Practice Management
Older adults who receive the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccine are 75% less likely to be hospitalized from RSV compared to those who are not vaccinated, according to a research letter in JAMA. By analyzing electronic medical record data from October 2023 to March 2024 for adults aged 60 years and older who were hospitalized with an acute respiratory illness, researchers selected a control group of 2,611 patients—who tested negative for RSV, COVID-19, and influenza—and …
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What’s worse: getting a vaccine or watching your child in distress when he or she gets a vaccine? For many parents, their own heartbreak when experiencing their child’s needle pain makes vaccines and blood draws that much more difficult for both. In time, as a news item from KFF Health News notes, the distress of needle pain can follow children as they grow, posing a barrier to preventive care into adulthood. As many as a …
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What Should We Do with the Nail? Nailbed Repair in Children Take Home Point: After nail bed repair, discarding the fingernail was associated with similar rates of infection and similar cosmetic outcomes compared to replacement of the fingernail. Citation: Jain A, Grieg A, Jones A, et al. Effectiveness of nail bed repair in children with or without replacing the fingernail: NINJA multicentre randomized clinical trial. BJS, 2023, 110, 432–438 https://doi.org/10.1093/bjs/znad031 Relevance: Procedures for nail bed …
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As of this writing, more than 57 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine have been distributed across the United States. Roughly 16 million people have been vaccinated, with many more to follow. Unfortunately, around one-third of Americans don’t plan to be among them, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. On the assumption that vaccination providers will come to include more urgent care centers, it’s essential that you have solid information to …
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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) has recommended use of the FluMist Quadrivalent nasal spray influenza vaccine in the next influenza season. Starting 2 years ago, healthcare providers have been urged to not use that vaccine because the CDC said there was a lack of efficacy in preventing influenza. However, the new ACIP recommendation comes on the heals of a U.S. study in young children that found vaccines …
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It’s relatively early in the season, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that influenza activity is already rising—and several markers are higher than normally seen this early. Four children have already died this season, and four of the CDC’s 10 regions are at or above their regional baselines. Another bad sign: Australia, whose data are often a predictor of flu severity in the U.S., just completed its worst flu season on record. …
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Just weeks ago, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention revealed there had been more than 2,300 cases of mumps confirmed around the country—more than twice the number that occurred in all of 2015. Today there are over 2,000 under investigation in Arkansas alone, with several other states still reporting higher-than-average outbreaks. Urgent care clinicians in college towns should be aware that campuses in affected areas have been especially hard hit. The University of Missouri …
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Last year’s relatively mild flu season is likely indicative of two things: The vaccine produced was a good match for the prevalent strains of influenza, and this year’s season could be a doozy. The latter point would be borne out by history, which shows that “good” flu seasons are most often followed by “bad” flu seasons. That’s why the Centers for Disease Control and Preventions continues to hammer home the message that early vaccination is …
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Eleven children have died from flu or flu-related illness this year, and roughly 20,000 are hospitalized every year in the U.S. thanks to influenza, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And yet the C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital National Poll on Children’s Health, 2016 reveals that even 14% of parents who had their children immunized against flu this year believe it is “less important” than other childhood vaccines; perhaps less surprisingly, 59% of …
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