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Showing results for tags 'Virus'.
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Content ArticleWhen the pandemic began, many nations’ emergency stockpiles came into the spotlight—and were found wanting. Twenty months later, Jane Feinmann asks what happened, and if procurement has got any better.
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Content ArticleWhen Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge upgraded its face masks for staff working on COVID-19 wards to filtering face piece 3 (FFP3) respirators, it saw a dramatic fall – up to 100% – in hospital-acquired SARS-CoV-2 infections among these staff. Healthcare workers – particularly those working on COVID-19 wards – are much more likely to be exposed to coronavirus, so it’s important we understand the best ways of keeping them safe The findings are reported by a team at the University of Cambridge and Cambridge University Hospitals (CUH) NHS Foundation Trust. The research has not yet been peer-reviewed, but is being released early because of the urgent need to share information relating to the pandemic.
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Content ArticleThis report, published by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) in the United States, presents findings from a review of 5,500 patient safety records in which the Covid-19 public health emergency was included as part of the description of the event or unsafe condition. It forms part of a series of Network of Patient Safety Databases Data Spotlight reports.
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Content ArticleThe COVID-19 pandemic continues to be a source of stress and have important mental health implications for all persons but may have unique implications for men. In addition to the risk of contracting and dying from COVID-19, the rising COVID-19 death toll, ongoing economic uncertainty, loneliness from social distancing, and other changes to our lifestyles make up the perfect recipe for a decline in mental health. In June 2020, men reported slightly lower rates of anxiety than women, but had higher rates of depressive symptoms and suicidal ideation. As of September 2020, men sought mental health care at a higher rate than women for family and relationships, with year-over-year visits up 5.5 times and total virtual mental health care visits monthly growth in 2020 was up 79% since January. Because men are not a homogeneous group, it is important to implement strategies for groups of men that may have particularly unique needs. In this paper, Ellison et al. discuss considerations for intervening in men’s mental health during and in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, including current technology-based cyberpsychology options.
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Content Article
COVID Nursing and PTSD (December 2021)
Patient Safety Learning posted an article in Blogs
In an article for the Patient Safety Journal, Cassandra Alexander, a nurse, shares what it is like on the front lines and the toll it has taken on her mental health—a deeply personal and painful story, yet a traumatic experience shared by many nurses around the United States. -
Content ArticleA post on Doctors in Unite website argue that COVID-19 guidelines are fundamentally flawed and not fit for purpose, putting health care workers and patients at serious risk. IPC authorities are increasingly isolated in their view that COVID-19 is spread by droplets and not through the air, a position which is directly contradicted now by official government policy. This article takes a more detailed look at the issues, which demonstrates how unscientific, out of touch and indeed hazardous the guidelines are for health workers and patients.
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Content ArticleReal-time training during global emergencies is critical for effective preparedness and response. The WHO COVID-19 channel provides learning resources for health professionals, decision-makers and the public for the outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID-19). As the outbreak continues to evolve, new resources will be added and existing courses will be updated to best reflect the changing context.
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Content ArticleThis quick guide from Royal College of Occupational Therapists outline the unique role of occupational therapists in supporting adults to manage and recover from Long Covid. They have been written for occupational therapists working in specialist Long Covid services and in other acute, primary, secondary and community settings. The guides will also be useful for service managers and commissioners responsible for planning and delivering specialist Long Covid services, and for parents, carers and families of people affected by Long Covid. See also their guide for children with Long Covid.
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Content ArticleWe catch up with a regular contributor to the hub, theatre nurse Kathy Nabbie, to discuss how she is continuing to ensure patient's are kept safe in theatre, the challenges of COVID-19 and what else we can do to improve safety in the theatre. Kathy was a theatre sister for breast oncoplastic surgery and a practice development lead in a London private hospital group up until August 2017. She now works as a locum theatre bank scrub nurse practitioner and once a week as a non-medical surgical first assistant. She also works for an insourcing company on weekends around the country to help with the backlog of NHS patients who need surgery or treatment in clinics.
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Content ArticleThis leaflet by the Royal College of Midwives provides information for patients on how to prepare for a home visit from a midwife. It covers steps that patients should take to reduce the risk of spreading Covid-19 including handwashing, wearing a face mask and reducing the number of people in the room.
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Content Article‘Health systems recovery’ is a term used to describe the process of restoring and improving the functions of a health system that have been exposed to a shock or public health emergency, such as natural disaster, conflict, or a disease outbreak. This paper from Matthew Neilson and Sheila Leatherman discusses what quality in recovery look like.
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Content ArticleThe Chief Medical Officers (CMOs) of the UK and lead Deputy Chief Medical Officers (DCMOs) for vaccines have considered whether, in the light of the very considerable need to speed up vaccination and boosting in response to Omicron variant, the 15-minute wait for some mRNA COVID-19 vaccines should be suspended. Their view, having considered the views of the COVID-19 Vaccine Benefit-Risk Expert Working Group (EWG), NHS planners and others is that with the low rates of anaphylaxis, in the context of the considerable need for people to be boosted or vaccinated, the 15-minute wait after a vaccination with mRNA vaccine will cause more harm than it can avert because it will significantly reduce the number of people who can be vaccinated over a short period of time. The 15-minute wait should therefore be suspended for first, second and homologous or heterologous boost vaccinations with mRNA vaccine given the current situation, with this operationalised in line with the needs in each of the 4 nations.
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Content ArticleThe purpose of this investigation by the Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch (HSIB) is to help improve patient safety in relation to recognition of the acutely ill infant and child, recognising the difficulty in distinguishing between simple viral illnesses and life-threatening bacterial infections in very young patients. This Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch investigation reviewed the case of Mohammad, a baby who had become unwell and was taken to an emergency department by ambulance following a call to NHS 111. He arrived at 8.04pm and was considered to have a mild viral illness, subsequently being transferred to a paediatric observational ward, and discharged at 11.45pm with a diagnosis of likely bronchiolitis. At approximately 3.40am his mother contacted the ward as his condition worsened, which resulted in a 999 call. The ambulance crew did not consider that Mohammad was seriously ill so did not conduct a ‘blue light’ emergency transfer to hospital. Mohammad was admitted to the emergency department at approximately 4.40am and suffered a respiratory and then cardiac arrest at 5:28am, with attempts to resuscitate unsuccessful and stopped at 6:10am. Mohammad died of septicaemia caused by meningococcus (serogroup B) bacteria.
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Content ArticleThe WHO Academy’s mobile learning app was developed specifically for health workers and is designed to enable them to expand their life-saving skills to battle COVID-19. It delivers mobile access to a wealth of COVID-19 knowledge resources developed by WHO, including up-to-the-minute guidance, tools, training, and virtual workshops to support health workers in caring for patients infected by COVID-19 and in protecting themselves as they do their critical work. With content in seven languages – Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish – the app focuses on providing health workers with critical, evidence-based information and tools to respond to the pandemic.
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Content ArticleThe Health System Response Monitor (HSRM) has been designed in response to the COVID-19 outbreak to collect and organise up-to-date information on how countries are responding to the crisis. It focuses primarily on the responses of health systems but also captures wider public health initiatives. This is a joint undertaking of the WHO Regional Office for Europe, the European Commission, and the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies.
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Content ArticleThe launch of Barts Health quality strategy in November 2019 was an important moment for the trust. The 24 page document set out how they would use quality improvement (QI) methodology to become a good and outstanding group of hospitals. Within weeks of the strategy however, the world had changed with COVID-19. How they worked, where they worked and the things they were working on were flipped on their head. Despite this, colleagues across Barts Health have continued to apply the QI skills they had learnt since the WeImprove programme began three years ago. Examples include setting up family liaison hubs for patients in critical care and establishing a network of blood test locations across the boroughs to reduce visits to the hospitals.
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Content ArticleThe emergence of the omicron variant has raised concerns that the pandemic is not yet over. In this BMJ opinion piece, William et al. outline four key lessons that governments need to learn from to protect against future pandemics
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Content ArticleWearing face masks and maintaining social distance are familiar to many people around the world during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Evidence suggests that these are effective ways to reduce the risk of COVID-19 infection. However, it is not clear how exactly the risk of infection is affected by wearing a mask during close personal encounters or by social distancing without a mask. Results from a study by Bagheri et al. show that face masks significantly reduce the risk of COVID-19 infection compared to social distancing. We find a very low risk of infection when everyone wears a face mask, even if it doesn’t fit perfectly on the face.
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Content ArticleThe People’s Covid Inquiry, chaired by the human rights lawyer Michael Mansfield QC, began in January 2021 to learn lessons quickly after the government rejected calls for a public inquiry. The Government was informed of the inquiry on 23 February 2021 and invited to take part. No response was received. The first session of the People’s Covid Inquiry began on 24 February and convened in live sessions fortnightly until 16 June 2021. The Inquiry took evidence over nine sessions from over 40 witnesses including international and UK experts, frontline workers, bereaved families, trade union leaders, and representatives of disabled people’s and pensioners’ organisations.
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Content ArticleOn 1 February the UK Health Security Agency warned that coverage of the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine’s first dose had dropped below 90% in 2 year olds. By age 5, uptake of two doses had dropped to 85.5%—well below the World Health Organization’s 95% target needed for elimination of measles. The latest quarterly vaccination figures show very small drops in uptake in England from July to September 2020, and uptake continued to decline over the next year. And it’s not just MMR: small decreases have been seen in coverage of other childhood vaccines including the combined diphtheria, hepatitis B, Hib, polio, tetanus, and whooping cough vaccine, as well as those for rotavirus and meningitis B. But MMR is the one that public health officials worry about most because of historically lower uptake and the risks of outbreaks. With uptake of the MMR vaccine falling in the UK, Emma Wilkinson examines whether anti-vaccination sentiment around Covid-19 has played a part.
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Content ArticleDuring the rapid rise in COVID-19 illnesses and deaths globally, and notwithstanding recommended precautions, questions are voiced about routes of transmission for this pandemic disease. Inhaling small airborne droplets is probable as a third route of infection, in addition to more widely recognised transmission via larger respiratory droplets and direct contact with infected people or contaminated surfaces. While uncertainties remain regarding the relative contributions of the different transmission pathways, Morawska et al. argue that existing evidence is sufficiently strong to warrant engineering controls targeting airborne transmission as part of an overall strategy to limit infection risk indoors. Appropriate building engineering controls include sufficient and effective ventilation, possibly enhanced by particle filtration and air disinfection, avoiding air recirculation and avoiding overcrowding. Often, such measures can be easily implemented and without much cost, but if only they are recognised as significant in contributing to infection control goals. The authors believe that the use of engineering controls in public buildings, including hospitals, shops, offices, schools, kindergartens, libraries, restaurants, cruise ships, elevators, conference rooms or public transport, in parallel with effective application of other controls (including isolation and quarantine, social distancing and hand hygiene), would be an additional important measure globally to reduce the likelihood of transmission and thereby protect healthcare workers, patients and the general public.
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Content ArticleAs public health teams respond to the Covid-19 pandemic, containment and understanding of the modes of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) transmission is of utmost importance for policy making. During this time, governmental agencies have been instructing the community on handwashing and physical distancing measures. However, there is no agreement on the role of aerosol transmission for SARS-CoV-2. Tang et al. aimed to review the evidence of aerosol transmission of SARS-CoV-2. Several studies support that aerosol transmission of SARS-CoV-2 is plausible, and the plausibility score (weight of combined evidence) is 8 out of 9. Precautionary control strategies should consider aerosol transmission for effective mitigation of SARS-CoV-2.
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Content ArticleAn author turned junior doctor’s account of the chaos at work and anguish at home as Covid-19 arrived in the UK.
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Content ArticleThis is a video recording of a Health Service Journal (HSJ) Patient Safety Congress webinar, in association with BD, considering some of the key emerging patient safety issues for 2022. The panel discuss the legacy of the Covid-19 pandemic patient and staff safety, what needs to be done to ensure that patient safety is designed into elective care recovery plans and the important role for co-production as part of this.