Iowa news
Mary Greeley’s Sprecher among 55 patient safety experts to know
Jo-el Sprecher, patient experience and safety director at Mary Greeley Medical Center, was honored in Becker’s 2023 “patient safety experts to know” list. Sprecher helps senior leadership with the development and operationalization of strategic plans for patient safety and experience. She is charged with leading patient rounding efforts, internal auditing processes and goal-setting. Sprecher’s work has led to the implementation of a new patient entertainment and engagement system, digital rounding platform, remote nursing and digital patient outreach program, safety rounding and leadership rounding. (Becker’s Hospital Review)
University of Iowa medical college lands $28M to take research to rural Iowa
For the fourth time since 2007, the National Institutes of Health has renewed a large scientific grant for the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine, this time awarding it $28 million over seven years to take clinical research to rural communities. The award from the NIH-associated National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences supports work by the university’s Institute for Clinical and Translational Science, established the same year of its first award in 2007. With past grants and renewals, the UI expects to have received $114 million through the award by 2030. (The Gazette)
IHCA Foundation receives $100k for new nursing scholarship endowment
The Iowa Health Care Association Foundation has received a $100,000 donation from the John R. and Zelda Z. Grubb Charitable Foundation to establish a registered nurse scholarship endowment. The donation will be invested in an endowment fund at the Community Foundation of Greater Des Moines, and one $3,000 scholarship will be awarded each year from the fund to an Iowa long-term care employee committed to securing a registered nurse license and continuing to work in long-term care. The foundation is accepting applications for the scholarship and other health care education scholarship programs. Applications are due May 31, and recipients will be announced in July. (Business Record)
National news
Congress urged to make certain Medicare telehealth access permanent
Telehealth Access for America, an AHA-supported campaign to protect patient access to critical telehealth services, urged Congress to make permanent certain Medicare telehealth flexibilities granted during the COVID-19 public health emergency and extended through 2024 by the Consolidated Appropriations Act. According to a recent study, nearly three-in-four virtual care users want Congress to make telehealth flexibilities permanent. (American Hospital Association)
A low-cost device, paired with a quick bundle of treatments to stop blood loss, could help prevent an estimated 22,000 maternal deaths per year, according to new research. A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine investigated ways to detect and reduce the prevalence of postpartum hemorrhages, the leading cause of maternal mortality worldwide and the second-leading cause in the U.S., behind mental health conditions. The researchers looked at the use of a device called a calibrated plastic drape, essentially a plastic bag with labels to identify levels of blood loss up to 500 milliliters, which is considered the baseline for postpartum hemorrhage. (NBC News)
CDC finds ED visits for mental health conditions have fallen 10%
Weekly emergency department visits nationwide for mental health conditions and drug overdoses among adolescents, have fallen by 10%, but levels are still slightly increasing for adolescent female patients. Although it’s known that COVID-19 exacerbated mental health conditions, an analysis of medical record data from 75% of the nation’s emergency departments between January 2019 and February 2023 revealed that emergency department visits of this kind for females are at or higher than the pre-pandemic baseline for mental health conditions overall, suicide-related behaviors and drug overdoses. Meanwhile, emergency department visits of the same category for male patients have stabilized. (Becker’s Clinical Leadership and Infection Control)