Q&A: How to Get FEMA Emergency Funding During the COVID Crisis
A broad range of federal programs were allocated funding through the $150 billion Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act passed by Congress. But getting that money, either through FEMA or other agencies, has caused some confusion for governments, institutions, organizations, and individuals in search of COVID-19–related aid.
40% of Providers at Risk of Closure Due to Financial Implications of COVID-19
At some point this year, over 40% of organizations expect to hit peak bed capacity and 30% predict they will face clinical staffing shortages. The survey also found that at-risk provider organizations have laid off non-essential staff at twice the rate of those not at risk.
Coronavirus: 3 Steps for Reopening Ambulatory Surgery Centers
With the nationwide cancellation of most elective surgeries in March to boost hospital capacity to care for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients, ASCs experienced a dramatic reduction in patient volume. Now, ASCs are reopening with measures to do so safely and efficiently.
Don’t ‘Break the Bank’ When Innovating for COVID-19 and Beyond. What One Health System Did.
The initiative required pulling information from seven electronic health record systems; an enterprise resource system with human resources, financial and supply chain data; bed management, laboratory, and other IT systems; as well as accessing data from national and local resources through application programming interfaces.
Q&A: PPE Success During the COVID-19 Pandemic
Where hospitals were once coached by safety professionals to ensure they had enough PPE stockpiled, they are now begging the U.S. government to share PPE from the stockpile. Once upon a time, workers were told to use their surgical masks only once. Today, those masks get put into a bag at the end of a shift and used the next day—and maybe the day after that.
Lack of Evidence-Based Guidelines for COVID-19 in Pregnancy May Present a Risk of Compromised Care
Since the emergence of the novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) in December 2019, public health authorities and professional societies have been scrambling to develop management guidelines for clinicians to utilize. In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention distributed their first guidance in late January and have made continual revisions to date, with many professional societies following suit.
Study: Use of Dexamethasone Could Cut Coronavirus Deaths by a Third
Dexamethasone is a steroid that has been used since the 1960s to reduce inflammation and is given to asthma and rheumatoid arthritis patients. While not a coronavirus cure, dexamethasone works by limiting the damage done to the body by its immune system, which can end up hurting the host as it tries to destroy the disease.
Coronavirus: 4-Part Ethical Framework for Allocating Scarce Medications
The antiviral drug remdesivir is the only medication that has been shown to be effective in treating hospitalized COVID-19 patients. As is expected in the initial deployment of new COVID-19 therapies, there is a shortage of remdesivir. Healthcare providers have criticized the federal government’s distribution of the drug.
How NYC Health + Hospitals Trained 20K Staffers to Combat COVID-19
In response to the immense clinical and operational challenges posed by the coronavirus outbreak, the organization recognized that it needed to recruit additional staff from around the country and adequately train them for the issues they’d be facing. To help bring the necessary talent on board, NYC H+H worked with private staffing firms and the Department of Defense on its recruiting efforts.
Using Stories To Mentally Survive As A COVID-19 Clinician
The first graduate program in narrative medicine was created at Columbia University in 2009 by Dr. Rita Charon, and the practice has gained wide influence since, as evidenced by the dozens of narrative medicine essays published in the Journal of the American Medical Association and its sister journals.