Practice Management News

The United States, the United Kingdom, Chile, Germany and Italy have proposed using “immunity passports” as a potential strategy for easing physical distancing measures, according to a paper published in The Lancet. However, a bioethics expert told Healio Primary Care that there are too many barriers for governments to implement them.

May has been commemorated as Older Americans Month since 1963, according to the Administration for Community Living.

Approximately one in 10 Americans used telehealth as an alternative to in-person visits to doctor’s offices, urgent care centers and EDs, according to a survey published last year. However, it was not until the COVID-19 pandemic that the uptake of telehealth dramatically changed, an expert told Healio Primary Care.

Research exploring inhaled nitric oxide’s potential to treat COVID-19 is underway.

A multidisciplinary team developed a process that uses vaporized hydrogen peroxide, or VHP, to disinfect N95 respirators, according to a paper published in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons.

The COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately affected immigrants in the United States, and the disease causing even more difficulty for this population to access quality health care, according to the authors of a JAMA Internal Medicine paper.

CMS recently announced a second round of regulatory waivers and rule changes to expand care to the nation’s seniors and provide health care systems flexibility.

Investigators recently launched the CHASING COVID Cohort study to help physicians and policymakers understand the impact of our public health response to the pandemic on clinical outcomes, and to prepare for future health crises.

The CDC previously reported that about one-third antibiotic prescriptions in the United States are unnecessary. New data suggest that efforts to curb antibiotic overprescribing have taken a step backward during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America.

Developers are using artificial intelligence to help researchers comb through thousands of studies and find relevant COVID-19 information for the development of potential treatments and vaccines.