It may seem obvious: Allowing all employees access to paid sick days would reduce influenza infections in the workplace.

But for the first time, this hypothesis is now supported by research. In a first-of-its-kind study by the University of Pittsburgh’s Graduate School of Public Health, researchers found that universal access to paid sick days would reduce flu cases in the workplace by nearly 6 percent.

Unlike the approach taken by the development of a Health Information Exchange (HIE), a Health Record Bank (HRB) would provide storage for all of an individual’s health information in one account. In much the same way that bank accounts work, individuals would be given a secure HRB account number, and that account could then be accessed from anywhere—including mobile health apps and health and wellness devices. Access to the account would be controlled exclusively by the individual or their proxies. Patients could provide the account number to their healthcare provider so that each time an entry was made into a healthcare provider’s Electronic Health Record (EHR), that information would be automatically added to their HRB.

According to a recent update by the World Health Organization (WHO), a hospital worker in France has contracted a laboratory-confirmed case of novel coronavirus (nCoV) after treating a patient with the infection. This news came shortly after the WHO’s announcement that two health care workers in Saudi Arabia who treated nCoV patients have also been infected with the virus.

This is the first time healthcare workers have been positively diagnosed with nCoV after direct exposure to patients. Infectious disease experts find this worrisome—when SARS arose 10 years ago, hospitals unknowingly amplified its first rapid spread. On Monday, the WHO published a multi-page infection-prevention guide for any hospitals that might take in patients with nCoV…