hospital leaders and staff. 

Patients who contracted COVID-19 in early 2020 and later got long COVID have a 76% chance of becoming reinfected, according to a study published Nov. 21 in The Lancet. 

COVID-19 hospitalizations are ticking back up in the U.S. after more than two months of mostly trending downward or remaining flat, according to the latest available data from the CDC. 

Fifty-five percent of respondents in a recent poll said their hospital does not currently have a strong nurse residency program in place, despite nurse leaders citing such programs as a key retention tool, particularly among new nurses. 

With the rise of violence in hospitals, health system leaders should embed safety into training for new staff and transparent conversations with employees, according to an opinion piece published Nov. 20 in Time. 

Hospital and public health officials are urging people to take precautions and be mindful of where they seek care to limit capacity strain on emergency departments as respiratory virus activity heats up heading into the holiday season. 

A new report from the nonprofit group the Sepsis Alliance found that while 88% of hospital C-suite leaders think antimicrobial resistance is getting more severe, only 26% graded themselves with an 'A' on their own hospital's efforts to address this.

Complex regional pain syndrome, or CRPS, is a rare, difficult to diagnose condition at the center of the recent $261 million verdict against Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital.