Credit: KIRSTY CHALLEN, B.SC., MBCHB, MRES, PH.D., LANCASHIRE TEACHING HOSPITALS, UNITED KINGDOM
DES PLAINES, IL - At the beginning of prioritized health care personnel (HPC) immunization, there was a high rate of COVID-19 vaccine acceptance and receipt, with physicians and advance practice providers having the highest overall proportion. These are the findings of a surveillance project on COVID-19 vaccination rates among emergency department staff at United States academic medical centers, which will be published in the April issue of the
Academic Emergency Medicine (AEM) journal, a peer-reviewed journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine (SAEM).
The project report, published in a research letter titled Vaccination rates and acceptance of SARS-CoV-2 vaccination among U.S. emergency department health care personnel, also found that a substantial percentage of emergency department HPCs declined vaccination, primarily due to concerns over safety. Because of this, the au
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PHILADELPHIA While the emergency department (ED) functions as an integral part of the United States healthcare safety net by handling all medical complaints regardless of insurance status, ED visits are expensive, and many are for lower-acuity conditions that may be amenable to care in other settings. Previous research has suggested that greater availability of urgent care centers - freestanding facilities with extended hours that staff emergency physicians, primary care physicians, or nurse practitioners, and focus on a broad range of lower acuity complaints, like rash, muscle strain, bronchitis, and urinary tract infection - helps decrease ED visits, but whether the centers reduce or increase net spending for patients and insurers has yet to be determined.
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PHILADELPHIA Approximately 6.5 million people are under correctional supervision in the United States on any given day. Justice-involved individuals (people currently or recently in prison or jail, on probation or parole, or arrested) experience higher rates of substance use disorders than the general population. In fact, among people with opioid use disorder (OUD), more than half have reported contact with the criminal justice system.
Numerous clinical studies have shown that medications for OUD specifically, methadone or buprenorphine lead to superior outcomes for retention in treatment, reduced illicit opioid use, and decreased opioid-related overdose rates and serious acute care compared with treatments that rely on psychosocial interventions alone. However, due to a number of barriers, including access to health insurance, access to medications for OUD for those on parole, formerly incarcerated, or recently arrested remain significantly lower than the general po
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Bans on menthol cigarettes across Canada from 2016 to 2017 led to a significant increase in the number of smokers who attempted to quit, smokers who quit successfully, and lower rates of relapse among former smokers, according to a new research study from the International Tobacco Control Policy Evaluation Project (the ITC Project) at the University of Waterloo.
Menthol is the most common flavoring for cigarettes in many countries. Menthol creates a cooling sensation, which reduces the harshness of cigarette smoke. Because of this, menthol leads to increased experimentation and progression to regular smoking among new smokers, especially among youth. Our study demonstrates the substantial benefits of banning menthol cigarettes, said Geoffrey T. Fong, Professor of Psychology and Public Health and Health Systems at Waterloo, and principal investigator of the ITC Project. The enormous success of the Canadian menthol ban makes it even clearer now that the U.S. should final