During the nation's first COVID-19 wave in spring 2020, hospitals with more COVID-19 patients reported higher inpatient mortality rates after surgery, according to a study published July 18 in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

COVID-19 reinfections are becoming more common in the U.S., but they are not happening more quickly, according to data from Helix, a lab that works with the CDC on viral surveillance. 

Fertility patients are beginning to move their frozen embryos to states that protect abortion access out of fears that the Supreme Court's June 24 decision to overturn Roe v. Wade will leave them without choices, The 19th reported July 14.

A man died after shooting himself in the head at South Florida Baptist Hospital in Plant City on July 12, according to the Tampa Bay Times. 

The Joint Commission issued new safety guidance for palliative care to seriously ill patients visiting the emergency department. 

Rates of in-hospital adverse events fell significantly in the 10 years leading up to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a federal study published July 12 in JAMA.

The American Hospital Association has selected Cleveland-based University Hospitals as the 2022 recipient of its Quest for Quality Prize, which recognizes leadership efforts and innovation to improve quality and advance health in communities. 

Ensuring bedridden hospital patients have their teeth brushed properly could prevent a significant portion of non-ventilator hospital-acquired pneumonia, or NVHAP, cases, Kaiser Health News reported July 11. 

A Texas hospital employee found an elderly couple shot to death in a suspected murder-suicide on the morning of July 7, accrding to KSAT.

Online interest in how to self-manage an abortion at home has risen since the Supreme Court overturned the consitutional protection of abortion in late June, prompting experts to warn about the dangers of "DIY" care, USA Today reported July 7. 

Police have charged a suspect with firing into the fourth-floor window of Broward Health Coral Springs (Fla.) hospital from his car, CBS Miami reported July 7.

A July 7 Kaiser Health News report sheds more light on CMS' rationale for its proposed plan to obscure hospital safety data from the public — a move that has been met with strong opposition from patient safety groups and other stakeholders.  

The symptoms of omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5, which now account for more than half of COVID-19 cases in the U.S., generally are the same as those from earlier versions of omicron, The New York Times reported July 6.

People who've had COVID-19 two or more times have more than twice the risk of dying and three times the risk of being hospitalized within six months of their last infection, compared to people who've only been infected once, according to a preliminary study from researchers at Washington University in St. Louis. 

Of 20 actionable standards issued by The Joint Commission during a one-year period, only six were fully supported by cited references, according to a recent study led by researchers at Northwestern Medicine in Chicago. 

Maternal deaths in the U.S. rose 33 percent after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, according to a study published June 28 in JAMA Network Open. 

Temporary loss of smell emerged as a common indicator of COVID-19 early in the pandemic. Research into the cause and treatment of the condition, known as anosmia, is ongoing, though recent studies have brought us one step closer to answers. 

Whether a school in Uvalde, Texas, or a hospital campus in Tulsa, Okla., a recent series of violent events are constant reminders of the potential for what could unfold on healthcare workers' home campuses. The omnipresent anxiety over gun violence in the workplace — a possibility that increasingly seems more likely — has negative consequences for care delivery and the patient experience.

Police fatally shot a patient in the emergency wing of Baylor Scott & White Medical Center–Irving on June 29 after he opened fire on officers, according to local news reports.

Patients' implicit biases about a physician's race and gender may influence their response to treatments, even when their overt attitudes about these providers are positive, according to a study published June 27 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.