Practice Management
After weeks (or months, in some states) of declines in COVID-19 caseloads and related hospitalizations and deaths, more than half of U.S. states reported an increase in the number of infected residents, with hospitalizations following suit in 10 states according to data collected by The New York Times. Cases are up 10% nationally over the past 2 weeks. In spite of that, however, hospitalizations are down nationally by 17% and there has been no increase …
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New York just became the latest state to grant full practicing authority to nurse practitioners—meaning, if you include the District of Columbia, that NPs now have this distinction in more than half of the United States plus the U.S. territories of Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands. According to the American Association of Nurse Practitioners (AANP), full practice means that NPs are allowed to evaluate patients; diagnose, order, and interpret diagnostic tests; and initiate and …
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We’ve told you about an uptick in sexually transmitted infection among adults since relaxation of social distancing rules in municipalities across the U.S. Unfortunately, that trend could soon extend to younger patients as well, if data newly published in the journal Pediatrics is any indication. Despite national guidelines that recommend annual testing for certain STIs in specific segments of the adolescent population, only 20% of sexually active high school students say they were tested for …
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Cause-and-effect may be unclear at this point, but an article just published by The New York Times makes it very clear that people with diabetes are more likely than many others to experience serious consequences with COVID-19. While, again, cause-and-effect has not been established, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reported that deaths from diabetes-related causes rose 15% in 2020, during the peak of the pandemic in the U.S. And the Times piece …
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This will fall short of being a news flash, but physicians believe they spend too much time on documenting the care they provide during their time with patients. What is new (and possibly maddening), however, are data on time spent documenting outside of office hours and just how many physicians are dissatisfied with their EHR system. According to a new article in The Journal of the American Association, 35% of primary care physicians spend at …
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Thousands of cases of multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (and dozens of resultant deaths) moved COVID-19 infection among pediatric patients from “no big deal” to cause for serious concern. It didn’t take long for intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) plus corticosteroids to emerge as a viable treatment. The question of whether that was the best option followed shortly thereafter—with the answer being not necessarily, according to an article just published by JAMA Pediatrics. The retrospective cohort study …
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Historically, there’s been a pretty sizeable pay gap between nurse practitioners and registered nurses. Given the role NPs play in urgent care, it’s an important consideration in evaluating the makeup and scheduling of the clinical team. There are signs that the gap could be shrinking in some states, however. According to the California Health Foundation, for example, median salary for an RN in the Golden State is $110,620 compared with $129,960 for NPs, a difference …
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New data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reveal that cases of norovirus are showing a dramatic resurgence after relatively low incidence in recent years, coinciding with the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Since August 2021, the CDC reported 448 outbreaks of norovirus, compared with 78 over the same period for the previous year. According to a report by NBC News, the timing was suspicious enough for health officials to look at whether …
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JUCM News has featured data on increases in depression and anxiety among adults over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as alarming news about burnout among healthcare providers. Lost in the discussion up to this point has been relevant clinical literature about how children are faring—which is to say, not good, according to a new article published by JAMA Pediatrics. Even before the pandemic took hold in 2019, the piece points out, nearly …
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On the heels of news that the Food and Drug Administration had authorized a second booster for many individuals vaccinated against COVID-19, data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggest that patients who got the single-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine would be well advised to get a booster with either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine. The Food and Drug Administration had just authorized a second vaccine boost for specific groups of Americans, based …
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