The healthcare industry's staffing shortage crisis has had clear consequences for care delivery and efficiency, forcing some health systems to pause nonemergency surgeries or temporarily close facilities. Less understood is how these shortages are affecting care quality and patient safety.
Patient Safety & Outcomes
Hospital-acquired infections (HAIs) are dangerous. Sepsis, for example, which can result from an HAI, is the leading cause of death in hospitals, accounting for nearly 270,000 deaths in America each year. Unfortunately, data suggests the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated HAI rates…
American women living in historically redlined ZIP codes have increased risk for both preterm and periviable births, according to a study published in JAMA Network Open Sept. 30.
Receiving the COVID-19 vaccine and a flu shot in the same visit is safe and doesn't lower the effectiveness of either shot, preliminary data from a U.K. clinical trial published Sept. 30 suggests.
Wrong-site surgeries are one of the most serious types of medical errors, known as sentinel events, and garner a lot of attention when they occur.
Advertisement
One in every 10 patients is harmed while receiving hospital care in high-income countries, according to the World Health Organization. The WHO also estimates that among countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, including the U.S.,15 percent of…
U.S. hospitals reported a slightly uptick in sentinel events in the first six months of 2021, compared to the same period last year, according to data the Joint Commission released Sept. 29.
People who regularly use steroid nasal sprays may have a lower risk of severe disease from a COVID-19 infection, according to research recently published in Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology: In Practice.
Shrinking waveforms on electrocardiograms may serve as an indicator of which hospitalized COVID-19 and flu patients are at risk of declining health or death, according to findings published Sept. 25 in American Journal of Cardiology.
Race should be eliminated from a formula commonly used to evaluate kidney function, according to a Sept. 23 task force recommendation.