Hospital medicine https://medicalxpress.com/hospital-medicine-news/ en-us Latest medical news and research in Hospital medicine Pulse oximeter bias linked to gaps in care for Black patients Pulse oximeter devices routinely overestimate blood oxygen levels in darker-skinned patients—a racial bias that can trigger downstream health harms for Black individuals, compounding well beyond any single inaccurate reading. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-05-pulse-oximeter-bias-linked-gaps.html Mon, 25 May 2026 11:20:02 EDT news698925541 Health care is facing a moral emergency, argue experts Health care has lost its human, moral, and relational foundations and must reconnect with its core values to improve both patient and staff well-being, argue experts in The BMJ. Despite unprecedented advances in diagnostic precision, therapeutic capability, and computational power, a deep paradox exists, say authors Don Berwick, Maureen Bisognano and Bob Klaber. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-05-health-moral-emergency-experts.html Wed, 20 May 2026 18:30:01 EDT news698479707 AI language models struggle with basic hospital data tasks, study finds A new study finds that large language models (LLMs), used with straightforward prompting, perform poorly on routine number-crunching tasks that hospital administrators depend on every day to track patients and allocate resources. The findings have been published in PLOS Digital Health by Eyal Klang of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, U.S., and colleagues. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-05-ai-language-struggle-basic-hospital.html Thu, 07 May 2026 17:50:03 EDT news697392062 Nonprofit hospitals spend billions on management consultants... with no clear effect In recent decades, management consulting firms have become a fixture in the American health care system, wielding outsized influence compared to most other economic sectors. Hospitals navigating challenging financial and regulatory landscapes may call on these specialists for advice on strategic planning, cost-cutting, reorganizations, or revenue-boosting initiatives. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-05-nonprofit-hospitals-billions-effect.html Mon, 04 May 2026 11:00:07 EDT news697104482 AI surpasses physicians on clinical reasoning tasks, raising the bar for more serious testing In one of the largest studies to compare artificial intelligence and physicians on a wide array of clinical reasoning tasks including real emergency department data, a team of physicians and computer scientists at Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center evaluated whether an AI system could do what physicians do every day: review a messy patient chart and use that information to determine diagnosis and next steps. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-04-ai-surpasses-physicians-clinical-tasks.html Thu, 30 Apr 2026 14:00:02 EDT news696688261 Hospital delirium a 'red flag' for severe health decline A single episode of delirium—a state of confusion and agitation—in hospitalized older adults is a significant risk factor for other serious health complications including fractures, stroke and sepsis, a University of Queensland study has found. Delirium is often triggered by infection, surgery, pain, dehydration or medication, which affects up to 1 in 4 older adults during a hospital stay. However, many of its long-term health impacts have not been fully understood. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-04-hospital-delirium-red-flag-severe.html Tue, 14 Apr 2026 09:00:03 EDT news695374861 AI remains lacking in clinical reasoning abilities, according to study of 21 large language models Despite increasing use of artificial intelligence (AI) in health care, a new study led by Mass General Brigham researchers from the MESH Incubator shows that generative AI models continue to fall short in their clinical reasoning capabilities. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-04-ai-lacking-clinical-abilities-large.html Mon, 13 Apr 2026 11:00:04 EDT news695293921 How disinfectants influence microbes across hospital rooms Just because a topical antiseptic is swabbed on the skin doesn't mean it stays on the skin. In a new study, Northwestern University scientists studied how a powerful antiseptic, called chlorhexidine, affects bacteria in hospital environments. To prevent infections, hospitals heavily rely on chlorhexidine wipes to sterilize patients' skin before procedures. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-04-disinfectants-microbes-hospital-rooms.html Thu, 02 Apr 2026 08:00:02 EDT news694253341 For severe babesiosis, red blood cell exchange is associated with markedly improved outcomes A new study led by investigators from Mass General Brigham and Yale School of Public Health reveals that red blood cell exchange transfusion (ET) may provide critical benefits for patients hospitalized with severe babesiosis. Babesiosis is a tick-borne parasitic disease that infects red blood cells and can have life-threatening complications. ET, a procedure sometimes used in severe cases, involves removing a patient's infected red blood cells and replacing them with healthy donor red blood cells. The study's results, published in JAMA Internal Medicine, have the potential to improve outcomes for patients with severe disease. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-03-severe-babesiosis-red-blood-cell.html Mon, 30 Mar 2026 11:00:01 EDT news693834791 Hospital delirium linked to later dementia risk in healthy adults Older adults who develop delirium during a hospital admission face a substantially higher risk of dementia in later years, even if they had no prior health conditions, according to a major new population study appearing in The Lancet Healthy Longevity. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-03-hospital-delirium-linked-dementia-healthy.html Fri, 27 Mar 2026 06:00:09 EDT news693745561 Fair and safe medical AI: Why local expertise matters A Global Grand Challenges case study reveals the potential of large language models (LLMs) to close health gaps in South Asia, but only when they're adapted and fine-tuned using local data and expertise. The study, "Evaluating large language models for clinical note processing: local fine-tuning and internal–external validation using electronic health records from South Asia," has been published in BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making. A collaboration between Associate Professor Sara Khalid at NDORMS and Dr. Faisal Sultan from the Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital and Research Centre (SKMCH&RC) in Pakistan. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-03-fair-safe-medical-ai-local.html Mon, 16 Mar 2026 17:10:01 EDT news692896921 Severe burns present growing threat in overdose epidemic A new analysis in Oregon reveals a heightened incidence of severe burns requiring hospital-level care as illicit drug use nationwide has shifted from injection to smoking. Researchers analyzed Oregon Medicaid data and found that over half of people treated for burns in hospitals and emergency rooms over nearly a decade also used smokable drugs other than tobacco. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-03-severe-threat-overdose-epidemic.html Mon, 16 Mar 2026 15:40:07 EDT news692891642 Low-cost preventive measures could mitigate spread of bacteria causing neonatal mortality A new study found that a multifaceted infection prevention and control intervention could at least temporarily thwart outbreaks of infections from the Klebsiella pneumoniae bacterium, a leading cause of neonatal sepsis and mortality in Africa and South Asia. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-03-mitigate-bacteria-neonatal-mortality.html Sun, 15 Mar 2026 15:00:01 EDT news692448116 Orchestrated multi-agent AI systems outperform single agents in health care As artificial intelligence (AI) becomes more common in health care, from managing records to assisting with medication decisions, researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai are asking an important question: How well does AI hold up when the workload gets intense at a health system scale? https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-03-orchestrated-multi-agent-ai-outperform.html Wed, 11 Mar 2026 13:00:05 EDT news692448111