CMS Encourages State Agencies to Resume Surveys

Throughout the memo, CMS notes that surveys should resume primarily in areas that have entered the White House’s Phase 3 of reopening—which can vary from region to region—and that individual facilities can ask for delays if they are experiencing a surge in COVID-19 cases. Many surveys may still focus primarily on infection control and conditions that pose an immediate jeopardy to patients or staff, as they have throughout the PHE.

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How to Improve Emergency Preparedness for Pandemics

In the early stage of the COVID-19 pandemic, hospitals in New York City struggled mightily to cope with an epic surge of coronavirus patients. Across the country, the pandemic has strained supply chains for critically important materials and equipment such as personal protective equipment and ventilators.

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Combine Surgery Checklists to Boost Patient Safety and Clinical Outcomes

Patient safety has been a pressing issue in healthcare since 1999, with the publication of the landmark report To Err Is Human: Building a Safer Health System. Despite two decades of attention, estimates of annual patient deaths due to medical errors have risen steadily to as many as 440,000 lives, a figure that was reported in the Journal of Patient Safety in 2013.

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Test Sites Quickly Attract Thousands for COVID-19 Vaccine Study

During the next two months, vaccine makers hope to recruit 60,000 Americans to roll up their sleeves to test the two vaccines, one made by Pfizer and BioNTech, a German company, and the other by biotech startup Moderna. While small tests earlier this year showed the preventives were safe and led to participants developing antibodies against the virus, the final phase 3 testing is designed to prove whether the vaccine reduces the risk of infection.

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