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MN Enacts Nation’s First Social Media Warning Label Requirement Minnesota enacted a first-in-the-nation provision ( HB 2 a / SB 6 a ) requiring social media platforms to display mental health warning...
CA to Investigate State Farm over LA Wildfire Claims California Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara (D) announced a “market conduct examination” of State Farm over consumer complaints about...
OR Enacts Nation’s Strongest Corporate Health Care Law Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek (D) signed a bill ( SB 951 ) imposing the toughest regulations on private and corporate control of medical practices...
When the genetic testing company 23andMe announced it had entered the federal bankruptcy process in March, concern quickly turned to what would happen to customers’ genetic data . The California...
CA Senate Approves AI Companion Chatbots Safety Bill California’s Senate passed a bill ( SB 243 ) that would require artificial intelligence-powered companion chatbot platforms to remind users...
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Hospitals in upstate New York have started placing employees on unpaid leave for failing to comply with the state’s COVID-19 vaccination mandate for healthcare workers.
The tactic appears to be having an impact on at least some of the unvaccinated workers. Last Monday, Albany Medical Center suspended 204 of its over 11,000 employees, who now face termination unless they comply with the vaccine mandate within seven days. But a few days before the state’s Sept. 27 vaccination deadline, Albany Med had 253 unvaccinated workers.
The number of unvaccinated employees at St. Peter’s Health Partners, which also employs roughly 11,000 people in the region, dropped from 400 to 322 the morning after the state deadline passed. And Glen Falls Hospital placed 44 unvaccinated workers on unpaid leave last Tuesday, which is about 160 fewer than the number of unvaccinated employees at the hospital two weeks ago. (TIMES UNION [ALBANY])
Nurses and other staff who work in the emergency room and inpatient hospital rooms at Cox Medical Center Branson will begin wearing ID badges with panic buttons by the end of the year. With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of assaults at the hospital tripled, from 40 in 2019 to 123 in 2020, and injuries to healthcare staff increased from 17 to 78.
Dave Dillon, the spokesman for the Missouri Hospital Association, said that while assaults on healthcare workers have long been a concern, COVID-19 “has changed the dynamic in a number of ways,” including the imposition of restrictions on hospital access for patients’ relatives in order to slow the spread of the virus. (ASSOCIATED PRESS)
ChristianaCare has fired 150 of its employees - many of whom were “part-time or casual employees,” according to a spokesperson - for failing to comply with the COVID-19 vaccine mandate it announced in July. The not-for-profit healthcare system is Delaware’s largest private employer, providing over 14,000 jobs. (NEWS JOURNAL [WILMINGTON])
Four Rhode Island healthcare workers have filed a federal lawsuit seeking to invalidate the state’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for healthcare workers because it provides no religious exemption. New York imposed a similar mandate, but it has been blocked by a federal court. (PROVIDENCE JOURNAL)
In filing an appeal in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York last week, Rhode Island joined the growing list of states objecting to the bankruptcy settlement with Purdue Pharma over the drug maker’s role in the national opioid crisis. California, Connecticut, Maryland, and Washington have filed separate appeals to the plan, any one of which, if successful, could undo the entire multistate deal. (ASSOCIATED PRESS)
-- Compiled by KOREY CLARK