TUESDAY, April 15, 2025 (HealthDay News) — Miscommunication between hospital staff regularly puts patients at risk, a new study says. Poor communications between health care workers contributed to 25% of hospital incidents that put patients’ safety at risk, researchers reported April 14 in the Annals of Internal Medicine. What’s more,Continue Reading
WEDNESDAY, April 9, 2025 (HealthDay News) — America’s emergency rooms are near the breaking point, causing long wait times and boarding of patients awaiting care, a new study says. Essentially, ERs are being asked to serve as health care hubs that offer services far beyond emergency care, according to aContinue Reading
MONDAY, April 7, 2025 (HealthDay News) — Don’t be surprised if you get a bill for that note your doctor sent you through his clinic’s patient portal. About 1 in 7 patients have been billed for messages sent to them through a patient portal, according to a new study publishedContinue Reading
MONDAY, April 7, 2025 (HealthDay News) — A notorious hospital-associated infection has been spreading through hospitals much more readily than people suspected, a new study says. The bacterium Clostridium difficile – commonly called C. diff – spreads within intensive care units more than three times as much as previously thought,Continue Reading
FRIDAY, April 4, 2025 (HealthDay News) — Hospitals could be short-changing patients if they lean too heavily on nurse staffing agencies or overtime hours, a new study says. Patients are much more likely to develop bedsores at short-staffed hospitals that regularly bring in travel nurses or require nurses to workContinue Reading
WEDNESDAY, March 19, 2025 (HealthDay News) — Poor families have continued to avoid going to the emergency room post-pandemic, even as ER numbers bounced back for folks who are better-off, a new study says. During the pandemic, visits to ERs for emergency care dropped by about 30% as lockdowns andContinue Reading
THURSDAY, Feb. 20, 2025 (HealthDay News) — U.S. hospitals could face a bed shortage as early as 2032, with occupancy remaining elevated even as the country recovers from the COVID pandemic, a new study suggests. Average hospital occupancy following the pandemic has been about 75%, researchers found, dividing the averageContinue Reading
WEDNESDAY, Feb. 12, 2025 (HealthDay News) — As closures of rural hospitals across the United States continue, more Americans are facing hour-plus drives to reach surgical centers, two new reports find. By 2020, data show, 99 million Americans already had trouble finding “timely, high-quality and affordable surgical care,” according toContinue Reading
FRIDAY, Dec. 6, 2024 (HealthDay News) — Americans are falling farther behind the rest of the developed world when it comes to health and life expectancy, a new study shows. Life expectancy in the United States is expected to increase to 79.9 years in 2035 and 80.4 years by 2050,Continue Reading
THURSDAY, Dec. 5, 2024 (HealthDay News) — Hospitals across America are shuttering their obstetric units, and the issue is most acute for women served by rural hospitals, a new study finds. By 2022, a majority (52%) of rural U.S. hospitals no longer had any maternity ward, compared to 36% ofContinue Reading
FRIDAY, Nov. 15, 2024 (HealthDay News) — AI can’t yet help doctors improve their ability to diagnose complex conditions, a sobering new study has found. Doctors had about the same diagnostic accuracy whether or not they were using ChatGPT Plus, according to results published recently in the journal JAMA NetworkContinue Reading
THURSDAY, Nov. 14, 2024 (HealthDay News) — More than a third of surgical patients develop complications as a result of their procedure, a new study shows. About 38% of adult patients suffer an adverse event during or following their surgery, researchers reported Nov. 13 in the BMJ. Nearly half ofContinue Reading
MONDAY, Oct. 21, 2024 (HealthDay News) — Walking pneumonia cases are surging among young children in the United States, federal health officials warn. “Bacterial infections caused by Mycoplasma pneumoniae increased in the United States since late spring and have remained high,” a statement issued Friday by the U.S. Centers for Disease ControlContinue Reading
MONDAY, Oct. 21, 2024 (HealthDay News) — The repeated fasting required for multiple surgeries in a row can slow a patient’s recovery and increase the risk of death, a new study warns. Surgical patients are asked to not eat after midnight prior to their procedure, to reduce the risk thatContinue Reading