Thirteen medical and scientific experts urged the Biden administration to take immediate actions to address SARS-CoV-2 inhalation hazards, including issuing an emergency Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) standard. The SARS-CoV-2 virus causes COVID-19, which was declared a pandemic in March 2020.

Signers of the letter to the White House, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and National Institutes of Health (NIH) officials included David Michaels, former OSHA administrator under President Barack Obama.

Point-of-care ultrasound has found an important place in the toolkit of clinicians fighting the spread and effects of COVID-19, according to the chief innovation officer of Baltimore-based LifeBridge Health.

A new generation of handheld ultrasound devices, including the Butterfly iQ, allows faster assessment of pulmonary symptoms of the disease, while minimizing the spread of COVID-19 by reducing the need to move patients and equipment during the treatment process.

LifeBridge Health physicians are now using this ultrasound technology in the ICU to confirm COVID-related conditions such as pleural effusion, a build-up of excess fluid between the layers of the pleura outside the lungs, says Daniel J. Durand, MD, chief innovation officer and chair of radiology at the health system.

Indiana University Health is using an ambulatory post-ICU care clinic to treat COVID-19 patients who survived ICU care and are experiencing coronavirus symptoms after hospital discharge.

Mental health has deteriorated during the COVID-19 pandemic. Patients no longer have access to their normal support systems and outlets, while changes and disruptions to daily life have become the norm. The pandemic has only exacerbated an existing mental health crisis in America that affects millions every day. Even with states now distributing COVID-19 vaccines, the toll on Americans’ psyche won’t go away when the coronavirus does, said Michelle Williams, dean of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, during a January webinar on mental health. 

“Here’s the hard truth: There’s no vaccine for mental illness,” said Williams. “It will be months, if not years, before we are able to grasp the scope of the mental health issues born out of this pandemic. Long after we’ve gained control of this virus, the mental health repercussions will likely continue to reverberate.

Consider joining forces with local or even statewide hospitals to find beds for patients during an emergency surge. The plan could improve patient care while saving precious resources like money, manpower, and staff energy when setting up alternate care sites.

Hospitals banded together with state public health officials in Arizona to create the Arizona Surge Line (ASL), a centralized call center manned 24/7 to quickly find the appropriate level of care and bed space for COVID-19 patients across the state, while also managing patient surges to prevent overwhelming any single facility.

The project began after Lisa Villarroel, MD, MPH, medical director of public health preparedness at the Arizona Department of Health Services (ADHS), read reports from hospitals worldwide about being overrun with patients and running out of critical beds and medical supplies early on in the pandemic.