Danish researchers found that half of sepsis patients died within two years of emergency admission, identifying key risk factors such as age, previous sepsis hospitalizations, and chronic diseases.
Researchers from the Keck School of Medicine of USC, UCLA and Cleveland Clinic studied the link between COVID-19 and major cardiac events, finding an increased risk that varied by blood type.
A lack of infection prevention and control staffing leads to more healthcare-associated infections, according to a new study in the American Journal of Infection Control. Researchers analyzed the infection preventionists (IPs) staffing needs at 390 acute care hospitals and the number of optimal IPs was based on factors such as the presence of an emergency department, burn unit, stem cell transplant unit, or inpatient rehabilitation unit. The majority of the 390 hospitals surveyed (79.2%) were understaffed according to the calculator in infection control personnel, which assumed a baseline staffing level of 1 full-time IP per 85 beds. Overall, the median IP full-time equivalent to bed ratio was 121.0 beds for the 390 hospitals.
Hospitals are performing better on quality and safety metrics than they did pre-pandemic, despite seeing sicker patients—and more of them. That's according to a new report from the AHA and Vizient. The organizations analyzed data from Vizient's Clinical Data Base, which contains information from more than 1,300 hospitals and collects data on more than 10 million inpatients and 180 million outpatients each year. In the first quarter of this year, hospitalized patients—despite facing more acute, complex health issues—had a survival rate more than 20% higher than anticipated based on the severity of their conditions compared to the fourth quarter of 2019, per the report. Between April 2023 and March 2024, the analysis found 200,000 patients who survived health episodes that likely would have been fatal in 2019.
Nebraska received a "D-minus" grade for preterm birth rates on the March of Dimes 2023 report card. Douglas and Sarpy counties and the City of Omaha were each graded an "F," indicating their rates got worse between 2021 and 2022.