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Found 500 results
  1. Content Article
    Patient transfers accounted for nearly half of falls events reported to ECRI in a new analysis, underscoring how routine patient movement activities can create major safety vulnerabilities.  The latest data analysis from the ECRI and the Institute for Safe Medication Practices Patient Safety Organization (PSO) shows that patient transfers, toileting and ambulation-related falls are the most common event types. About 30% of falls reported involved patients under 65 years old, challenging the assumption that fall prevention is solely or exclusively an issue for older adults. Data findings When falls happen: Patient transfers, toileting, and ambulation—all routine, necessary care activities—collectively account for more than 85% of reported falls.Transfer is by far the highest risk moment, accounting for nearly half of all falls (45.3%). Toileting is the second most common trigger at 30.7%, while falls occurring during ambulation accounted for 9.4%. Transfer-related falls were defined as those that involve patient movement from one surface or location to another, such as between a bed, chair, stretcher, or wheelchair. Ambulation-related falls occurred while patients were walking or moving through care environments, with or without assistance, including in their hospital room or hallway. Which patients are at risk: Falls are not limited to older patients. Working-age adults (18–64) represented the largest single age group in this analysis, accounting for 29.3% of falls events. This is a reminder that fall risk assessment and prevention protocols, especially in acute care settings, should not overlook younger adults. Where do most falls occur: In this data snapshot, falls are overwhelmingly concentrated in acute care facilities (68.1%) such as hospitals. Falls were also reported across post-acute care facilities like nursing homes, rehabilitation centres, home health, ambulatory care behavioural health, and cancer centres. This is somewhat a reflection of the membership base of the ECRI and ISMP PSO, which includes more acute care hospitals and health systems than nursing homes and post-acute care facilities. Power of reporting: The analysis demonstrates the importance of detailed event reporting. More than 9,000 of the reports were noted as ‘near-misses’ or unsafe conditions (rather than serious events or incidents of harm), which reflects ongoing efforts to encourage reporting. Organizations that collect and analyse near miss events are given insight into conditions, workflows, and processes that could lead to harm and more importantly an opportunity to prevent harm. Large “unknown” categories within fall location and patient age suggest an opportunity to better capture this information to strengthen organisations’ ability to fully understand risk patterns and identify opportunities for improvement.
  2. News Article
    The US has recorded more than 2,000 confirmed measles cases so far this year – near the total of 2,228 recorded in all of 2025, and on track to become the worst year for measles in decades as states struggle with the loss of federal funding for public health. The virus continues to spread in unvaccinated and under-vaccinated communities, including among babies too young to be vaccinated, and it reveals the depths of the twin crises of misinformation and public health in the US. The US recorded 2,030 cases on 4 June, though experts believe the true number is about three times higher. Cases in Utah appear to be winding down, while cases in Virginia and Pennsylvania appear to be picking up. “I think it’s going to be a busy summer,” said Andrew Pavia, a George and Esther Gross presidential professor at the University of Utah who spoke in his personal capacity as an infectious disease expert. Utah has shown a new side of the outbreak. “What makes Utah different than South Carolina and Texas is that it spread throughout the entire state and became much more widely distributed,” Pavia said. Even so, there were two factors that made a difference in whether cases were contained, Pavia noted: “It hit hardest in communities that had relatively low vaccination rates and relatively limited public health departments.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 10 June 2026
  3. Event
    This session will explore innovations and safety strategies in parenteral nutrition (PN), emphasising the clinical role of alternative lipid sources. Speakers will share actionable strategies and best practices for the use of alternative lipids in nutrition, PN’s place in clinical therapy, and best practices for multi-chamber bag PN. Upon completion of the program, participants will be able to: Outline the types of alternative lipid sources available for parenteral nutrition and their clinical applications, benefits, and considerations in patient care. Describe the role of supplemental and total parenteral nutrition in the overall nutritional management of patients. Explain the place in therapy and steps to safely implement use of multi-chamber bag parenteral nutrition. Register
  4. News Article
    Would you trust an AI chatbot to be your therapist, medical professional or confidante? New research shows that one in five American adolescents between the ages of 12-21 (around 8.2 million) are turning to Big AI’s chatbots for help with their mental health. That marks a more than 40% increase in the past year, rising from just one in eight the previous year, a 1,009-person survey from the non-profit research institute RAND found. The findings may not come as that much of a shock following the rise of chatbot use in schools and data showing that nearly half of U.S. teens used the platform multiple times each month. Still, they raise many questions about the impact of asking AI for mental health guidance. Mental health among U.S. teenagers has been at crisis levels in recent years, and suicide is the second leading cause of death for that age group, according to Johns Hopkins Medicine. AI chatbots have also been involved in investigations of the deaths of several U.S. teenagers who died by suicide, according to reports. Read full story Source: The Independent, 2 June 2026
  5. News Article
    Healthcare AI solutions tout their ability to identify more at-risk patients and irregularities imperceptible to physicians, all while keeping a human in the loop. But are there enough humans to handle all this additional demand brought on by AI? That’s a question healthcare leaders in the United States are grappling with as the technology expands across the industry. “You don’t want to be, say, implementing something that’s going to scan every patient for a particular disease, which costs you a lot of money if you can’t do anything about it, because you don’t have the appointments downstream to actually manage that,” said Michael Pfeffer, MD, senior vice president and chief information and digital officer of Palo Alto, Calif.-based Stanford Health Care, at Becker’s 16th Annual Meeting in April. “So you have to look at the entire workflow and value chain to see: Is it the right tool to put in?” As for keeping a human in the loop on AI, Dr. Pfeffer said that’s just not feasible — or even necessary — in every instance. Research is showing that physicians increasingly trust AI and are not going to check every summary and citation the technology makes. Where the human element becomes critical is if, say, AI detects a hospital patient is deteriorating from a lack of fluids — a human clinician then has to administer fluids. “We’ve been thinking exactly about the same thing, and we hold ‘human in the loop’ as sort of a bulwark for safety,” said Sri Adusumalli, MD, vice president and chief health information officer of Philadelphia-based Penn Medicine, during the panel discussion. “But we know we humans are terrible at vigilance of algorithms and other technology tools. So banking on humans in the loop as that bulwark is not sustainable. Plus, there are not enough humans.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: Becker's Health IT, 22 May 2026
  6. Content Article
    Traditional paediatric intensive care unit (ICU) care has meant keeping young patients immobilised by sedation, which allows them to rest and ease their pain and suffering. However, for patients who recover, this practice can often leave them physiologically dependent on opioids and benzodiazepines, with disturbed sleep, increased delirium, and physical atrophy. And this practice fails to allow dying patients meaningful interaction with their loved ones. PICU Up! was developed at the Johns Hopkins Children's Center in the US over a 2-year period of methodical protocol implementation and review, including pre- and post-launch testing by caregivers in every clinical discipline across the PICU. Study results demonstrated that a bundled intervention to create a healing environment in the PICU with structured activity is safe, feasible, and may have benefits for short- and long-term outcomes of critically ill children. It has since been successfully adapted at 200+ hospitals globally and implemented directly at 25+ children's hospitals nationwide.
  7. News Article
    The US supreme court upheld nationwide access to mail-order mifepristone, an abortion medication, in a shadow-docket decision on Thursday. Louisiana sued the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in October in a bid to curtail the regulatory agency’s rules on prescribing mifepristone remotely, arguing that it interfered with the state’s ban on abortion. The fifth circuit ruled in Louisiana’s favor on 1 May, effectively banning mail-order mifepristone for the entire country. Two mifepristone manufacturers, Danco Laboratories and GenBioPro, filed an emergency request with the supreme court, which granted a temporary stay until at least Thursday. In a 7-2 decision with dissents from justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, the court sided against the fifth circuit, ending the ban – for now. In his dissent, Thomas called the mailing of mifepristone to patients “criminal enterprise”. He also noted that the 1873 Comstock Act, which broadly banned people from using the mail to send anything “obscene, lewd or lascivious”, including “any article or thing designed or intended for the prevention of conception or procuring an abortion”, should apply to mifepristone. Medication accounts for approximately two-thirds of abortions in the US. In large part because of mailed medication, abortion rates have stayed steady in the US despite bans in several states. Years of research have shown that abortion medications are safe and effective. The recent legal challenges, after the Dobbs decision that upended nationwide access to abortion, have been based on politics rather than evidence, experts say. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 14 May 2026
  8. News Article
    Officials from the US Food and Drug Administration have blocked the publication of several studies of Covid-19 and shingles vaccines conducted by the agency’s own scientists, it has emerged. Each blocked study showed the safety of widespread use of vaccines for both conditions. A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services has confirmed the move, first reported by the New York Times. FDA scientists conducted the studies, in which they analysed millions of patient records, with the help of a data firm and millions in taxpayer dollars. Two Covid-19 vaccine studies were accepted for publication by medical journals, but in October 2025 the authors were told to withdraw them. In February 2026 top FDA officials did not sign off two studies of Shingrix, a shingles vaccine. The abstracts required approval for submission to a conference on drug safety. When questioned by The BMJ the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which oversees the FDA, defended the decision. “The studies were withdrawn because the authors drew broad conclusions that were not supported by the underlying data,” Emily Hilliard, HHS press secretary, told The BMJ. “The FDA acted to protect the integrity of its scientific process and ensure that any work associated with the agency meets its high standards.” Critics said the blocks on the studies were another example of antivaccine sentiment from the HHS head, US health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr. Read full story Source: BMJ, 8 May 2026
  9. Content Article
    This study, published in JAMA Network Open, considered how often and what types of patient safety events are reported by paediatric home health care staff. Researchers undertook a multistate cohort study of paediatric home health care data of 2,901 children, more than 1 in 10 children had an incident reported by agency staff. In this cohort it found that more than 1 in 10 had a reported incident, of which approximately half were patient safety related. This work provides new data about paediatric home health safety, with the authors suggesting that further work should explore factors contributing to and preventing health care related harms to children at home and include parent perspectives.
  10. News Article
    More babies are suffering life-threatening bleeding across the U.S. as parents skip a basic injection for their newborns with vaccine skepticism rampant in today’s world, and doctors are sounding the alarm about the rising trend. Medical experts say the decline in standard vitamin K injections for newborns is leading to preventable deaths and severe brain injuries. Data from a national study of more than 5 million births, published in the journal JAMA, found that the rate of infants not receiving the shot at birth reached 5% in 2024. This represents a 77% increase since 2017. In some hospital systems, such as St. Luke’s Health System in Idaho, refusal rates have more than doubled since the start of the pandemic, with one facility reporting that 20% of families opted out of the procedure. Medical records and autopsy reports reviewed by ProPublica show a recent string of infant deaths across several states, including Maryland, Alabama, Texas and Kentucky. Pathologists attributed these deaths to vitamin K deficiency bleeding, a condition where the blood cannot clot, causing internal haemorrhaging. Research shows that infants who do not receive the shot are 81 times more likely to develop late-onset bleeding than those who do. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, one in five babies who develop the condition will die. Read full story Source: The Independent, 6 May 2026
  11. News Article
    Access to mifepristone, the FDA-approved medication used to end pregnancy, could become severely limited following a ruling from a US appeals court on Friday, which temporarily blocked the drug from being dispensed through the mail. The decision is for now the most sweeping threat to abortion access since the supreme court rolled back abortion rights in 2022, said Kelly Baden, vice-president at the Guttmacher Institute, an abortion rights advocacy group. “If allowed to stand, it would severely restrict access to mifepristone in every state, including those where abortion is broadly legal and where voters have acted to protect abortion rights,” she said. The so-called “abortion pill” is part of a two-drug regimen backed by decades of evidence for its efficacy and safety, and is used in the majority of abortions in the US. Usage has risen in recent years, especially in the aftermath of the 2022 ruling from the supreme court that overturned federal protections for the right to an abortion. In the year after that decision, the FDA formally modified its regulations to allow the drug to be prescribed online, expanding its use even in states where abortion care was being constricted. The drug has become a key target for the anti-abortion movement, and a series of lawsuits have challenged the drug’s initial approval in 2000 and the subsequent rules making it easier to obtain. Meanwhile, with the FDA now under Trump, the agency has opened a review of the medication. Once this analysis is completed, officials at the agency said, they will determine if changes to its regulations are warranted. Reproductive rights advocates have voiced concerns that the review could further limit mifepristone’s use, despite the evidence supporting its safety. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 4 May 2026
  12. News Article
    Fewer and fewer Americans can afford healthcare and the situation has reached a “crisis point,” according to an urgent warning from the American Heart Association. And with total healthcare spending expected to account for 20 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product over the coming decade, people could feel even more financial pain, medical experts cautioned Thursday. Total healthcare spending by U.S. adults currently sits at $5 trillion annually, driven largely by chronic disease, the association’s advisory said. Rising costs often mean that people will forgo initial care, increasing the likelihood for more serious problems and therefore greater costs down the road. The American Heart Association identified some causes behind people’s rising healthcare costs as complex administration at facilities, and a lack of investment in prevention and public health across the U.S. The doctors called on lawmakers and the healthcare industry to address the crisis. Read full story Source: The Independent, 30 April 2026
  13. Content Article
    The Betsy Lehman Center's 2025 Annual Report highlights continued progress on the Roadmap to Health Care Safety for Massachusetts, a first-in-the-nation strategic plan to propel investment, action and transformative change across the Commonwealth’s healthcare continuum. The report highlights programmes to support safety efforts in provider organisations and new initiatives to improve data collection and transparency. 
  14. News Article
    The health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, faced intense questioning from several US senators on Wednesday during a hearing largely focused on how the administration has responded to the measles outbreak and the spread of vaccine misinformation. In his opening remarks to the Senate finance committee, the senator Ron Wyden criticizsed Kennedy’s messaging on vaccines, saying: “When it comes to vaccines, Robert Kennedy has used this once-in-a-lifetime platform to make parents doubt themselves and doubt their doctors,” before adding: “The secretary has ducked, bobbed and weaved without taking the responsibility of saying what needs to be said: vaccines save lives in America.” Tensions rose when the discussion turned to the measles outbreak, with Wyden challenging Kennedy directly over his long-held views on vaccines. Kennedy has consistently sought to separate himself from responsibility for the outbreak during recent Capitol Hill appearances. Public health specialists have argued that Kennedy failed to strongly promote vaccination and instead highlighted unproven treatments such as steroids while the virus spread across state lines. Kennedy, however, maintained that the US managed the outbreak more effectively than any other nation, noting that Mexico and Canada reported higher numbers of cases. “I had nothing to do with the measles outbreak here,” he reiterated. “We have limited our outbreak better than any country in the world.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 22 April 2026
  15. News Article
    A GLP-1 weight loss pill, already on sale in the United States, has hit a regulatory snag. The Food and Drug Administration has asked U.S. drugmaker Eli Lilly to collect more long-term safety data on its once-daily tablet Foundayo, according to an 1 April letter published by the FDA Tuesday. The FDA approved the pill under its programme to fast-track drugs using 72-week, Phase 3 trial data but still needs to look at years-long data to understand all of the potential risks. At the heart of the request is whether taking Foundayo - made using a new active ingredient called orforglipron - could be linked to liver, heart and gastrointestinal problems. “We have determined that only a clinical trial (rather than a nonclinical or observational study) will be sufficient to assess a signal of a serious risk of retained gastric contents and to identify an unexpected serious risk for major adverse cardiovascular events, drug-induced liver injury and exposure to [Foundayo] during lactation,” the FDA wrote. Eli Lilly has until the end of April to complete that clinical trial and until July to submit a final report. An Eli Lilly spokesperson told The Independent that “patient safety is Lilly’s top priority” and that the company actively monitors, evaluates and reports safety information for all its medicines. Read full story Source: The Independent, 16 April 2026
  16. News Article
    A surgeon in Florida has been indicted for manslaughter after he wrongly removed a patient’s liver instead of his spleen during an August 2024 procedure. Thomas Shaknovsky, 44, was indicted by a grand jury in Tallahassee on Monday after prosecutors said he botched the surgery of 70-year-old William Bryan, of Muscle Shoals, Alabama. The jury of the first judicial circuit heard that Shaknovsky, of DeFuniak Springs, 120 miles (193km) west of Tallahassee, had been scheduled to perform an operation called a laparoscopic splenectomy on the patient, but instead cut out the man’s liver. The consequence was “catastrophic blood loss and the patient’s death on the operating table”, according to a press release from Michael Adkinson, the Walton county sheriff. Thomas Shaknovsky was indicted on Monday in Tallahassee after prosecutors said he botched the surgery of 70-year-old William Bryan. Photograph: Walton county sheriff’s office Shaknovsky was taken into custody in Miramar Beach, Florida, on Monday morning and taken to the Walton county jail ahead of a scheduled first court appearance on Tuesday, the sheriff said. Court filings, and an emergency order of license suspension by the Florida department of health less than a month after Bryan’s death, detailed how Shaknovsky allegedly insisted that he press on with the operation at Ascension Sacred Heart Emerald Coast in Miramar Beach even after it was obvious he had made a mistake. “Dr Shaknovsky removed an organ he believed to be the spleen, but due to his shock and the chaos, he was unable to properly identify the organ,” prosecutors said. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 14 April 2026
  17. News Article
    Nearly half of Americans are somewhat skeptical of vaccines, a new poll has found. Some 46% of U.S. adults who responded to a Public First poll by Politico in March agreed that “facts on vaccines are still up for debate and it is damaging to enforce their uptake.” In contrast, only 39% said that the science on vaccines “is clear and it is damaging to question it.” The results of the survey are in line with the views of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime vaccine skeptic and founder of the Republican “Make America Healthy Again” movement. “What stands out is that vaccine safety and vaccine choice are no longer fringe issues,” Mary Holland, CEO of anti-vax group Children’s Health Defense, which Kennedy previously led before taking his post in government, told Politico. “People want to be able to make their own medical decisions.” Astonishingly, overall, 39% of respondents to Politico’s survey said they would allow vaccine-preventable diseases to return, rather than force people to have vaccines, in contrast to 47% who said they would rather not. During his tenure as Health Secretary, Kennedy has overseen several major changes within his department and its policies, including the attempted overhaul of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the elimination of Covid-19 vaccine recommendations. Last week, it was reported that the CDC had delayed publishing a report showing the benefits of the Covid vaccine, further sparking concerns that the information conflicted with Kennedy’s views. The CDC insisted that the move followed standard procedure. Read full story Source: The Independent, 14 April 2026
  18. News Article
    Taking acetaminophen – known in the US by the brand name Tylenol – during pregnancy has no effect on later autism diagnoses, according to a sweeping new study from Denmark published on Monday. The Trump administration has targeted Tylenol use in pregnancy as a major cause of autism in children, which appears to have led to a drop in pregnant people taking the pain reliever. Health officials announced in September 2025 that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) would initiate a label change for acetaminophen, warning of a potential link to autism. Trump cautioned several times against taking the pain reliever during pregnancy. “If you’re pregnant, don’t take Tylenol,” Trump said at a press conference at the time. “Don’t take Tylenol. Don’t have your baby take Tylenol.” He said the medication was “not good” and taking Tylenol during pregnancy was associated with “a very increased risk of autism”. Through Denmark’s robust national healthcare system, researchers were able to track more than 1.5 million children ‌born between 1997 and 2022 in the national health registry, including 31,098 children who were exposed to Tylenol in utero. Autism was diagnosed in 1.8% of children who were exposed to Tylenol and 3% of those who weren’t, according to the study, which was published in Jama Pediatrics. A similar 2024 study in Sweden found a marginal link that disappeared after taking siblings into account, suggesting that autism is strongly genetic, which has already been demonstrated in other studies. Tylenol is safe to take during pregnancy and can play a key role in relieving pain and bringing down fevers. Yet after the September announcement, Tylenol orders for pregnant women in emergency rooms dropped by 16% in the initial study period, according to a Lancet study published last month. Health officials’ “words are affecting behavior”, said Jeremy Faust, a co-author of that Lancet study, an emergency physician at Mass General Brigham and a health services researcher at Harvard Medical School. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 13 April 2026
  19. News Article
    More than 400 hospitals across the United States are facing closure or slashing crucial services due to coming Medicaid cuts, a new analysis from progressive watchdog organization, Public Citizen, has found. Cuts to the federal and state health insurance program are expected to reduce access to health care for many Americans, raising insurance costs and limiting state funding. Roughly 8 million people are projected to become uninsured by 2034, the nonpartisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities said. Losing millions of patients could throttle income for 446 hospitals in 44 states and Washington, D.C., Public Citizen said. The hospitals serve 6.6 million patients and employ 275,458 workers. “[The cuts] will have knock-on effects on hospitals that disproportionately serve these communities, deepening the financial strain already plaguing rural and safety-net hospitals and compromising their ability to deliver care, potentially leading many to close,” the report warned. Read full story Source: The Independent, 31 March 2026
  20. Content Article
    Hospitalised patients in the US tended to have a lower chance of dying or being readmitted within 30 days when they were treated by female physicians rather than male clinicians, a recent study published in Annals of Internal Medicine found. The difference in outcomes for patients examined by female vs male physicians translated into 1 fewer death per 417 hospitalizations, and 1 fewer readmission per 208 hospitalizations, according to the researchers. The data were based on about 776 900 Medicare beneficiaries aged 65 years or older who were treated by more than 42 100 clinicians.
  21. News Article
    Amid upheaval to the US vaccine advisory committee Robert Malone, the former co-chair and controversial figure who has opposed vaccines, says he has been pushed out and will not be involved in any future decisions. The move comes after a federal judge stayed the appointment of 13 members of the advisory committee on immunization practices (ACIP), essentially invalidating their roles on the committee and the decisions they have made. Those new advisers were all hand-picked by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, after he fired the previous 17 members of the ACIP in June – but the judge ruled they were unqualified and not selected properly. The US now has no functioning advisory committee, and several key vaccines are no longer recommended, including the latest version of flu and Covid shots and the inclusion of the RSV shot for infants in the federal Vaccines for Children program, which covers immunisations for more than half of US children. Malone has incorrectly claimed that vaccines are dangerous and ineffective; at one point, he was banned from Twitter for allegedly spreading misinformation. In the most recent ACIP meeting in December, he frequently interrupted other advisers and outside experts, and he raised doubts about the vaccination schedule. “The specific elephant, in this case, has to do with cumulative risk across the entire childhood vaccine schedule, and that is a risk for which we do not have adequate data,” he said – a claim disputed by the CDC’s own data. “It is good that Dr Malone wishes now to decrease drama regarding vaccines,” which “contrasts” with his prior statements, said Joseph Hibbeln, a psychiatrist and nutritional neuroscientist who was also appointed to the committee in June. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 25 March 2026
  22. News Article
    As colon cancer rates are rising among people in their 20s and 30s, some adults in the US who are under 45 and experiencing worrying symptoms are struggling to get insurance coverage for colonoscopies, which can detect colon cancer. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) requires insurance companies to cover colonoscopies for people over 45 “because it’s been recommended by the US Preventive Services Task Force”, says Caitlin Murphy, a cancer epidemiologist and professor at the University of Chicago. The ACA requires preventive screenings, including pap smears, for example, to be completely covered. But, Murphy noted, for people “under 45, if you have symptoms like rectal bleeding, a colonoscopy would be considered a diagnostic test, and so it’s not going to be covered in the same way as a screening test would be”. She added that the cost of a diagnostic colonoscopy a given insurance plan will cover varies widely. Dominick, a 35-year-old software engineer living in Florida, learned about the distinction between preventative and diagnostic colonoscopy the hard way. His doctor recommended a colonoscopy after he experienced bowel movement changes, stomach pain and weight loss. At first, his insurance company said it would be covered. Then, three hours before the procedure was scheduled, he got a call saying the colonoscopy wouldn’t be covered because it was considered diagnostic. The out-of-pocket cost for Dominick’s colonoscopy was roughly $2,000, which he paid for with a credit card because he didn’t have the cash readily available. The procedure later revealed a precancerous polyp, which he had removed – he said it’s scary to think about what could have happened if he hadn’t been able to find a way to pay. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 23 March 2026
  23. Content Article
    Like everyone, health workers deserve the right to pursue mental health care without fear of losing their job. However, overly invasive mental health questions in licensing and credentialing applications prevent health workers from seeking support and are a primary driver of suicide in the healthcare workforce. Such questioning tends to be broad or stigmatizing, such as asking about past mental health care and substance use treatment, which has no bearing on a health worker’s ability to provide care and may violate the Americans with Disabilities Act. The Dr Lorna Breen Heroes' Foundation’s mission is to reduce burnout of health care professionals and safeguard their well-being and job satisfaction. We envision a world where seeking mental health services is universally viewed as a sign of strength for health care professionals. The Foundation has three main bodies of work targeted at making a long-standing impact on this issue: Advising the health care industry to implement well-being initiatives. Building awareness of these issues to reduce the stigma. Funding research and programmes that will reduce health care professional burnout and improve provider well-being.
  24. Content Article
    This report from Press Ganey draws on data from 1.3 million employees, 23.5 million patients, and 7.1 million safety events to examine where safety performance is strengthening, where it remains fragile, and what leadership actions will accelerate progress. It uses national safety culture data, workforce engagement metrics, patient safety event reporting patterns, safety outcomes, and patient experience insights. Key insights in this report include: Safety culture is a leading indicator of workforce stability. Seven of the top 10 national key drivers of employee engagement are related to safety culture, placing it among the strongest engagement drivers in the industry. Active reporting means higher performance. Facilities that report safety events at or above the expected rate in the Press Ganey High Reliability Platform™ are more than 8x as likely to rank in the top quartile for employee–manager collaboration, learning from mistakes, teamwork within units, and perception of care quality. Strong learning systems and reporting cultures reinforce one another. Organisations that excel in cause analysis rigor and action plan strength are more likely to sustain robust reporting environments, creating a virtuous cycle of visibility, accountability, and progress. Social capital is the connective tissue that brings everything together. Social capital is the force multiplier behind safety performance. Organisations that lead on employees’ responses to questions about respect and teamwork are 3x more likely to achieve top-quartile patient loyalty scores and 50–80% more likely to excel on key safety outcomes. Safety suffers when a single organisation operates as three hospitals under one roof. Many organisations struggle with consistency of experience depending on shift resulting in what seems to employees and patients like three hospitals under the same roof. Staff perceive safety culture differently and patient experience of care varies based on shift—day, night, or weekend. This variance between days vs. nights and weekends can lead to more safety events and patients feeling less safe. Learnings come from the Patient Safety Organization (PSO). Learnings from the Press Ganey PSO can be leveraged to understand how and when harm occurs across the industry based on trending data. The members of the PSO gather insights from the more than 190 health system partners and 7.1 million patient safety event records in its national database.
  25. News Article
    NHS hospitals are being urged by a group of doctors, human rights groups and campaigners to reconsider using a major data platform built by US tech giant Palantir, whose owners include Peter Thiel, a close ally of US President Donald Trump. The NHS Federated Data Platform (FDP) is a system designed to bring together information from across the health service so hospitals can analyse it more easily and improve how care is delivered. Supporters say the technology is already helping the NHS treat more patients and manage pressure on services, but critics argue it raises wider concerns about privacy, ethics and the role of large technology companies in handling sensitive public sector data. The FDP aims to connect operational data from across the NHS, including information about waiting lists, hospital capacity and patient pathways, allowing staff to plan care and allocate resources more effectively. Dr Rhiannon Mihranian Osborne wants the contract to be scrapped, and has told Sky News that staff understand the importance of privacy and ethics in patient care. She said they are "horrified" by Palantir's involvement in the scheme as it "could seriously damage trust in our health system". Read full story Source: Sky News, 15 March 2026

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