Becker's Hospital Review

82 CMO / CARE DELIVERY Widow inspires Renown Health hospitals to lift visitor restrictions for COVID-19 patients By Kelly Gooch R eno, Nev.-based Renown Health said it lied visitor restrictions and is en- couraging limited visitors for patients, including those with COVID-19. e policy update took effect the morning of Jan. 27, making Renown hospitals among the first nationwide to li visitor restrictions for COVID-19 patients, according to the health system. e update comes as a high percentage of Renown hospital staff have been inoculated and hospitalizations of COVID-19 patients have decreased. Renown said Reno resident Darlene Ran- dolph, whose husband died Dec. 13 at Renown aer a 17-day battle against the virus, inspired the change. Ms. Randolph had limited communication op- tions while her husband was hospitalized, and she spoke with him via video call or phone. "As a registered dietician, she worked in hospi- tals and knew the protocol. She knew, like hos- pitals across the globe, Renown had restricted family members from visiting in order to stop the spread of the virus to other patients, staff and their family members. Still, she wished she could have spent more time with him," said Renown. So, on Christmas Eve, she wrote a letter to Renown President and CEO Anthony Slonim, MD, in which she thanked hospital staff for the care they provided her husband and expressed her wish that she could have been by his side in the facility. e health system leadership team then reviewed Ms. Randolph's request, made a recommenda- tion, and the policy update was adopted, according to Renown. e health system, as of Jan. 27, is allowing one patient supporter per patient to visit at Re- nown Regional Medical Center and Renown South Meadows Medical Center, both in Reno. Renown also extended visiting hours for all patients and is encouraging patients to designate up to two patient supporters. One patient supporter may visit at a time. n Current systolic blood pressure guideline too high for women, study suggests By Mackenzie Bean W omen have a lower normal blood pressure range than men, according to research from the Ce- dars-Sinai Smidt Heart Institute in Los Angeles. Current blood pressure guidelines do not account for these differences and therefore may put women at higher risk of cardiovascular disease, researchers said. For the study, published Feb. 15 in Circulation, research- ers analyzed blood pressure readings for 27,542 people collected as part of four community-based cohort studies. Fifty-four percent of participants were women. Researchers found that men's risk of cardiovascular disease increased after their blood pressure hit 120 mmHg — widely considered the normal upper limit for systolic blood pres- sure. However, this threshold was 110 mmHG for women. Systolic blood pressure levels above this figure for women were linked to a higher risk of developing cardiovascular diseases such as heart attack, heart failure or stroke. "Our latest findings suggest that this one-size-fits-all ap- proach to considering blood pressure may be detrimental to a woman's health," senior study author Susan Cheng, MD, director of the Institute for Research on Healthy Aging at the Smidt Heart Institute, said in a news release. "Based on our research results, we recommend that the medical community reassess blood pressure guidelines that do not account for sex differences." n Intermountain changes mammogram guidelines for women who get COVID-19 vaccine By Mackenzie Bean I ntermountain Healthcare has updated its mammog- raphy guidelines for women who plan to or have already received a COVID-19 vaccine, the health system said Feb. 9. The Salt Lake City-based health system now recom- mends women receive their mammogram screening be- fore getting vaccinated, or delay the procedure until four weeks after their final dose. The change aligns with new recommendations from the Society of Breast Imaging. The society updated its mam- mography recommendations after radiologists nationwide noticed a spike in mammograms showing swollen lymph nodes among women who were recently vaccinated. The policy change aims to avoid false positive results, according to Brett Parkinson, MD, medical director of In- termountain's Breast Care Center. "We've seen this type of swelling on scans before, but never so pronounced because of one type of vaccine," Dr. Parkinson said in a news release emailed to Beck- er's. "We have procedures in place to confirm if swollen lymph nodes are actually cancer, but we don't want to have a patient go through the undue stress and anxiety of follow-up visits if they don't have to." n

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