Top Insights from Health Policy Journals

Critical Care Education Emergency Medicine EMS Health Policy Pediatric Emergency Resuscitation

Utstein to Uptake: Decoding 2025 AHA Guidelines
December 16, 2025December 22, 2025

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The 2025 executive summary shows new developments in the AHA guidelines, integrating science, systems, and education with a unified Chain of Survival across the entire cardiac arrest continuum so that communities can prioritize which changes matter most for their patients, from lay rescuer response through prehospital care to the ED and beyond.

Source
Part 1: Executive Summary: 2025 American Heart Association Guidelines for Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation and Emergency Cardiovascular Care. Circulation. 2025 Oct 21;152(16_suppl_2):S284-S312. doi: 10.1161/CIR.0000000000001372. Epub 2025 Oct 22. PMID: 41122893.

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Critical Care ED-Hospital-Clinic Operations Emergency Medicine Health Policy Pediatric Emergency

Private Equity Ownership Increases Mortality
December 1, 2025December 6, 2025

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In this study examining outcomes before and after private equity hospital acquisitions, both emergency department and intensive care unit mortality increased following acquisition, while healthcare worker staffing declined.

Source
Hospital Staffing and Patient Outcomes After Private Equity Acquisition. Ann Intern Med. 2025 Nov;178(11):1529-1538. doi: 10.7326/ANNALS-24-03471. Epub 2025 Sep 23. PMID: 40982974.

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ED-Hospital-Clinic Operations Emergency Medicine Health Policy Pediatric Emergency Psychiatry | Substance Use

Can We Spot Potentially Violent Patients at the Door?
November 27, 2025December 4, 2025

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The DASA tool to identify patients at high-risk of violence was successfully implemented at triage with high adoption rates, identifying younger, male, and police- or ambulance-arrived patients as higher risk for aggression.

Source
The Implementation of Dynamic Appraisal of Situational Aggression Score at Emergency Department Triage. Ann Emerg Med. 2025 Oct;86(4):374-383. doi: 10.1016/j.annemergmed.2025.02.023. Epub 2025 Apr 2. PMID: 40172506.

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Critical Care ED-Hospital-Clinic Operations Emergency Medicine Health Policy Pediatric Emergency Psychiatry | Substance Use Wellness

Healthcare Violence is Too High—3 Ways to Break the Cycle
November 10, 2025November 20, 2025

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This paper discusses three systems-level, proactive strategies to decrease workplace violence (WPV) against healthcare workers.

Source
Breaking the cycle: Preventing workplace violence against healthcare workers. J Hosp Med. 2025 Sep 21. Doi: 10.1002/jhm.70167. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 40975826.

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Critical Care ED-Hospital-Clinic Operations Emergency Medicine Health Policy Pediatric Emergency Psychiatry | Substance Use Social Drivers of Health

What Precedes and Leads to Workplace Violence?
November 3, 2025November 8, 2025

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Most assaults were committed by socially and psychiatrically vulnerable patients, often during prolonged psychiatric boarding. Overcrowding, limited psychiatric services, and inadequate agitation management contribute to staff assaults and inequitable patient care.

Source
Workplace Violence in an Urban Community Emergency Department: A Deeper Dive into the Antecedents and Circumstances of Violent Behaviors. J Emerg Med. 2025 Oct;77:1-13. doi: 10.1016/j.jemermed.2025.07.012. Epub 2025 Jul 4. PMID: 40840095.

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Emergency Medicine Environmental Health Policy

So Hot Right Now – Occupational Heat Illness
August 27, 2025September 6, 2025

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Although extreme heat events have become more frequent due to climate change, occupational heat-related illness remains preventable. Emergency physicians play a critical role in identifying at-risk patients, documenting exposures, and promoting prevention through education and advocacy.

Source
Occupational Heat-Related Illness. JAMA. 2025 Jul 15;334(3):267-268. doi: 10.1001/jama.2025.7629. PMID: 40531478

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Ethics Health Policy Pediatrics

Disability-Based Discrimination Harms Healthcare Utilization
August 8, 2025August 4, 2025

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Children with special health care needs (CSHCN) who experienced discrimination based on their disability were more likely to forgo necessary outpatient care and have more ER visits and hospitalizations.

Source
Disability-Based Discrimination and Forgone Health Care in Children With Special Health Care Needs. Pediatrics. 2025 Jul 1;156(1):e2024068782. doi: 10.1542/peds.2024-068782. PMID: 40456539

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Family Medicine Health Policy Internal Medicine Wellness

Death by a Thousand Cuts – Nonclinical Demands in Primary Care
July 21, 2025July 20, 2025

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The burden of nonclinical administrative tasks is a major contributor to primary care physician burnout and workforce decline. We need systemic reforms to restore primary care’s viability and central role in healthcare.

Source
Death by a Thousand Cuts – The Crushing Weight of Nonclinical Demands in Primary Care. N Engl J Med. 2025 May 8;392(18):1771-1773. doi: 10.1056/NEJMp2415431. Epub 2025 May 3. PMID: 40323310

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Emergency Medicine Health Policy Infectious Disease

Do Sepsis Mandates Lead to Overtreatment and Harm?
May 15, 2025May 10, 2025

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This retrospective study found 1 in 3 patients who received broad spectrum antibiotics in the ED likely did not have a bacterial infection and one in six had antibiotic-related complications.

Source
Frequency of Antibiotic Overtreatment and Associated Harms in Patients Presenting With Suspected Sepsis to the Emergency Department: A Retrospective Cohort Study. Clin Infect Dis. 2025 Apr 15:ciaf118. doi: 10.1093/cid/ciaf118. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 40231968.

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Education Health Policy Pediatrics Preventive Health Social Drivers of Health

Preventing Child Sexual Abuse
April 29, 2025April 26, 2025

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A multi-pronged approach to education about and prevention of child sexual abuse (CSA) was associated with a significant decrease in reports of CSA in the year following the implementation of the program.

Sources
Rates of Population-Level Child Sexual Abuse After a Community-Wide Preventive Intervention. JAMA Pediatr. 2025 Mar 3:e246824. doi: 10.1001/jamapediatrics.2024.6824. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 40029654

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