Editor's Note The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced that it is extending the deadline for its new alternative bundled payment model from August 1 to August 8, the July 5 Modern Healthcare reports. CMS extended the deadline after receiving complaints from providers and hospitals that they weren’t…

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Editor's Note The Food & Drug Administration (FDA) on July 6 announced that individual blood donations no longer need to be screened for Zika virus, “unless there is an increased risk of local mosquito-borne transmission of Zika virus in a specific geographic area that would trigger individual donation testing in…

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Editor's Note In this study, cataract surgery was associated with a patient’s reduced subsequent risk of being in a serious traffic crash as a driver. This analysis of 559,546 patients who had cataract surgery in at least one eye found that the crash rate decreased from 2.36 to 2.14 per…

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Editor's Note Patients assessed in hospital-based emergency departments (EDs) were 20% more likely to be admitted than patients at freestanding EDs, this study finds. Data for the 3,230 patient study, were collected from 2015 Cleveland Clinic statistics of its tertiary hospital-based ED and two of its freestanding EDs. Of 1,708…

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Editor's Note The Joint Commission on June 27 announced that the Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) now requires employers (including many healthcare organizations) to report Form 300A data electronically because it no longer accepts paper submissions. Form 300A is a summary of serious work-related injuries and illnesses that occur…

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Editor's Note In this study, many patients reported unused opioids after joint and spine surgery, infrequent use of nonopioid analgesics, and lack of knowledge on safe opioid storage and disposal. Of 140 patients analyzed, 35% were taking preoperative opioids. Among those who stopped taking opioids after surgery, possession of unused…

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Editor's Note Patients having surgery for degenerative spondylolisthesis (DS) are less likely to be dependent on opioids after surgery than before, this study finds. Of 10,708 DS patients who had surgery between 2000 and 2012, 14.85% were opioid dependent within 12 months before surgery, and 9.90% were opioid dependent 3…

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Editor's Note The Joint Commission on June 25 released new and revised pain assessment and management standards that will be applicable to accredited critical access hospitals and ambulatory care and office-based surgery organizations, effective January 1, 2019. The standards are designed to strengthen an organization’s practices for pain assessment, treatment,…

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Editor's Note Medicare’s Hospital Acquired Condition Reduction Program’s (HACRP) measure for surgical site infections (SSIs) after hysterectomy and colectomy unfairly places hospitals that are not statistical outliers at risk for financial penalties, this study from the University of Michigan finds. SSIs occurred in 1.1% of hysterectomies and 4.8% of colectomies…

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Editor's Note The US News & World Report on June 26 announced the 2018-2019 Best Children’s Hospitals rankings. Ten hospitals earned a place on the Honor Roll, which awards hospitals that deliver exceptionally high quality care across multiple specialties: Boston Children’s Hospital Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center Children’s Hospital of…

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