The 1918 flu pandemic offers several lessons on infection control and outbreak response efforts for health officials today, according to a study published Oct. 8 in Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology.

Therapy dogs may serve as a mechanical vector for hospital-associated infections, according to research from Baltimore-based Johns Hopkins Medicine presented at ID Week 2018 in San Francisco.

To protect more people from cancer caused by the human papillomavirus, the FDA expanded the use of the HPV vaccine Gardasil 9 to adults up to age 45, according to The Washington Post.

Traditionally, primary care physicians (PCPs) have played an integral role in patient health, with many families maintaining long-lasting relationships with the same PCP throughout their lifetime.

Vizient, a healthcare performance improvement company, honored 25 hospitals with its 2018 Bernard A. Birnbaum, MD, Quality Leadership Award.

For Medicare patients, a study published in JAMA found no evidence for an increase in in-hospital or post-discharge mortality linked to the implementation of CMS' Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program.

Sixty-six Indiana hospitals will have Medicare payments docked in 2019 by a total of about $12 million from 30-day readmissions — up from $9 million in penalties three years ago, the Indianapolis Business Journal reports.

Massachusetts' ballot initiative to mandate nurse staffing ratios could hinder care quality and patient safety efforts, according to an op-ed written by three emergency medicine physicians and published in SouthCoast Today.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo's health ministry reported an additional five confirmed Ebola cases in the eastern part of the country Oct. 6, according to Reuters. 

Doreen Carvajal, a Paris-based journalist who was diagnosed with peritoneal cancer in fall 2017, highlighted the differences in her healthcare experiences with a male physician in the U.S. and a female physician in France in a recent op-ed published by…