The word went out late last month throughout Utah -- if you've got a spare set of aluminum crutches lying around, you should donate them to your local hospital.

An international shortage of aluminum has caused delays in shipments of crutches and walkers, so Utah hospitals banded together for #LeanOnUtah -- a community drive to collect gently used durable medical supplies.

No patient...

Emergency room nurse Grace Politis was catching up on paperwork during her shift when she suddenly realized her head hurt badly. Then she blacked out.

"Later on, I found out I was hit in the head twice with a fire extinguisher by a patient," said Politis, who works at Lowell General Hospital in Lowell, Mass.

A disturbed man awaiting psychiatric evaluation had fractured Politis' skul...

Coronavirus cases have plunged by 60% since mid-September's Delta-driven peak, U.S. health officials said earlier this week. But with winter on the way, they warned that Americans still need to protect themselves and others against COVID-19.

"We are now heading in the right direction ... but with cases still high, we must remain vigilant heading into the colder, drier winter months," Dr. ...

It helps to speak English if you're a home care patient in the United States.

A new study of home health care found that patients who speak a language other than English have higher rates of hospital readmission.

Readmission rates among New York City patients whose first language wasn't English were highest among Spanish and Russian speakers. They were lower among Chinese and K...

A cheap and widely available antidepressant drug called fluvoxamine may reduce COVID-19 patients' risk of serious illness requiring hospitalization, according to a new study.

The trial included almost 1,500 unvaccinated outpatients in Brazil. All of the patients tested positive for infection with SARS-CoV-2 and were deemed to be at high risk for a severe case of illness.

Fluvoxamine...

Routine face mask ventilation during an operation doesn't increase the surgical team's risk of coronavirus infection, according to a new study.

Face mask ventilation is typically used for surgical patients under general anesthesia. However, its designation as an "aerosol-generating procedure" by the World Health Organization has altered operating room procedures and efficiency during the ...

Americans hospitalized with COVID-19 could now face thousands of dollars in out-of-pocket medical costs, according to a new report.

In 2020, most health insurance companies waived co-pays, deductibles and other cost-sharing for hospitalized COVID-19 patients, but many stopped doing that early this year, the University of Michigan researchers noted.

"Many insurers claim that it is ju...

Dr. Tiffany Braley works with patients who have experienced strokes and other serious health conditions, treating them at the Michigan hospital where she works as they begin their recovery.

Braley noticed there was a trend among patients who resisted being admitted to or staying in the hospital: They just wanted to get home, because they had no one to care for their beloved pets.

"I...

Since the rise of the Delta variant, one Texas hospital has seen a surge in severe COVID-19 among pregnant women -- nearly all unvaccinated.

Researchers at the Dallas hospital found that in late August and early September, 10% to 15% of pregnant patients who tested positive for COVID-19 needed to be hospitalized for severe illness.

That was more than double the percentage of a year ...

Full vaccination with the two-dose Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine has been 90% effective in protecting against hospitalization for at least six months, a new study shows.

That includes the time during which the highly contagious Delta variant has been circulating in the United States.

For the study, researchers analyzed Kaiser Permanente Southern California data on more than 3.4 milli...

Pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co. said Friday that it will seek federal approval for emergency use of its new antiviral pill molnupiravir, after a clinical trial showed the drug halved the risk of hospitalization or death when given to high-risk people shortly after infection with COVID-19.

The new medication is just one of several antiviral pills now being tested in studies, and experts s...

Having a child in the hospital is distressing for families, and not knowing what that stay might cost can add to that stress, researchers say.

A new study has found that three-quarters of U.S. families want to have conversations about the costs of care. Yet only 7% of families actually have had this financial counseling with hospital staff.

The research suggests that patients and th...

Older children and kids with chronic diseases are those most likely to wind up in the hospital with COVID-19, researchers have found.

Conditions such as obesity, diabetes and neurologic problems, among others, put kids at risk for severe COVID-19, according to a new U.S. study.

"There's a myth circulating out there that children don't get sick from COVID-19, and that's kind of ...

Potentially dangerous symptoms of type 1 diabetes in children are not always immediately recognized by primary care providers, new research suggests.

In type 1 diabetes, the pancreas fails to make enough insulin, the hormone that helps regulate blood sugar used for energy by cells. Between 5% and 10% of cases of diabetes are type 1, which often first surfaces in childhood.

The Swed...

A study of millions of people vaccinated against COVID-19 has identified those at greatest risk of hospitalization and death after breakthrough infection.

The most vulnerable are those who are immunosuppressed from chemotherapy, a recent bone marrow or solid organ transplant, or HIV/AIDS. Also at risk are people with neurological disorders (such as dementia and Parkinson's disease), nur...

Hospitalized opioid addicts die at a rate similar to people who have a heart attack after leaving the hospital.

Nearly 8% of patients addicted to opioids died within 12 months of hospital discharge, according to researchers from Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU).

"We need systems that can address comprehensive needs of people with substance use disorder and serious medical i...

The cost of providing hospital care for unvaccinated Americans has reached $5.7 billion in just three months, CBS News reported.

Between June and August, about 287,000 people who were not vaccinated were hospitalized for COVID-19 in the United States, according to data from the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) and the Peterson Center on Healthcare, which collaborated to track healt...

Older adults who are socially isolated are more likely to experience serious disability or die after a stay in the intensive care unit (ICU), new research reveals.

"This important research finding sheds light on a crucial health care issue that has become more dire during the COVID-19 pandemic," said Dr. E. Albert Reece, dean of the University of Maryland School of Medicine, in Baltimore....

There's more sobering news for anyone still unvaccinated against the new coronavirus: Your odds of dying from COVID-19 are 11-fold higher than someone who's fully immunized, new research shows.

The data comes from one of three studies published Friday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"Looking at cases over the past two months when the Delta variant was the pre...

With tens of millions of Americans now vaccinated against COVID-19 by the end of August, so-called "breakthrough" cases are bound to occur. But there's reassuring news from new data: Most such cases are mild and those leading to hospitalization are exceedingly rare.

Overall, the latest data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that as of Aug. 30, there have been...

While the cost of administering COVID-19 vaccines is nominal -- and free to consumers in the United States -- the cost of paying for hospitalizations for people who've contracted the virus is dramatically higher.

The average financial cost of hospitalization for a COVID-19 patient insured by Medicare - at $21,752 -- is about 145 times the reimbursement Medicare pays for vaccinating one pe...

President Joe Biden is slated to announce an ambitious six-point plan to double down on a resurgent COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, including more pressure on government, business and schools to implement vaccine mandates, news sources report. A speech outlining the new plan is scheduled for 5 p.m. Eastern on Thursday, The New York Times said.

Speaking Wednesday at a med...

There have now been more than 40 million cases of COVID-19 recorded among Americans, according to a database maintained by The New York Times. That's nearly one-fifth of the global total of cases.

With the Delta variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus cutting a swathe through the United States, and about 47% of the eligible population still not fully vaccinated, COVID-19 has ro...

With the Delta variant surging and many Americans mask- and vaccine-free, new cases of COVID-19 spiked to levels over the long Labor Day weekend that were 300% higher than those seen over the same weekend in 2020, according to a new tally from Johns Hopkins University.

That means packed hospitals and rising numbers of infected children as a new school year begins, according to