Editor's Note The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) on July 29 issued the 2020 proposed payment rule for ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs) and hospital outpatient departments (HOPDs), which would increase Medicare hospital outpatient prospective payment system rates by 2.7%. CMS is also proposing to add eight codes to…

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Editor's Note Postoperative coffee intake after elective laparoscopic colorectal resection leads to a faster recovery of bowel function and decreases hospital length of stay, this study from Switzerland finds. A total of 115 patients were randomly assigned to the intervention group (56) receiving coffee or the control group (59) receiving…

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Editor's Note The US News & World Report on July 30 released its 2019-2020 Best Hospitals Honor Roll. The top five are: Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore Cleveland Clinic New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia and Cornell, New York City. In the specialty rankings: University of…

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Editor's Note Hospitals with more nurses who have bachelor of science in nursing (BSN) degrees have better outcomes for patients after cardiac arrest, this study finds. For the study, researchers from the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, analyzed data from the American Heart Association’s Get with the Guidelines-Resuscitation registry, RN4CAST-US hospital…

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Editor's Note Health insurer Aetna has created an artificial intelligence (AI) software to settle insurance claims−a development that could lead to automation of other processes and free up staff to focus on higher-level tasks, the July 25 CIO reports. Aetna estimates the software, which is able to resolve claims overnight…

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Editor's Note The “July Effect”−the idea that more errors occur in July because of the influx of new interns and residents starting their in-hospital training−does not apply to cardiac surgery, this study finds. For more than 470,000 cardiac procedures analyzed (coronary bypass, aortic valve, mitral valve, thoracic aortic aneurysm), in-hospital…

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Editor's Note The Food & Drug Administration (FDA) on July 22 issued a final guidance for makers of products that combine devices and drugs or biologics. The guidance clarifies how manufacturers should comply with recordkeeping requirements and how they should submit safety reports and avoid duplication.

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Editor's Note Laypeople currently trained in the American College of Surgeons (ACS) Bleeding Control Basic (B-Con) course may not be prepared to care for bleeding individuals because the principles for correct Combat Application Tourniquet (CAT) application taught in the course are not fully translatable to other commercial or improvised tourniquets,…

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Editor's Note The Joint Commission on July 24 named five hospitals/healthcare systems as 2019 Pioneers in Quality Expert Contributors for their leadership efforts in using electronic clinical quality measure (eCQM) practices to drive their quality improvement. The five are: Baptist Health (Jacksonville, Florida) Johns Hopkins Health System (Baltimore, Maryland) Memorial…

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Editor's Note The Hospital Readmission Reduction Program (HRRP), which penalizes hospitals for higher-than-expected readmission rates, did not prompt substantial changes in hospital referral patterns to skilled nursing facilities (SNFs), this study finds. However, readmissions for patients referred to SNFs decreased more than for other patients. In this analysis of nearly…

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