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Cardiovascular Quality and Research News

ACC CV Quality SmartBrief

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  • Screening program allows for better detection of S. aureus

    Researchers at a New York hospital found that without a recently implemented screening initiative, three-fourths of Staphylococcus aureus transmissions would have gone undetected. The hospital screened patients at admission, in the ICU and in the oncology unit, and the program used isolates, genome sequencing and electronic health record data to identify transmissions. Results were presented at a Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America meeting. Healio (free registration) (4/18) Learn More

  • Experts offer advice on C. difficile infections

    Clostridioides difficile infection management requires a multifaceted approach, and understanding its two phases is important for treating the condition, experts say. Dr. Paul Feuerstadt notes that CDI is "a major problem" for patients and the US health care system, and it is among the most common health care-associated gastrointestinal infections, while Dr. Stacy Kahn of Boston Children's Hospital highlights the importance of prevention strategies. Gastroenterology & Endoscopy News (4/19) Learn More

  • Vaccination tied to low cases of COVID-19 in children

    Recent data published in JAMA Network Open found that vaccination against SARS-CoV-2 was associated with significant reductions in COVID-19 incidence and hospitalizations among children in California. Findings also showed that reductions of 146,210 cases were estimated among adolescents ages 12 to 15 years, corresponding to a 37.1% reduction, while an estimated 168 hospitalizations were averted among children ages 6 to 59 months. Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (4/25) Learn More

  • Final rules to raise access, transparency in Medicaid, CHIP

    The CMS issued two final rules designed to improve health care access, transparency and quality of care in Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program. The Medicaid and Children's Health Insurance Program Managed Care Access, Finance, and Quality Final Rule establishes maximum appointment wait times for numerous health care services and facilitates the use of state-directed payments for value-based purchasing agreements, while the Ensuring Access to Medicaid Services Final Rule expands the role of advisory committees, and requires states to publish the average hourly rate payments for health care and related services every two years. Becker's Hospital Review (4/23) Learn More

  • Understanding metaphysical motivation in medicine

    The practice of medicine is shaped by a metaphysical drive to heal, serve and advance knowledge, an important factor in every physician's career, writes psychiatrist Dr. Arthur Lazarus. As with philosophers, poets and athletes, this drive is just as fundamental to success as a person's biological needs and motivations are, Lazarus writes. MedPage Today (free registration) (4/21) Learn More

  • Telemedicine improves heart failure therapy uptake

    Guideline-directed medical therapy uptake improved within 30 days of starting a telemedicine-based outreach program for Navajo Nation members in Arizona and New Mexico who had heart failure with reduced ejection fraction, researchers reported in JAMA Internal Medicine. Patients received blood pressure cuffs for use at home and remote access to primary care clinicians who spoke the native language. Medscape (4/23) Learn More

  • Clinicians open to generative AI, with caveats

    Forty percent of physicians at large hospitals or health systems in the US say they are ready to use generative AI at the point of care, but 91% said AI for clinical decision support would have to be trained on materials created by medical experts before they would use it, according to a poll of 100 physicians who use clinical decision support tools. Sixty-eight percent said generative AI can speed up medical literature searches, 59% said it can summarize patient data, and more than 50% said it will reduce the time needed to make clinical decisions. Health IT Analytics (4/23) Learn More

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