Adult COVID-19 Core Outcome Measures Survey

The Cross Section/Academy COVID-19 Core Outcome Measures Task Force is revisiting the current COVID-19 Core Outcome Measure recommendations. Please help us by taking a brief survey so that we can learn more about the implementation of the COVID-19 Core Outcome Measures in the clinic and what other tests and measures you are utilizing with this population.  The survey will remain open until 5/15/23. Thank you for your help!

Click here to take the survey: https://samuelmerritt.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_78JkPzxEFp2Rtdk

Participate in a Study Exploring Imposter Phenomenon in Physical Therapy

Anna Miller is a third year Doctor of Physical Therapy Student at The George Washington University, and is working with Dr. Marisa Birkmeier and Dr. Matthew Garber on a research study investigating Impostor Phenomenon in the physical therapy profession. 

The purposes of this study are to investigate the prevalence of Impostor Phenomenon (IP) and the demographic factors that may contribute to developing feelings of IP in physical therapist students (SPTs), physical therapists (PTs), physical therapist assistant students (SPTA’s), and physical therapist assistants (PTA’s) across the country.

IP occurs when high achieving individuals have a pervasive sense of self-doubt combined with fear of being exposed as a fraud, despite objective measures of success. While prevalence and demographic factors that contribute to developing feelings of IP have been formally investigated in medical students, resident physicians, and surgeons, the research regarding IP in the physical therapy profession is limited to personal stories, case studies, and blog posts.

Your participation in this study is completely voluntary and your data will remain confidential. Choosing to participate or abstaining from participating in this study will not negatively impact your current role or professional status. There is no financial renumeration for your participation. All data collected will be securely stored with restricted access to the research team. We will use the synthesized results to help bring awareness of the prevalence of IP to physical therapy programs and employers to allow them to address it instead of leaving it untreated.

If you are interested in participating in the study, click here: https://smhsgwu.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_eerfmKUaNIAsvMa

Should you have any questions, please reach out directly to the principal investigator via email at [email protected] or Anna Miller via email at [email protected].

The Potential Risks of ChatGPT and Other Generative AI

JDSpura | By Baker Hostetler

“Shall we play a game?” Those innocuous words “spoken” by Matthew Broderick’s computer in John Badham’s sci-fi techno-thriller War Games stunned audiences at the time. A computer that could “talk” and “think” and engage in conversation?!? This was the height of science fiction. Well, with the recent release of generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools, specifically in the form of ChatGPT and other predictive natural language processing (NLP) algorithms, science fiction has once again become reality.

Companies from Microsoft to Google and Instacart to Kayak have begun to incorporate and build upon this technology, originally developed by OpenAI. These tools can be incredibly beneficial to businesses, but they also carry risks.

Before we dive in to how generative AI can assist brands and companies, let’s first peel back the layers and understand – at a basic level – what ChatGPT is.

ChatGPT stands for Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer. Let’s break that down:

• Chat refers to the interface that allows for interaction with the model using natural language prompts.
• Generative refers to a category of AI model that produces new output based on a given input. In practice this means that the “input” of a user query can generate the “output” of text, images, and audio answers.
• Pre-trained refers to the fact that the model has already been trained on a vast data set to teach it to predict the next word in a given sequence.
• Transformer refers to the architecture of the neural network (machine learning algorithms) upon which ChatGPT is based. It is this architecture that allows the computer to process natural language.

Importantly, ChatGPT and other generative AI are not omniscient; they cannot think, understand, or feel. They are merely software – lines of computer code – programmed to generate natural language replies in response to text and image prompts. They work by predicting the next word in a given text string based on patterns “learned” from the data on which they have been trained.

In late March, OpenAI released an API (application programming interface) to select businesses to allow them to incorporate the AI technology into their own websites and apps via plugins. Using these plugins, brands have been able to harness the power of ChatGPT to help consumers book travel, make restaurant reservations, and create curated product recommendations.

Currently, the ChatGPT plugins have been tasked with relatively basic functions – essentially providing high-level search tools in the form of an interactive chatbot. See, for example, the video Expedia released on Twitter to show how its ChatGPT plugin operates.

Brands have also begun to use generative AI tools to help with:

• Coding – generating and building source code and analyzing mistakes within the code
• Content Creation – generating blog posts, social media posts, targeted email campaigns and video scripts
• Data Analysis – analyzing large data sets and synthesizing the information into easily digestible bullet points
• Market Research – generating a list of key players in any industry along with products and services
• Product Descriptions – generating bulk descriptions for e-commerce sites where product catalogs are frequently updated
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – generating copy that includes keywords and meta descriptions that search engines can look for when ranking pages

ChatGPT and other generative AI tools come with risks, and any business use of them should be done carefully and cautiously.

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Home Health Leads Industry Job Gains in March

McKnight’s Home Care | By Diane Eastabrook
 
Home health led the healthcare industry in job gains last month, tallying 15,000 of the 34,000 positions filled during the month of March. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported the findings Friday in its monthly employment report.
 
The news was a boost to the home health sector, which BLS says needs to fill approximately 700,000 jobs annually. However, the 34,000 additional healthcare jobs in March marked a significant decline from the 54,000 the industry has been averaging monthly over the past six months. 
 
Overall, the United States added 236,000 jobs in March — below the 239,000 economists had projected and well below the 326,000 the nation added in February. The unemployment rate remained at 3.5% and the number of people looking for work increased slightly. That is good news for employers for two reasons: not only has the pool of potential job candidates grown, but larger numbers of workers may put downward pressure on wages.  
 
Still, the labor shortage continues to be one of the biggest headwinds for home healthcare providers as they emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic. Executives at home health giant Amedisys told Wall Street analysts in February the supply of clinical staff is still falling far short of demand. Enhabit Home Health and Hospice executives also said recently 70 of its locations remain short-staffed, despite hiring 100 new nurses at the end of last year. 
 
Two weeks ago, the National Association for Home Care & Hospice and the Home Care Association of America released a report with a list of recommendations to help boost the number of direct care workers. The two groups called on Congress to use American Rescue Plan Act funds to forgive student nurse loans; make telehealth waivers permanent; waive 60-day recertifications regulations for nurses providing care under Medicaid; expedite, simplify and prioritize background screenings on new nurses; and allow for nurse certification reciprocity across state lines.