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When Minnesota family physician Jay-Sheree Allen begins a visit with one of her patients, she starts by turning on the faucet and washing her hands. She no longer shakes hands to minimize the risk of COVID-19 transmission, so she takes a little more time with her hand-washing routine to chat before addressing her patients' medical concerns. Allen recently read a study published in The New England Journal of Medicine that found female primary care physicians spend more time with their patients than male doctors — an average of 2.4 minutes per visit, to be specific. But female physicians still make less money. Allen worries her hand-washing routine is contributing to the problem. (Gordon, 10/28)

The coronavirus pandemic has hospital staff working overtime treating not only COVID-19 patients but also all the usual patients. Controlling infections can be a challenge. A team of scientists at the University of Cambridge and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine have used genome sequencing to reveal the extent to which a drug-resistant gastrointestinal bacterium can spread within a hospital. (Clanton, 10/27)

Two patients and three health care workers at UCSF Helen Diller Medical Center at Parnassus Heights tested positive for the coronavirus last week, and it appears the transmission occurred at the hospital, UCSF said Tuesday. The cases prompted 28 additional employees to be quarantined, and 15 additional patients to be placed in “precautionary isolation,” UCSF spokeswoman Kristen Bole said in a written statement. So far, all of those employees and patients have tested negative. (Ho, 10/27)

Each year, hundreds of workers who care for some of Massachusetts’ most vulnerable residents, including those in nursing homes and dialysis centers, fail to get a flu shot. Now a push is on for them to get vaccinated under a new state mandate that seeks to head off a devastating “twindemic” of flu and COVID-19. Facility administrators say they’re striving to meet the end-of-year vaccination deadline. But they say they are contending with spot shortages of the vaccine as well as antivaccine sentiment among some workers. (Lazar, 10/27)

Two of the region’s largest networks of health providers are joining forces with the aim of creating more affordable coverage for employers and others who often go without health insurance. The Baylor Scott & White Quality Alliance, which includes over 6,000 doctors and dozens of hospitals and facilities, is teaming with the Catalyst Health Network, which has nearly 1,000 primary care doctors. Together, providers in the two groups care for about 1.75 million lives. (Schnurman, 10/27)

Everyone is worn out, including the behind-the-scenes support staff that is trying to keep up with PPE demands, making sure the building is safe and adding COVID testing sites and flu shot drive-throughs. The gut punch that is this latest COVID spike lands most squarely on the frontline worker, [Fred] Cerise said, “that nurse who is touching that critically ill patient.” (Grigsby, 10/27)

The health-care industry is grappling with a slow-paced recovery from the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, as many people continue to avoid doctors’ offices and a new surge in infections spreads across the U.S. For drugmakers, the pandemic has squeezed demand for everything from childhood vaccines to smoking-cessation drugs and diabetes treatments. When the virus took root in the U.S. this spring, many doctors and patients put off routine and elective care, leading to fewer prescriptions for a range of medicines. Sales also slumped for drugs used to treat cancer or in surgeries. (Court, Langreth, Tozzi and Griffin, 10/27)

Dr. Joyce Wallace, a Manhattan internist who treated prostitutes for AIDS, occasionally brought streetwalkers home with her when they had nowhere else to go. Once, when her son, Ari Kahn, was about 12, Dr. Wallace, who had to get to the hospital to see her patients, left him at home with a prostitute who was H.I.V. positive and going through heroin withdrawal. It wasn’t clear who was to take care of whom. Ari ended up making pizza for them both. When Dr. Wallace returned, she took the prostitute to a drug-treatment center; the woman eventually overcame her addiction and got a job at a research foundation that Dr. Wallace had started. (Seelye, 10/27)