The COVID-19 pandemic that has claimed more than 660,000 lives in the U.S. has also cut aggregate life expectancy here by more than 9 million years, according to a study published Monday in Annals of Internal Medicine. The study authors said their findings suggest that the mortality burden of COVID-19 is more substantial than previously thought. “Beyond excess deaths alone, the COVID-19 pandemic imposed a greater life expectancy burden on persons aged 25 to 64 years, including those with average or above-average life expectancies, and a disproportionate burden on Black and Hispanic communities,” study lead author Julian Reif, PhD, and colleagues concluded. With data from the Health and Retirement Study, Panel Study of Income Dynamics, and CDC and CMS data, University of Illinois and University of Southern California researchers used their Future Adult Model and Future Elderly Model to create a microsimulation that measured years of life lost (YLLs) and quality adjusted life years (QALYs) lost from the COVID-19 pandemic, by age, sex, race/ethnicity, and comorbidity.

Cleveland Clinic has robust coaching programs for the Cleveland-based health system’s physicians.

Coaching programs can help health systems address physician wellbeing and retention. The coaching programs at Cleveland Clinic are credited with helping the health system avoid $84 million in physician turnover costs over the past decade.

Cleveland Clinic has two programs that provide coaching services to physicians. The Center for Excellence in Coaching and Mentoring provides physician peer-based coaching. The Mandel Global Leadership and Learning Institute (GLLI) provides non-physician coaches for physicians.

The Board of Commissioners at The Joint Commission (TJC) has appointed Jonathan B. Perlin. MD, as the accrediting organization’s next president and CEO, effective March 1, 2022.

Perlin currently is the president and clinical operations and chief medical officer at HCA Healthcare, which is based in Nashville, Tennessee.

He replaces Mark R. Chassin, MD, FACP, MPP, MPH, who has led the commission for 14 years. Chassin has said he wants to pursue other opportunities in the quality improvement field.

We aren’t out of the COVID-19 woods yet, but the healthcare community is already looking at what steps everyone can take for a safer environment. From infection prevention and control, to cleaning and disinfecting practices, to new and improved cleaning products, there’s a myriad of ways organizations will look to advance patient safety in a post-pandemic world.

Patients are noticing, too, notes Larinda Becker, executive director of marketing in infection prevention with Diversey.

“In a HIDA survey conducted a few years ago, when asked what was most important to patients when entering the hospital, 48% said visible commitment to infection prevention,” says Becker. “After a year-plus-long pandemic, awareness of infection control practices has grown significantly for patients and their families. They want to ‘feel the clean’ when they walk in.”

In case you missed it, here’s a roundup of breaking news items posted on the Accreditation & Quality Compliance Center since Inside Accreditation & Quality was last published.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is reminding hospitals and other healthcare organizations to work with their state and local emergency preparedness agencies to manage requests for extra medical staff as COVID-19 resurges.

In an advisory posted August 18, FEMA officials said state, tribal, and territorial (STT) governments “across the nation are experiencing increases in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations, resulting in renewed strains on medical personnel availability. FEMA and our interagency partners are working to support requests for additional medical staff and recognize there may be more solutions than the federal government alone can provide.”

FEMA said that “given the possible scarcity of medical personnel resources,” the federal government is asking that STT partners continue to work through their long-standing processes for dealing with emergencies and disasters, which typically “begin with local communities, healthcare systems and facilities, or medical associations interfacing with their STT departments of public health and emergency management agency for any unmet needs.”

Today’s healthcare system is hallmarked by complexity, with automation growing more and more present. In the pharmacy, robotics and other automation systems now help us maintain inventories, dispense medications, and reduce time, cost, and errors. Because medicine cannot operate through these solutions alone, maintaining the human connection remains a priority. But how do we balance human and machine for the best patient outcomes? “We’re inundated with buzzwords: ‘AI.’ ‘Robotics.’ ‘Technology is the future and is going to solve all the world’s problems,’ ” says Doina Dumitru, senior director of medical affairs at BD Medication Management Solutions. “But buzzwords are buzzwords for a reason. There’s a lot of promise, a lot of potential, but it’s a long road to travel.” We’ve already seen glimmers of what a tech-enabled future can look like, says Dumitru, but we have some time before we reach what she calls the “George Jetson visions” of our dreams.