UMASS
Dean to keynote next Consortium conference |
Joan
M. Vitello-Cicciu, PhD, RN, NEA-BC, FAHA, FAAN has accepted our invitation to
address the Consortium upcoming conference Clinical Excellence; Caring
to provide the Best in Patient Care on Friday, December 8, 2023 at the
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Charles Dodge City Center in Pembroke Pines as the
conference keynote. Dr. Vietto-Cicciu, a former AACN president, has distinguished herself as a leader in both practice and academic settings,
and as co-editor of the Journal of Cardiovascular Nursing. The
current Dean at the UMASS Graduate School of Nursing, and a former
Chief Nursing Officer, Dr. Vietto-Cicciu's presentation on Finding
Resiliency and Meaning in your Life as a Nurse will start a day of
panel discussions, workshops, and poster presentations dedicated to
the advancement of clinical excellence. Abstracts are
being accepted now and you can register at early-bird rates
today. |
Joint Commission
issues Alert on preserving patient safety after a cyberattack
According to data from the Department of Health and Human
Services (DHHS), the number of cyberattacks and information system breaches in
healthcare has grown steadily, escalating from isolated incidents to widespread
targeted and malicious attacks. In 2022, 707 data breeches occurred, exposing
more than 51.9 million patient records. To help healthcare organizations
address this growing patient safety concern, The Joint Commission has
issued a Sentinel Event Alert that focuses on risks associated with
cyberattacks and provides recommendations on how healthcare organizations can
prepare to deliver safe patient care in the event of a cyberattack. Please click
here to read more.
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September is
Sepsis Awareness Month: Blog from the Lippincott Nursing Center
In 2011, the Sepsis
Alliance named September as Sepsis Awareness Month. Sepsis is one of the
most challenging diseases to diagnosis. It affects millions of people worldwide
and one in four of the people affected will die. A recent NursingCenter
Blog by Chief Nurse Anne Dabrow Woods, DNP, RN, CRNP, ANP-BC, AGACNP-BC,
FAAN, entitled, “Let’s Change the
Trajectory of Sepsis” provides insight and suggestions. She says the CDC
has recently issued Hospital Sepsis Program Core Elements to optimize
sepsis identification, management, and education, as well as improve hospital
leadership commitment and accountability. Please click
here to read more.
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Trial results show Novo Nordisk Wegovy semaglutide
reduces risk of cardiovascular disease by 20% in overweight adults
Novo Nordisk, a Denmark company, recently announced the results from a
SELECT cardiovascular double-blind trail that compared subcutaneous once-weekly semaglutide 2.4 mg with
placebo as an adjunct to standard of care for prevention of major adverse
cardiovascular events (MACEs) over a period of up to five years. The trial
enrolled 17,604 adults aged 45 years or older with overweight or obesity and
established cardiovascular disease (CVD) with no prior history of diabetes.
Results of the trial showed a statistically significant and superior reduction
in MACE of 20% for people treated with semaglutide 2.4 mg compared to placebo. Novo Nordisk expects to file for regulatory approvals
of a label indication expansion for semaglutide 2.4 mg (Wegovy®) in
the US and the EU in 2023. Please click here to read more.
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Hospitals use virtual reality to help design more inclusive
rooms for children
For many young hospital patients, harsh lights, bare walls, and windows facing parking lots or brick buildings make already painful hospital visits more unpleasant, stoking fear and uncertainty instead of hope. Those patients often say it makes recovery harder. Their perspectives — historically overlooked in hospital design — are at the heart of a budding movement to make architecture more inclusive for the people who actually spend time there. Hospital groups like UCSF Benioff Children's and Boston Children's are exploring ways to fold young patients' feedback into hospital design, like the color of walls and the placement of windows, art, couches, or other features. Health systems and their architects are increasingly realizing that building and room design impacts well-being, said Haripriya Sathyanarayanan, a Berkeley Architecture and Building Science Ph.D. candidate who is leading a research project using virtual reality to gauge how comfortable children patients are in hospital rooms. Please click here to read more.
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New Doctor-to-Patient Translator uses AI to transform
medical jargon into simple content for patients
Vital, a leading artificial intelligence (AI)-driven
digital health company has launched an AI-powered Doctor-to-Patient Translator,
designed to transform highly technical medical terminology into plain language
that any patient can understand. Using the latest Large Language Models and
Natural Language Processing, Vital's HIPAA-compliant Doctor-to-Patient
Translator creates 5th-grade reading-level explanations of lab and imaging
results, doctor notes, discharge summaries and patient instructions, and other
important medical information. For people who aren't medically trained,
misunderstanding medical jargon can result in unnecessary stress and poor
health outcomes. Please click here to read more.
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CDC recommends a powerful new tool to protect Infants
from severe RSV disease
The CDC is recommending a new immunization starting this
fall to help protect all infants under 8 months and some older babies at
increased risk of severe illness caused by respiratory syncytial virus (RSV).
CDC director Mandy Cohen, MD, MPH, adopted the CDC Advisory Committee on
Immunization Practices’ recommendation for the use of nirsevimab, trade name BeyfortusTM, a long-acting monoclonal
antibody product, which has been shown to reduce the risk of both
hospitalizations and healthcare visits for RSV in infants by about 80 percent. RSV
is one of the most common causes of childhood respiratory illness and results
in annual outbreaks of respiratory illnesses in all age groups. An estimated
58,000 to 80,000 children under 5 years of age, most of them infants, are
hospitalized each year nationwide due to RSV infection. Please click
here to read more.
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Baptist Health expands heart and vascular services with
new cardiovascular care office in Kendall
Consortium member Baptist Health Miami Cardiac &
Vascular Institute has announced that it will be expanding its services in
South Florida with a new cardiovascular care office, located on the Baptist Health
Baptist Hospital campus in Kendall. Upon completion this summer, the
multidisciplinary office will provide streamlined cardiovascular care, with 30
exam rooms, more than 10 medical specialists and a new, innovative arrhythmia
center. Spanning 13,000 square feet, the new cardiovascular care office will be
home to cardiologists, cardiothoracic surgeons, interventional cardiologists
and electrophysiologists, as well as advanced practice providers. “This
location marks the first cardiovascular care office that we’ve built from the
ground up, with a focus on patients’ needs and their desire for convenience,”
said Jonathan Fialkow, M.D., chief of cardiology. Please click
here to read more.
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Hendry Regional Medical Center Foundation exceeds
fundraising goal
Consortium member Hendry
Regional Medical Center Foundation exceeded its fundraising goal at their
Annual Social Celebration held on the 26th of March, raising more than $176,000. Their event was the culmination of their annual giving campaign. Through the
generosity of local donors, the HRMC Foundation will provide new vital sign
machine monitoring systems to the Emergency Department and Outpatient Services
area totaling more than $350,000. In addition to its annual fundraising
campaign to purchase critical life-saving medical equipment, the Hendry
Regional Medical Center Foundation recently received a $25,000 donation from
U.S. Sugar. The support will allow the medical center to purchase a new
endoscopic surgery system. Please click
here to read more.
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Multi-state pilot to
test value of Remote Patient Monitoring for methadone treatment
A multi-state pilot program overseen by the University of
Washington School of Medicine will test whether an innovative remote patient
monitoring program for methadone treatment can improve outcomes for patients
living with substance abuse. UW is partnering with Baltimore-based digital
health company Scene Health, formerly emocha Mobile Health, on the program,
which is funded by a $1.96 million small business innovation research award
from the National Institute on Drug Abuse. The pilot will use Scene Health's
video directly observed therapy (video DOT) platform, which enables patients to
film themselves taking their medication and send that video to their care
provider. Please click
here to read more.
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White Paper addresses opportunities to mitigate clinician
shortages
Industry surveys cite 53% of physicians are burned out
and 41% of nurses plan to leave their job—challenging provider organizations to
meet growing demands of an increasingly sicker patient population. A new white paper sponsored by Omega
Healthcare highlights the healthcare industry’s crisis regarding clinician
burnout and staff shortages, and how care coordination can enhance patient experience and safety. The white paper addresses: - the
factors driving clinician dissatisfaction and administrative burdens, leaving providers with less time for direct patient care
- how care
coordination activities help extend the care team through remote patient
monitoring, telephone message and inbox triage, and customer contact centers
- how a
leading health system leveraged certified virtual nurses to support care
management, patient outreach, payer interaction, and clinical documentation
initiatives
To download the white paper, please click here.
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CDC Advisory Group
criticized for proposed changes to its Isolation Precaution Guidelines
Nurse union, occupational health experts and patients are
pushing for more rigorous infection control standards from the CDC after
getting a preview of proposed changes to its Isolation Precaution Guidelines. Opponents
say the changes, detailed in a presentation,
are based on a flawed evidence review and omit key infection control tools.
Some have called attention to a CDC approval process that they say is sometimes
inscrutable to the public. The agency last revised the guidelines,
"Isolation Precautions: Preventing Transmission of Infectious Agents in
Healthcare Settings," in 2007, and now the group that advises the CDC on
infection control practices -- the Healthcare Infection Control Practices
Advisory Committee (HICPAC) -- is drafting proposed 2024 changes for CDC
approval. Jane Thomason, MSPH, CIH, an industrial hygienist for National Nurses
United (NNU), said “While the CDC is updating their language, they're not
actually updating their precautions in ways that they should be based on the
science." NNU and others say the proposed guidelines weaken existing
infection control standards, privileging employer and hospital bottom lines
over employee and patient safety. Please click
here to read more.
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CDC reports on recent spike of Leprosy in Central Florida
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A new report in
the CDC journal of Emerging
Infectious Diseases noted a recent spike for cases of Leprosy in
Central Florida. Doctor Claire Panosian Dunavan, an infectious diseases expert, took a |
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deeper look into this development.
She said that although the overall count of newly diagnosed Hansen's disease in
the U.S. -- roughly 150 to 200 cases per year -- hasn't changed in several
decades, the percentage found in southeastern states has risen over time. In
2020, an astounding one in five infections in the U.S. were diagnosed in
central Florida, and 34% were locally acquired. Donavan contends that Florida may
be an emerging hotspot for leprosy because the state has plenty of nine-banded
armadillos, a known animal reservoir of Mycobacterium
leprae and possible source of transmission. Please click here to
read more.
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FAU to study crop burning
smoke as a cause of Alzheimer’s with older residents in rural Lake Okeechobee
People who live in the rural communities along Lake
Okeechobee are subjected to repeated, intermittent exposures to air pollution due
to the practice of preparing agricultural fields by burning crop residue. This
practice contributes large quantities of gaseous pollutants and aerosol
particles to the atmosphere and is a known cardiorespiratory health hazard and a
risk of ADRD among aging residents. Smoke exposure is associated with an
anxious, irritable and depressed mood, which could lead to social isolation and
thereby impact mental health in general. Federal efforts to monitor air quality
have been focused on population-dense urban communities. As such, impacts of
smoke exposure from agricultural fires on the risk of Alzheimer’s disease and
related dementias (ADRD) in rural populations are not well known. To better
understand this issue, researchers from Consortium member Florida Atlantic University have
received a five-year, $4.2 million R01 grant from the National Institute on
Aging of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in collaboration with the Consortium member University
of Miami, Colorado State University and Washington State University. The research
project will involve a total of 1,087 community-dwelling adults ages 45 and older
who have not been previously diagnosed with ADRD from 50 neighborhood, block
groups within five communities along Lake Okeechobee. Please click here to read
more.
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HCA Florida Palms
West Hospital announces latest DAISY
and BEE award winners 
Two employees at Consortium member HCA Florida Palms West
Hospital have been honored with national awards: Thessa Klansky, a registered nurse
in the hospital’s Ambulatory Surgical Unit was selected as the latest DAISY
Award-winning nurse and Stanley Pulido, a paramedic in the hospital’s emergency
room is the hospital’s latest BEE Award
winner. Klansky has been with Palms West Hospital for nearly seven years.
Pulido has been with the hospital for two years. Please click here to read
more.
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