Editor's Note Researchers have developed an online app that patients and surgeons can use to guide preoperative planning and provide predictive data for how a patient’s ventral hernia repair will turn out. The basis of the app is a tool named the “Outcomes Reporting App for CLinical and Patient Engagement”…
Editor's Note The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on May 6 identified the recall my Alpha Omega Engineering of its Neuro Omega System, including the Drive Headstage unit, as Class I, the most serious. The recall was initiated because a design flaw in the device may connect two separate electrode…
Editor's Note Reducing low-value testing before cataract surgery was associated with cost savings for financially capitated healthcare systems, but it was also associated with losses for fee-for-service healthcare systems, which could be a barrier to eliminating low-value care, this study finds. Of 1,054 patients (469 intervention, 585 controls) included in…
Editor's Note The American Organization of Nurse Executives (AONE) on May 5 announced that it is changing its name to the American Organization for Nursing Leadership (AONL). The name change, which was announced at AONE’s annual meeting, also comes with a new tagline−Education Advocacy Community. The organization says the new…
Editor's Note Though emergency department (ED) visits and hospital discharges by uninsured patients decreased after implementation of the Affordable Care Act, 1 in 10 ED visits and 1 in 20 hospital discharges were still made by uninsured patients from 2014 to 2016, this study finds. There were 1.4 million…
Editor's Note US hospitals added 8,300 jobs in April to a seasonally adjusted 5,229,200, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on May 3. That’s up 105,700 more employees than a year ago. Overall, healthcare employment has increased 403,500 in the past year. The overall unemployment rate fell to 3.6% in April…
Editor's Note The nurse work environment is associated with the quality of nursing care, nurse job outcomes, patient outcomes, and patient satisfaction, this study finds. This meta-analysis of 17 articles that reported data from 2,677 hospitals, 141 nursing units, 165,024 nurses, and 1,368,420 patients, in 22 countries found consistent, significant…
Editor's Note National Nurses Week begins each year on May 6 and ends on May 12, Florence Nightingale’s birthday. National Nurses Week is celebrated annually to raise awareness of the important role nurses play in society. This year’s theme is “Four Million Reasons to Celebrate.” The American Nurses Association has…
Editor's Note In this study of low-risk patients with severe aortic stenosis, outcomes were significantly better at 1 year follow-up with transcatheter aortic-valve replacement (TAVR) than surgical aortic-valve replacement. In 1,000 patients at 71 centers who were randomized to undergo either TAVR or surgical aortic-valve replacement, the rate of the…
Editor's Note Becton, Dickinson and Company (BD) announced on April 30 that it had received Food & Drug Administration (FDA) approval for BD ChloraPrep skin preparation with sterile solution. This new product is the only fully sterile chlorhexidine gluconate (CHG) antiseptic skin preparation commercially available in the US. The FDA’s…