Tag Archives: COVID-19

New eBook: Machine Learning for Healthcare Applications

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A new electronic book is available, entitled Machine Learning for Healthcare Applications. This eBook, published in 2021, is a comprehensive description of issues for healthcare data management and an overview of existing systems. Content includes information on disease diagnosis, telemedicine, medical imaging, smart health monitoring, social media healthcare, and machine learning for COVID-19.

Machine Learning for Healthcare Applications provides a comprehensive overview of current technology. Each of these chapters, which are written by the main inventors of the presented systems, specifies requirements and provides a description of both the chosen approach and its implementation.

Celebrating Infection Preventionists

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Tania Bubb

Tania Bubb, PhD, RN, CIC, FAPIC. Photo by Richard DeWitt.

In a video interview of Dr. Tania Bubb, MSK’s Director of Infection Control, Infection Control Today features a study she presented at the annual conference of the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC).

Infection preventionists (IPs) were invited to fill out surveys regularly from March through July 2020. IPs from 16 US states and three other countries reported both exhaustion at the peak of the COVID pandemic and increased empowerment and value at their institutions. They noted that the pandemic led their colleagues to take hand hygiene and use of personal protective equipment (PPE) more seriously than ever before, at the same time expressing frustration with PPE shortages.

Dr. Bubb closed the interview by applauding IPs as unsung heroes of the pandemic: 

They may not have taken care of patients directly, but their policies, their procedures, their vigilance, and their enthusiasm for their jobs supported those who took care of the patients and laid the groundwork for how those who took care of the patients would remain safe.

Getting the COVID Vaccine? Here’s What You Should Know About Cancer Imaging

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Nurse leader Jeanine Gordon gives nurse Emma Devlin the COVID-19 vaccination.

Nurse leader Jeanine Gordon gives nurse Emma Devlin the COVID-19 vaccination. Photo: Richard DeWitt.

A small but significant number of people experience swollen lymph nodes as a side effect of receiving a COVID vaccine. This can look like a clinically significant finding on cancer imaging, including chest CTs, PET scans, mammography, and breast MRI. In response, radiologists from MSK and three other institutions recently published recommendations for cancer imaging and COVID vaccination.

As reported by Reuters and the Associated Press, the authors recommend scheduling routine cancer imaging screenings either before vaccination or six weeks after. But patients should not delay getting either the vaccine or clinically urgent imaging. Cancer patients should receive the vaccine in the arm opposite the active or suspected cancer. Medical staff should ask patients receiving imaging about their vaccine history, including the date of vaccination and the side of the body vaccinated. If enlarged lymph nodes appear on imaging, radiologists may request follow up images or, in a small number of cases, biopsy.  

Want to learn more about MSK’s COVID-related research? Visit Synapse, the Library’s database of MSK-authored publications, for a full list of COVID-related works.

 Want to know more about COVID vaccination? Visit MSK’s info page.