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Evolving Legal Exposure for Supervising EPs
If an ED patient seen by a nurse practitioner or a physician assistant sues for malpractice, the supervising emergency physician is likely to be named as a co-defendant. That is true even if the emergency physician never saw or heard about the patient, according to a recent study.
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ED Malpractice Claims Differ for Attendings, Trainees, NPs, PAs
Emergency medicine is an inherently high-risk specialty regarding malpractice liability because of complex cases and a fast-paced environment. Increasingly, EDs are staffed by advanced practice providers. It is unclear whether this changes liability for EDs and, if so, in what way.
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AI: Friend or Foe to IP & C, Healthcare Epidemiology?
Artificial intelligence chatbots, such as Chat Generative Pre-training Transformer (ChatGPT), are thought to have potential to eventually replace some straightforward infectious disease consultations. However, current technology does not yet instill confidence that the use of chatbots will be adequately accurate or safe for complex patient care. In addition, philosophical and ethical constraints raise doubt about the value of replacing specialist physician consultations.
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Denying Religious Exception Proves Costly in Flu Mandate
The line between religious exemption and discrimination was brightly drawn recently by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). Faced with an EEOC lawsuit regarding an employee denied a religious exemption, an Atlanta pediatric facility settled a religious discrimination lawsuit by agreeing to pay a fired employee $45,000.
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Toothbrushing to Prevent Pneumonia
Oral care, including time-honored toothbrushing, may save a patient’s life from pneumonia of all stripes.
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Next Pandemic: IPs, Drug Stewards Have Key Roles
Infection preventionists and antibiotic stewards struggled mightily during the height of the pandemic, largely overwhelmed like the rest of the healthcare system. No doubt they prevented some of the impact, but it was a losing effort and those results spoke to their importance as much as any success.
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Vaccination Can Prevent or Lessen Long COVID
Could long COVID — a horrific condition anyone would want to avoid — shake people out of the malaise of vaccine apathy, if not outright distrust? Evidence is accumulating that receiving the COVID-19 vaccination before being initially infected with SARS-CoV-2 can significantly reduce the risk of long COVID in children and adults.
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COVID Resurges Amid Pandemic Fatigue, Anemic Vaccine Uptake
As more hospitals nationally go to universal masking for patient care, we see the other side of an incoming problem: Only 19% of adults older than 18 years of age have received the latest vaccine against SARS-CoV-2, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
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Pandemic Fatigue, Disinformation Stunt Uptake of Respiratory Vaccines
A vaccination malaise that has beset much of the public appears to have extended to healthcare workers as well. In addition to citing an abysmal COVID-19 vaccination rate of 17% for healthcare workers during the 2022-2023 flu season, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention pointed to a “lack of provider recommendation” as one of four key reasons patients are skipping immunizations, with the others being concerns about serious side effects, the occurrence of minor side effects, and a lack of time or forgetfulness.
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CDC: PPE Should be Readily Available for Workers
New draft patient isolation guidelines recently approved by advisors to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention emphasized that healthcare workers have N95 respirators, masks, eye protection, and other personal protective equipment readily available.