Measuring the levels of a natural body chemical may allow doctors to reduce the duration of antibiotic use and improve the health outcomes of critically ill patients.

The strain of enterohaemorrhagic Escherichia coli (EHEC) 0104:H4 isolated from cases in the EHEC infection outbreak in Germany is a rare one, seen in humans before, but never in an EHEC outbreak. This has been confirmed by the World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Centre for Reference and Research on Escherichia and Klebsiella, the Statens Serum Institut in Denmark.

Shootings like the one in which a gunman shot a doctor and killed a patient at The Johns Hopkins Hospital in September are "exceedingly rare," but the rate of other assaults on workers in U.S. healthcare settings is four times higher than other workplaces, conclude two Johns Hopkins emergency physicians after reviewing workplace violence in health settings.

A well-known paper-based medical chart used by paediatric emergency personnel across America is undergoing a 21st century boost in an collaborative effort between Virginia Tech's College of Engineering, Roanoke-based Carilion Clinic Children's Hospital, and the physician who created the original method some 25 years ago.

Researchers at Mount Sinai School of Medicine have found that 98 percent of the U.S. population lives in communities within 60 minutes of a hospice provider, suggesting that disparities in use of hospice are not likely due to a lack of access to a hospice provider.

Severely injured patients should be transported directly from the scene of an accident to a trauma centre, even if it means bypassing a closer hospital, according to new research that shows this results in a nearly 25 per cent lower death rate.

However, even though 80 to 85 per cent of people in North America live within a one-hour drive or flight of a trauma centre, 30 to 60 per cent of severely injured patients are still taken to the nearest hospital.

Genetically closely related skin bacteria that have developed resistance to several different antibiotics and that can cause intractable care-related infections are found and seem to be spreading within and between hospitals in Sweden.