Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin recently revealed that a commotio cordis diagnosis was the cause of his cardiac arrest during a Monday Night Football game in January, in today's bite-sized hospital and health industry news from Illinois, New York, and Ohio.

• Illinois: A new  study  published Wednesday in JAMA Network Open suggests that Black women should begin breast cancer screening much earlier than women of other races. For the study, researchers looked at a total of 415,277 breast cancer deaths in female patients in the United States from 2011 to 2020. The findings suggest that Black women should start screening at age 42; white women at 51; American Indian, Alaska Native, and Hispanic women at 57; and Asian or Pacific Islander women at 61. While breast cancer is slightly less prevalent among Black women, compared with white women, Black women have a 40% higher risk of dying due to early-onset breast cancer. "The current one-size-fits-all policy to screen the entire female population from a certain age may be neither fair nor equitable nor optimal," the researchers said. (Castillo, STAT, 4/19)
• New York: Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin recently revealed that a commotio cordis diagnosis was the cause of his cardiac arrest during a Monday Night Football game in January. Commotio cordis occurs when blunt force trauma hits the chest in a minuscule 20-millisecond window during a heartbeat and is extremely rare. According to the  American Heart Association, there were just 334 cases reported in the National Commotio Cordis Registry between 1980 and 2022. "Commotio cordis is an extremely rare event," said Gordon Tomaselli of  Albert Einstein College of Medicine. "But if it occurs during a sports event with ready access to trained emergency care personnel and AEDs [automated external defibrillators], and CPR and defibrillation begin promptly, the survival rate is now quite good, in excess of 50%, which is a vast improvement to the less than 10% survival rate for most out-of-hospital cardiac arrests." Following his recovery, Hamlin has been working with legislators to support the Access to AEDs Act, a bill that would strengthen the response to sudden cardiac arrest in student athletes. Under the bill, schools would be able to purchase, maintain, and provide training for AEDs through a federal grant program. The program would also establish athlete screening programs, and improve cardiac emergency response plans. (Lou, MedPage Today, 4/18)
• Ohio: Kettering Health announced that Michael Gentry will serve as its next CEO, effective July 3. Gentry, who has been COO of  Sentara Healthcare since 2016, is leaving the organization on July 1. Previously, Gentry served as president and CEO of  Memorial Health Systems in Florida, and CEO of Park Ridge Hospital in North Carolina. "I am honored to have the opportunity to join the Kettering Health team, an organization with a long and rich tradition of blending innovative care and Christ-centered compassion to foster health, hope, and healing. I look forward to collaborating with the dedicated physicians and team members that work tirelessly to improve care for the people we serve," Gentry said. "Through our in-depth search and interview process, I've come to learn that Michael possesses great leadership acumen, deep respect for the Kettering Health mission and team, a heart for the ministry of healthcare, and for the people and communities we are privileged to serve," said Celeste Blyden, chair of the Kettering Health membership and board of directors. Gentry's appointment follows the retirement of the system's previous permanent CEO, Fred Manchur. (Blackman, HealthLeaders, 4/19)