The American Red Cross is facing an "emergency blood shortage" as it experiences the lowest number of people giving blood in two decades.
The big picture: It's not the first time the nation's largest blood supplier has warned of a dangerously low supply, which can have devastating consequences.
Hospitals continued to shake off the pandemic's long-term financial effects as the holidays approached, with key metrics like inpatient and outpatient revenue rising year-over-year, the latest Kaufman Hall report finds.
The big picture: The severity of illness at more than 1,300 facilities in Kaufman's analysis returned to more normal levels in November, with the average length of patient stay down 6% year-over-year.
Congress is once again being urgedto reverse a cut to physicians' Medicare payments, prompting calls for a broader overhaul of how the program reimburses doctors.
Why it matters: Congress is still stuck in an annual dance of being pressured to increase physician payments, even after Washington nearly a decade ago put an end to the despised "doc fix" that forced lawmakers to regularly forestall deep cuts.
Hospitalized patients who died or were transferred to the ICU during their stay experienced a diagnostic error nearly a quarter of the time — and in most cases the error caused harm, according to a new study that's prompting calls to rethink howhealth systems keep patients safe.
Why it matters: Hospitals can be risky places for patients, and the new study sheds light on how commonly human error in medicine harms and even kills patients.
