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This article discusses several aspects essential to surge planning and preparing for the COVID-19 pandemic, including surge planning, limiting health care worker exposure, logistics for medication delivery, delivering emergent care in patients with COVID-19, and safe practices for patient transport.

This systematic review examined effectiveness of hospital- or system-wide interventions in reducing healthcare-associated infections (HAIs). The review identified several strategies for reducing HAIs, including enhanced environmental cleaning using disinfection technologies; EHR implementation; multimodal infection control programs; multichannel hand hygiene promotion; and hospital-wide cultural transformations. The review identifies approaches meriting additional research and exploration.

Based on data from the CMS COVID-19 Nursing Home Database, this study found that more than 20% of nursing homes report a severe shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE) and shortage of staff; rates for staffing and PPE did not improve from May to July of 2020. Nursing homes with COVID-19 cases among residents and staff, and those with lower quality scores, were more likely to report shortages.

Hospitals have been deeply challenged to provide effective care during the COVID crisis. This article discusses how rationing and ineffective protection for families and patients may have contributed to preventable death and the spread of the virus in families due to unnecessary referrals of patients to home care and hospice.

This study used survey data from nurses and patients in 254 hospitals in New York and Illinois between December 2019 and February 2020 to determine the association between nurse staffing and outcomes, patient experience, and nurse burnout. A significant number of nurses who experienced burnout viewed their hospitals’ safety unfavorably and would not recommend their hospital. Analyses indicated that each additional patient per nurse increased the odds of unfavorable reports from nurses and patients and demonstrates the implications of understaffing, even before COVID-19.    

This article discusses the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on racial and ethnic minority groups and how the use of artificial intelligence (AI) may exacerbate these disparities due to underlying biases in AI tools.  

This article describes the impact of an interactive session with second-year medical students utilizing case-based learning, small group discussion, and video vignettes intended to prepare healthcare providers to anticipate and understand the impact of medical errors. Pre- and post-surveys found that this one-hour, small-group session increased medical students’ understanding of the impact of medical errors and adverse events and the resources available to support providers.