Fifty-five percent of Americans reside in communities with high COVID-19 case levels, the threshold at which the CDC recommends use of protective measures like face masks in indoor settings, compared with 32% last week. The US seven-day average for COVID-19 hospitalizations rose to over 31,000 for the week ending Monday, and the CDC predicts daily hospital admissions will increase over the next few weeks, ranging from 3,200 to 13,800 admissions by Aug. 5.

Remote patient monitoring can be more efficient and convenient than conventional health care, and while advanced technology is making it easier to offer RPM, an effective program doesn't necessarily require connected devices and can be any scenario in which a care team looks after a patient outside a formal health care setting, according to health system leaders who oversee RPM programs. Sarah Pletcher, system vice president and executive medical director for strategic innovation at Houston Methodist, says "the boring, essential workflows, algorithms, protocols, and change management meetings" matter just as much.

Primary care professionals have been rising to meet one health care crisis after another and have been strained to the breaking point by the COVID-19 pandemic, write Hoangmai Pham, former chief innovation officer for the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation, and Michael Leavitt, former HHS secretary. US investment in primary care has not kept up with Americans' growing reliance on it, and primary care must be supported with "flexible, adequate payments and technology so all practices can integrate physical, mental, and social supports, and partner with other service sectors," Pham and Leavitt write.

While many companies adopted diversity, equity, and inclusion policies following events such as the murder of George Floyd, there is a clear gap between company statements and actions that have benefitted diverse workforces, writes Anita Hill and Julia Belanova, chair and program coordinator for the Hollywood Commission, respectively. Systemic change is necessary to prove that DEI efforts are more than just public relations strategies, so companies should focus on diversifying boards, enacting workplace policies that prevent discrimination and harassment, and ensuring equal protection and pay for workers, Hill and Belanova add.

As more employers embrace hybrid work, a sense of community can bond workers at home and the office, writes Jonathan Kirschner, founder and CEO of AIIR Consulting, a global business-psychology consulting firm. "We have to make space for our people to get to know each other on a holistic level, not just through the messages they ping back and forth about upcoming projects," Kirschner writes.

Pittsburgh-based Allegheny Health Network began using an IV-filling robot in April 2020 and added another in 2021, allowing pharmacy staff to focus on other tasks while meeting the system's need for 3,800 to 4,000 IV bags to be filled each month. "We've saved about $2.5 million because we were able to insource some of our medications instead of buying them," said Laura Mark, the network's vice president of pharmacy.

The Department of Commerce has received letters of intent from every state and eligible territory, indicating that they will take part in both the Broadband Equity Access and Deployment initiative and the State Digital Equity Planning Grant Program. States must still assign federally approved agencies to oversee the grants.

The Association of American Medical Colleges released a set of skills, values and knowledge that health care professionals should master to improve diversity, equity and inclusion. These competencies include the ability to recognize and mitigate the effects of stigma and bias in professional interactions, understanding the role of physicians in screening and referring patients to resources that can help address social drivers of health, and the skills to understand and reverse factors that enable and perpetuate racial bias and health care inequities.

Mayo Clinic Platform President John Halamka says he is working toward turning data into wisdom and developing a system that predicts disease before it happens so the patient receives the needed interventions, treatment and monitoring to prevent severe disease. Machine learning is "just another data point to a clinician that helps them understand the patient in front of them based on the data of patients in the past," Halamka says.

Join fellow health information educators at the Assembly on Education (AOE) Symposium running July 27-Dec. 7. The symposium offers an opportunity to create connections and engage with fellow educators throughout the year. AOE offers two live virtual sessions and additional on-demand content will be released throughout the year. All registrants will have access to on-demand content for one year from the date of registration, allowing faculty to access the content whenever is most convenient and helpful for them. Register today.