Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Microsoft, Epic To Build New AI Tool Targeting Nurses' Workload
Modern Healthcare: Microsoft, Epic Partner On AI Tool To Reduce Nursing Burnout
Microsoft is adding new artificial intelligence tools for healthcare customers, the big tech company announced Thursday. The company said it has partnered with electronic health record vendor Epic Systems along with several health systems to build an ambient AI solution that will allow nurses to efficiently document in the electronic health record. It was important for the company to create a solution that’s differentiated from the numerous physician-centric AI documentation tools, said Mary Varghese Presti, vice president of portfolio evolution and incubation at Microsoft Health and Life Sciences, during a briefing with reporters. (Perna, 10/10)
Newsweek: Against The Odds, Hospitals Are Getting Safer
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 American Hospital Association and Vizient, a health care performance improvement company. 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. (Kayser, 10/10)
CIDRAP: Understaffed Hospitals Have Higher Rates Of Infection
A lack of infection prevention and control staffing leads to more healthcare-associated infections, according to a new study published today in the American Journal of Infection Control. The study is based on a new online calculator aimed at providing facility-specific recommendations for infection prevention staffing instead of a standard infection preventionists (IPs) per inpatient bed. (Soucheray, 10/10)
CIDRAP: WHO Report Elevates Role Of Vaccines In Addressing Antimicrobial Resistance
A new report from the World Health Organization (WHO) suggests that new and existing vaccines could have a substantial impact on the emergence and spread of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Released today, the WHO report estimates that the introduction and deployment of 44 vaccines against 24 pathogens could avert more than half a million deaths from drug-resistant infections annually, cut AMR-related healthcare costs and productivity losses by billions of dollars, and reduce the number of antibiotics needed to treat infections by 2.5 billion doses annually. (Dall, 10/10)
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KFF Health News: Extended-Stay Hotels, A Growing Option For Poor Families, Can Lead To Health Problems For Kids
As principal of Dunaire Elementary School, Sean Deas has seen firsthand the struggles faced by children living in extended-stay hotels. About 10% of students at his school, just east of Atlanta, live in one. The children, Deas said, often have been exposed to violence on hotel properties, exhibit aggression or anxiety from living in a crowded single room, and face food insecurity because some hotel rooms don’t have kitchens. (Miller and Rayasam, 10/11)
