Articles Tagged With: PPE
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Healthcare Workers Weather Respiratory Onslaught
In a seemingly interminable viral winter, healthcare workers are facing a rare convergence of a pandemic virus and unusually high levels of seasonal flu and respiratory syncytial virus. Some are tired and sick; others sick of being tired. As EDs stretch capacity to the limits to treat respiratory patients, others with various conditions and critical needs are backed up.
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Physicians Can Suffer Moral Injury if Oath to Patients Is Broken
Long before the pandemic, physicians were suffering from “moral injury” — a violation of one’s values, ethical code, or sworn duty — because too often they had to choose between their patients and the profits and performance measures of corporate medicine, claims the author of a new book.
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Occupational Monkeypox in Healthcare Workers
Although the overall risk of transmission is low, at least two healthcare workers have been occupationally infected with monkeypox virus (MPXV) in the United States. In an unusual case, two caregivers were infected by environmental fomites in the home of a patient in Brazil. Although rare, healthcare workers have been infected in previous outbreaks, and there likely are a fair number of unreported cases, given the stigma associated with MPXV.
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Reassuring Monkeypox Findings from Colorado
Although vigilance with infection control is critical, Colorado public health investigators concluded the risk of healthcare workers acquiring occupational monkeypox is “very low.” They meticulously identified and followed more than 300 medical staff that cared for patients who were later diagnosed with monkeypox.
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CDC Struggles to Regain Public Health Footing
Once widely considered the greatest public health institution in the world, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has admitted it mishandled the COVID-19 pandemic response and has begun an ambitious rebuild.
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Special Report: Humbled CDC Seeks Reinvention, Culture Change
The CDC has taken responsibility for its haphazard response to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, admitting to mistakes and miscalculations that often directly affected healthcare workers.
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The Darkest Hour: Little PPE, No Vaccine Led to Moral Injury
A fascinating and disturbing study captures the emotions and attitudes of healthcare workers in 2020 when COVID-19 emerged. Personal protective equipment was in short supply, and the first COVID-19 vaccines would not be available until the end of the year. There was a general despairing feeling in this period that there was not “enough” of anything, including reliable information.
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Monkeypox Spread to 29 Non-Endemic Nations Unprecedented
The near-simultaneous emergence of monkeypox in the United States, Europe, and other regions where it rarely is seen has raised questions whether the virus could become endemic beyond West and Central Africa, where it is common.
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Surgeon General Calls for Support of HCWs
Battered by a two-year pandemic during which they often had to work under unsafe conditions without adequate personal protective equipment, healthcare workers are on the brink of a “burnout and mental health crisis” that will only worsen if sweeping actions are not taken, warned U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, MD, MBA. -
OSHA Inspecting Hospitals for Compliance with COVID-19 Issues
OSHA’s COVID-19 Focused Inspection Initiative in Healthcare is underway, with inspectors visiting hospitals and other healthcare facilities to determine compliance with requirements related to the pandemic.