Becker's Hospital Review

21 CMO / CARE DELIVERY CDC head departs By Erica Carbajal Rochelle Walensky, MD, exited her role as director of the CDC at the end of June. e agency announced her plans to transition out of the agency May 5, citing Dr. Walensky's comments in a letter to President Joe Biden. "e end of the COVID-19 public health emergency marks a tremendous transition for our country, for public health, and in my tenure as CDC director," she wrote to the president. "I took on this role, at your request, with the goal of leaving behind the dark days of the pandemic and moving CDC — and public health — forward into a much better and more trusted place." Dr. Walensky took the helm of the CDC in January 2021 and led through a period where the agency received persistent criticism for its antiquated systems and missteps related to the nation's COVID-19 response. In December, Dr. Walensky urged Congress to grant the agency more funding and authority to improve data reporting and accelerate its response to public health crises. At the start of 2023, Dr. Walensky unveiled a comprehensive plan to overhaul the agency's structure. e plan came aer a comprehensive review uncovered deep holes in the CDC's emergency preparedness strategy. "We really have to demonstrate that we're action- oriented," Dr. Walensky told Bloomberg at the time. "I don't want to repeat old mistakes." e plan, dubbed Moving Forward, is underway, the CDC said in its May 5 announcement. "Changes are under way on everything from expanding the number of staff who are ready to respond to a disease outbreak to the implementation of plain language trainings to the overhaul of CDC's website, so that it's easier for people to find the public health information they need," the announcement reads. "Rochelle Walensky has been an extraordinary leader and a terrific partner," Ashish Jha, MD, the White House COVID-19 response coordinator, said in a tweet. "She has done the critical work of launching major reforms to ensure we have an even more effective CDC." Dr. Walensky also oversaw response efforts to the nation's mpox outbreak and the Ebola outbreak in Uganda during her tenure at the agency. Before joining the CDC, she was chief of the division of infectious diseases at Boston-based Massachusetts General Hospital and a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. n 43% of physicians regret their career choice: AMA By Mariah Taylor R esearchers discovered only 57.5 percent of physicians said they would choose to become a physician again, compared to 72.2 percent of physicians in 2020. The American Medical Association, Mayo Clinic, Stanford University School of Medicine and the University of Colorado School of Medicine collaborated to survey 2,440 physicians between Dec. 9, 2021, and Jan. 24, 2022. The study, published in Mayo Clinic Proceedings, compared scores for burnout, professional fulfillment and work life integration between 2020 and 2021. Professional fulfillment scores — defined as a sense of satisfaction or meaning that comes from work — for physicians dropped by nearly 18 percent in only a year. Here are five more survey findings: 1. Professional fulfillment scores dropped from 40 percent in 2020 to 22.4 percent in 2021. 2. Emotional exhaustion scores increased 38.6 percent, and depersonalization scores increased 60.7 percent. 3. Of physicians, 62.8 percent manifested at least one trait of burnout, compared to 38.2 percent in 2020. 4. Satisfaction with work-life integration declined from 46.1 percent in 2020 to 30.2 percent in 2021. 5. Depression scores increased by 6.1 percent. n Mass Gen opens 'discharge lounge' to address capacity challenges By Erica Carbajal Massachusetts General Hospital has opened a "discharge lounge" — a new way the Boston-based hospital is alleviating capacity challenges. The lounge is a designated space in the hospital's lobby for patients waiting to be transported home and enables the hospital to open up beds for new admissions sooner than they would be able to otherwise. The initiative ran as a pilot program during the first few months of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Now, it serves nearly 125 patients per month. Patients typically spend one hour after discharge occupying a bed while waiting to be picked up. Now, that time can be spent in the lounge, where they'll be given free meal vouchers and are offered support if they need transportation services. "When we think about addressing capacity challenges, small interventions like the Discharge Lounge add up to have a large impact," Tina Stone, MSN, RN, associate chief nurse with MGH's Capacity Coordination Center, said in a May 15 news release. "Thanks to these initiatives, we have the opportunity to discharge patients sooner when appropriate, which leads to less backup in the Emergency Department." n

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