HHS is creating a new pathway to evaluate which conditions should be added to the national newborn screening panel as part of a broader effort to modernize a review process that officials say has lagged behind advances in genetic medicine.…

St. Louis-based Ascension closed the disparity in severe hospital-acquired pressure injuries between patients with light and dark skin tones to 0% in fiscal 2026, the health system said Aug. 11. The change followed a systemwide push to standardize skin-tone assessment…

UNC Health Pardee in Hendersonville, N.C., has been designated as a Level III Trauma Center by the state. The three-year designation follows a 12- to 15-month trauma operational period and an on-site review by trauma experts and state evaluators, according…

More than two months after California’s new nurse-to-patient staffing ratios for freestanding acute psychiatric hospitals took effect, state lawmakers are pushing regulators to loosen a rule that hospital leaders said has closed beds and destabilized the nursing workforce. Becker’s has been…

Never events — the most severe, preventable harms in patient safety — are often seen as some of healthcare’s worst-case scenarios. But they also carry an overlooked distinction: They can only happen to patients who made it far enough into…

Researchers at Baltimore-based University of Maryland School of Medicine found approximately 5% of adults hospitalized with firearm injuries develop a bacterial infection, with most infections occurring during hospitalization. The study, published Aug. 3 in JAMA Network Open, used the Premier…

Atlanta-based Piedmont Healthcare reduced serious safety events by as much as 90% over the past decade even as it grew from five hospitals to 28, the system said Aug. 10. The organization tied the improvement to a quality and safety…

CMS found Mission Hospital in Asheville, N.C., to be operating in “substantial compliance” with agency requirements following a July 9 validation and complaint survey, according to an Aug. 3 CMS notice reviewed by Becker’s. Six things to know: 1. In…

New Orleans-based Ochsner Health has run some form of virtual nursing for more than 15 years. Its chief nursing officer said the model is only starting to reshape how care is delivered. Ochsner began virtual nursing in the critical care…

Louisiana has recorded nine cases of Vibrio vulnificus and five deaths in 2026, well above its 10-year average of seven cases and one death a year, the state health department said Aug. 6. All nine patients were hospitalized, and all…