TUESDAY, Dec. 19, 2023 (HealthDay News) — A person’s toothbrush could be a true lifesaver if they land in a hospital ICU, according to new evidence review. Regular toothbrushing is associated with lower rates of death in the intensive care unit (ICU), shorter lengths of stay, and shorter times spentContinue Reading
MONDAY, Dec. 11, 2023 (HealthDay News) — Nurses are less likely to discharge still-recovering Black patients to home health care than white patients, a new study has found. About 22% of Black patients are referred to home health care by discharge nurses, compared with 27% of white patients, according toContinue Reading
THURSDAY, Nov. 9, 2023 (HealthDay News) — Health care workers at America’s nursing homes are woefully under-vaccinated for both flu and COVID-19, threatening their own health and that of the frail elderly patients under their care, a new report finds. Looking at 2023 data collected at nearly 14,000 nursing homesContinue Reading
WEDNESDAY, Nov. 8, 2023 (HealthDay News) — Black and Hispanic Americans might be receiving worse hospital care following cardiac arrest than Whites do, a new study reports. Only about 20% of Blacks and 22% of Hispanics admitted to a hospital after initially surviving cardiac arrest had a positive outcome, researchersContinue Reading
MONDAY, Nov. 6, 2023 (HealthDay News) — Advisors to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have voted to recommend that health providers wear masks during routine care for patients who are thought to be contagious. Still, health care workers were frustrated that the draft recommendation does not specifyContinue Reading
FRIDAY, Nov. 3, 2023 (HealthDay News) — Advisors to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are expected to approve new draft guidelines for hospital infection control this week, the first update since 2007. But healthcare workers worry whether the guidelines, which suggest that surgical masks are as goodContinue Reading
THURSDAY, Nov. 2, 2023 (HealthDay News) — A new study on Clostridioides difficile infections finds that choosing an alternative antibiotic for high-risk patients with pneumonia can reduce infection risk. C. diff infections can be deadly, and they are often acquired by hospitalized patients taking broad-spectrum antibiotics. More than 450,000Continue Reading
WEDNESDAY, Oct. 25, 2023 (HealthDay News) — Health workers are experiencing ever-increasing levels of harassment and burnout in the wake of the pandemic, a new federal survey has found. Reports of harassment on the job more than doubled during the pandemic years, and nearly half of health care workers oftenContinue Reading
FRIDAY, Oct. 13, 2023 (HealthDay News) — Drawing smaller amounts of blood from patients in the intensive care unit could lead to fewer blood transfusions, according to new research. The large clinical trial in Canada found that making this small change could save tens of thousands of units of bloodContinue Reading
WEDNESDAY, Oct. 4, 2023 (HealthDay News) — When Hannah, a California marketing professional, showed up at her local emergency room in March 2023 for a pregnancy-related complication, she wasn’t prepared for what happened next. “I arrived at 2 p.m. and finally saw the obstetrics team at midnight,” she recalled. AfterContinue Reading
FRIDAY, Sept. 29, 2023 (HealthDay News) — The life-threatening infection sepsis was more common than once thought among COVID-19 patients early in the pandemic. Massachusetts researchers linked SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID, to about 1 in 6 sepsis cases at five Boston hospitals during the pandemic’s first 2-1/2 years.Continue Reading
WEDNESDAY, Sept. 27, 2023 (HealthDay News) – It seemed to some that patients of color were being restrained in the emergency room more often than others, so researchers decided to investigate. While physical restraints can be used to keep staff and patients safe, they may also cause injury to theContinue Reading
WEDNESDAY, Sept. 20, 2023 (HealthDay News) — A deadly infection associated with hospitalization may not be the fault of the hospital, but may instead stem from the patients themselves, a new study suggests. Infection caused by the bacterium Clostridioides difficile, or C. diff, is still common in hospitals, despite extensiveContinue Reading
WEDNESDAY, Sept. 20, 2023 (HealthDay News) — How big is a hospital bed’s carbon footprint? Pretty big, new research shows. One hospital bed alone was roughly equivalent to the carbon footprint of five Canadian households, according to researchers studying a British Columbia hospital during 2019. They identified energy and waterContinue Reading