The Covid-19 pandemic highlighted the role airflow and ventilation can play in a person’s health, leading many businesses to eye upgrades to their heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems as a way to combat viral transmission.

But new research suggests that costly HVAC system updates (which can range from thousands to tens of thousands of dollars) may not be needed to prevent the spread of Covid or other airborne diseases, even in some of the most at-risk indoor settings like nursing homes.

A recent study from Well Living Lab, a collaboration between wellness real estate and technology company Delos and the Mayo Clinic, found that high-grade portable air purifiers significantly reduced the risk of spreading airborne and surface contact-related pathogens in skilled nursing facilities. That includes a 64% reduction in the peak number of airborne pathogens and a 44% drop in surface particles in the same room as the simulated infection.

The use of portable air purifiers also reduced the peak number of airborne particles in an adjacent room by 90%. Opening a window, by contrast, was found to transport more of the small particles into a neighboring room.

The findings that air purifiers can help mitigate viral transmission are not only significant for long-term care facilities—which were among those hit hardest by the pandemic—but they “can be translated to any indoor environment,” including similarly sized offices, classrooms, and apartments, Delos President and COO Peter Scialla told Healthcare Brew.

“We are extremely impressed with the fact that the solution that costs the least happens to be—if done right and the right product is chosen—to be very, very strong scientifically and outmatches what can be done choosing another method,” he said.

Not just any air purifier, however, will achieve those results, Scialla stressed.

Keep reading here.—SY

Do you work in healthcare or have information about the industry that we should know? Email Shannon at [email protected]. For completely confidential conversations, ask Shannon for her number on Signal.

Workplace safety is no joke. Slips and trips can lead to a hospital visit—though at least it’s a quick commute for healthcare workers in states with high rates of workplace injuries.

Maine, Oregon, and Vermont had the highest rates of nonfatal workplace accidents and injuries, according to an analysis shared with Healthcare Brew via email of 2021 US Bureau of Labor Statistics data compiled by High Rise Financial, a presettlement legal funding company.

What do these states also have in common? Healthcare, especially nursing, ranked within the top 10 most popular professions in each state.

Maine had the highest rate of workplace accidents: 4.7 out of every 100 full-time workers in the state were involved in a nonfatal workplace accident in 2021, High Rise Financial found. That is 67.9% higher than the country’s yearly average.

In 2021, 30,270 of the 592,000 registered employees in Maine were home healthcare workers or registered nurses. MaineHealth was the state’s largest private employer in 2021 with approximately 20,500 employees, per the Maine Center for Workforce Research and Information.

But the state’s high accident rate isn’t a failure—it suggests that Maine workers are reporting accidents and injuries before they become more serious and require workers’ compensation, Maine Public Radio reported. The most recent data from 2011 shows that workers’ compensation losses cost hospitals nationwide $2 billion, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration found.

If tedious workplace safety rules sound like a pain, try having an accident. “Slips, trips, and falls,” especially without a wet floor warning sign, are the top causes of workplace accidents that are eligible for presettlement funding, according to the High Rise Financial analysis. Even a small slip could lead to a back injury, a broken bone, or a concussion—no banana peel needed.

It’s not all doom and gloom: The CDC has generously curated a list of songs with workplace safety and health themes to liven up your nine-to-five. Just be sure to wear nonslip shoes if you feel like dancing.—KW

Do you work in healthcare or have information about the industry that we should know? Email Kristine at [email protected]. For completely confidential conversations, ask Kristine for her number on Signal.

On Fridays, we schedule our rounds with Healthcare Brew readers. Want to be featured in an upcoming edition? Click here to introduce yourself.

This week’s Making Rounds spotlights Erica Crane, a pharmacist and co-founder of NextRx Pharmacy in Columbia, Missouri, a city inhabited by 125,000 people. The pharmacy features a self-pay model and doesn’t accept commercial insurance. It serves about 300 patients per month.

Crane spoke about why she decided to leave her job in an established health system to venture into the unknown and open a uniquely operated, independent pharmacy.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

What’s the backstory of NextRx?

Neal Head [CEO and co-founder of NextRx] came to me and he was like, “Hey, I went to National Community Pharmacists Association’s national meeting, and I heard a guy talk who opened a cash-only, fee-for-service pharmacy. I think this is what we need to do.”

It’s always been my dream to own my own pharmacy, but right now, it’s not a good time to be an owner of an independent pharmacy. But this sort of business model, this could work, this could actually be sustainable. You can make money, but also more importantly, you can save patients a lot of money. That’s how it came to be. We opened in November 2021, so we’ve been here a little over a year.

How does your business model work?

We mainly deal in generic prescriptions because that’s where we can save people money. We only mark up things a certain amount. We need to keep the copays low to be competitive with insurance, but also we have flexibility.

Keep reading here.—MA

Do you work in healthcare or have information about the industry that we should know? Email Maia at [email protected]. For completely confidential conversations, ask Maia for her number on Signal.

Today’s top healthcare reads.

Stat: Adults from the US bought about 15% of all Ozempic, a diabetes drug popularly used for weight loss, distributed in British Columbia—prompting officials to impose a sales restriction. (the Wall Street Journal)

Quote: “Cannabis is portrayed as a relatively harmless substance, but the data amongst teenagers does not support that.”—Samuel Meisel, a clinical psychologist, on how parents can talk to their children about cannabis use (the New York Times)

Read: Many states that received opioid settlement funds have not made their spending plans public. (Kaiser Health News)

Catch up on the top Healthcare Brew stories you may have missed:

• How pharmacy deserts are formed
• Medical cannabis reduced prescription opioid use, study finds
• Google Health rolls out new tech offerings to improve access to care, health outcomes