Becker's Hospital Review

88 CMO / CARE DELIVERY HHS Renews Emergency Designation for Opioid Crisis: 4 Things to Know By Brian Zimmerman E ric Hargan, acting secretary for HHS, on Jan. 19 renewed the agen- cy's declaration of public health emergency for the nation's ongoing opioid crisis. Here are four things to know. 1. Mr. Hargan first made the declaration in late October of last year aer a directive from President Donald Trump, which was set to expire Jan. 23. e renewal extends the declaration to April 23. 2. e designation allows the federal health agency to expedite the hiring of treatment specialists and reallocate funds to respond to the overdose epidemic. "is is further evidence of the Trump administration's strong, ongoing commit- ment to addressing this crisis and protect- ing the health and well-being of the Amer- ican people," said a spokesperson from HHS on Jan. 19, according to Politico. 3. Public health experts maintain the des- ignation has actually had little effect on the crisis, as it does not alone generate substantial new funding to address the national emergency. 4. While the Trump administration has tak- en steps outside the designation to address the opioid epidemic — including advancing research into nonopioid pain medication at the National Institutes of Health — some public health experts maintain that new funding is key to success under the emer- gency declaration. "We are hopeful the administration and Congress will use this renewal to focus on getting new dollars to states to scale up treatment, recovery and prevention pro- grams," said Mike Fraser, PhD, executive director of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, according to Politico. n Transferring Patients Between Hospitals May Up C. Diff Risk By Anuja Vaidya A study, published in the American Journal of Infection Control, examined the impact of interhospital patient transfers on the risk of Clostridium dif- ficile infection. Researchers examined the number of interhospital patient transfers and C. diff cases from 11 academic and 40 large community hospitals between 2010 and 2015 in Canada. They used the data to compute a C. diff score for each sending facility as a measure of C. diff pressure on the receiving facility. The C. diff score ranged from 0 to 103. Every 10-point increase in the C. diff score was associated with a 4.5 percent increase in the incidence of C. diff in the receiving academic hospital and 3.6 percent increase in the receiving large community hospital. "Our results suggest interhospital patient transfers increase the risk of CDI," study authors concluded. "Antimicrobial stewardship programs appear to reduce this risk; however, these ASP effects demonstrate significant heterogeneity across hospitals." n Majority of Nurses Have Been Harassed by Patients: 5 Things to Know By Megan Knowles W hen asked whether they had been harassed by a patient, significantly more nurses (71 percent) than physicians (47 percent) said "yes," ac- cording to a Medscape report. Medscape gathered responses from 569 nurses, 408 physicians and 68 other healthcare providers on their experiences with harassment in an online poll Dec. 20. Here are five things to know about the report. 1. The poll defined harassment as patients stalking providers, making persistent attempts at communication or engaging in inappropriate contact with providers on social media. One of the questions addressed physical harassment. 2. More than twice as many women took the poll as men. Ninety percent of nurse respondents were female, as were 66 percent of healthcare providers and 41 percent of physicians. 3. When compared by gender, female nurses and physicians were significantly more likely to say they had been sexually harassed by a patient than their male counterparts. Seventy-three percent of female nurses said they had been sexual- ly harassed by a patient, compared to 46 percent of male nurses. For physicians, 58 percent of female physicians said they had experienced this kind of harass- ment compared to 39 percent of their male counterparts. 4. Among physicians, 39 percent reported a patient had attempted to communi- cate with them in an inappropriate manner, either online or using social media, compared to 22 percent of nurses. 5. Nearly all male nurses — 96 percent — and 84 percent of female nurses said they had been physically threatened by a patient. For physicians, the percentag- es were 61 percent for men and 63 percent for women. n

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