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As hospitals shutter elective surgeries again, patients return to virtual…
Scott E. Rupp Healthcare AdministrationHospitals across the United States are once again setting aside elective surgeries as COVID makes another surge across the globe. As this plays out, many hospitals are returning to the early days of the pandemic when such procedures were canceled or postponed to ensure health systems could maintain their resources to reduce the spread of the virus. Elective surgery or an elective procedure is scheduled in advance because it does not involve a medical emergency. Semi-elective surgery must be done to preserve the patient's life but does not need to be performed immediately.
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Take a hike, for your health
Amanda Ghosh Sports & FitnessThere are 60,000 miles of hiking trails in the United States. A brisk walk will boost your mood, but it could also improve your body’s response to vaccination, and that’s worth talking about during flu season and a global pandemic. When you get a vaccine, your body responds by improving your immunity to the disease the vaccine prevents. So, while vaccines are important, vaccination response is equally essential. Behavioral alterations that improve vaccination response, like exercise, are fantastic because they can significantly affect immunity quickly and affordably. Yes, a hike (or even walk) can make a difference.
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Plan for 2021 looking on the bright side
Lloyd Princeton Business Management, Services & Risk ManagementMostly sunny with intermittent clouds and showers. That’s my forecast for 2021. It may seem overly optimistic at the moment, what with talk of more shutdowns in the weeks ahead and the standoff in Washington. I am confident, however, that this too shall pass, the ship will get righted, and we will enter calmer waters as the new year gets underway. Having gone through so many months of uncertainty and reversals this year, why should I expect the situation will improve in the next? Despite the recent resurgence of COVID-19 cases in many countries, we are making progress on preventing and treating the virus as well as on producing an effective and safe vaccine.
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4 AI startups that you should know about
Joseph Zulick Science & TechnologyThere’s a good chance that you’ve heard about how artificial intelligence (AI) will transform the world forever, but you might not be aware that AI startups are already gaining traction. Artificial intelligence will eventually change every aspect of our daily lives, even if some might downplay it as another technological trend that they don’t know much about. Some of these AI startups are focused on improving the healthcare sector, while others might help companies communicate and engage with customers better than ever before. Here are some AI startups that you should know about.
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When politics and public health collide
Keith Carlson Medical & Allied HealthcarePublic health in the United States has been an intrinsic aspect of national well-being for more than a century. Without the mostly invisible public health machine, we would see all manner of preventable ills ravage our society. When cynically wielded, political power can wreak havoc with public health, and the COVID-19 pandemic is a timely example of how politics run amok can interfere with even the most basic protective measures. A negative or combative intersection of public health and politics costs lives, and this is where we must push back.
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Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine: Interim report claims 90% effectiveness
Dorothy L. Tengler Medical & Allied HealthcareCOVID-19 is raging. The U.S. continues to see record case totals each day. A vaccine is perhaps the best hope for ending the pandemic. Currently, there is no vaccine to prevent infection with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), but researchers have been racing to develop one. Now, based on an interim efficacy analysis, Pfizer and BioNTech claim their messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA)-based vaccine was more than 90% effective in preventing COVID-19 in participants who had not previously been infected with SARS-CoV-2.
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Telehealth is changing healthcare — patients are telling us so
Scott E. Rupp Healthcare AdministrationIf 2020 has taught us nothing else, it's that telehealth that is likely here to stay. But why? Convenience is critical to its success, but it can bridge the gap of care between caregivers and patients during the pandemic. It's proving to be a legitimate solution to reaching patients in underserved areas. Telehealth technology is no longer a concept but a tried and mostly trusted solution for care delivery. Since the height of the pandemic, patients' use has fallen, but people still like what it has to offer, and its use seems to be reaching critical mass.
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US payrolls add 638,000 jobs; unemployment rate drops to 6.9%
Seth Sandronsky Business Management, Services & Risk ManagementU.S. employers added 638,000 nonfarm jobs in October, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. October’s rate of unemployment fell to 6.9% from September’s 7.9% and August’s 8.4%. The gradual employment improvement is a result of eased COVID-19 restrictions on social movement and resuming of commerce, though the pandemic remains uncontained and prospects for a vaccine available to the public are unclear. "The number of unemployed persons fell by 1.5 million to 11.1 million," according to the BLS. "Both measures have declined for 6 consecutive months but are nearly twice their February levels."
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How common oral and nasal rinses might reduce COVID risk in the dental…
R.V. Scheide Oral & Dental HealthcareThe results of two recent peer-reviewed studies that found Listerine and an array of cosmetic and therapeutic mouthwashes kill the novel coronavirus in the laboratory should be approached cautiously. The studies are in vitro, in glass, in the test tube, in the petri dish, and we won’t know if these compounds work on actual living organisms, in this case human beings, until in vivo studies are done. Nevertheless, for dentists, dental hygienists and other dental healthcare providers, there’s plenty to celebrate in the studies, since they both validate some practices already put in place by dental offices when the pandemic took off in the United States last March and point the way forward for future research.
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Study: Tracking the evolution of SARS-CoV-2 virus mutations
Dorothy L. Tengler Medical & Allied HealthcareCOVID-19 can go in two different directions once it has infected someone. The immune response can remain stable and regain control over the virus, eventually clearing it through T cell and antibody activity. Or the immune system can freak out and start to overrespond, churning out more and more inflammatory cytokines, in a frantic attempt to wipe out the virus. The second path causes substantial cell death in the lungs, resulting in the most severe infections, acute respiratory distress syndrome, and even death. However, in a new study, University of Illinois researchers and students found that the virus is honing the tactics that may make it more successful and more stable.
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