Editor's Note The Joint Commission on February 14 announced that the National Practitioner Data Bank (NPDB) has launched a new initiative for US hospitals to complete their attestation when renewing their NPDB registrations. The NPDB is a repository of reports on medical malpractice payments and adverse actions related to healthcare…

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Editor's Note Because of the impact of several recent natural disasters, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is granting exceptions for Medicare quality reporting requirements to ASCs in affected areas, the February 12 ASCA News reports. Exceptions include: ASCs in two California counties affected by wildfires ASCs located…

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Editor's Note Strictly enforcing a ban on skullcaps in the OR had no impact on surgical site infection (SSI) rates in this study, presented at the annual Academic Surgical Congress in Jacksonville, Florida. The analysis included American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (ACS NSQIP) data on 1,901…

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Editor's Note The Joint Commission on February 14 announced that accredited hospitals should start thinking about electronic clinical quality measure (eCQM) success stories to share in the 2018 Pioneers in Quality Proven Practices Collection. Proven Practices was launched last year and is a peer-to-peer sharing of specific practices that an…

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Editor's Note The Food & Drug Administration (FDA) on February 14 authorized marketing of the first blood test to help evaluate concussions in adults and reduce the need for CT scans. The Banyan Brain Trauma Indicator works by measuring levels of proteins (ie, UCH-L1 and GFAP) that are released from…

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Editor's Note Purposeful completion (fidelity) of, more than adherence to, items in the surgical safety checklist diminished intraoperative delays in this study. Of 591 cases analyzed, 110 (19%) had at least one documented intraoperative delay. The majority were related to missing (50%) or malfunctioning (30%) equipment. Degree of fidelity was…

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Editor's Note Wise Guy Reports predicts the global market for neurosurgical products will see a 10.5% compound annual growth rate through 2023 because of the growing availability of neurosurgical devices and increasing popularity of minimally invasive surgeries, the February 9 Becker’s Spine Review reports. Key players in the market, which…

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Editor's Note The Food & Drug Administration (FDA) on February 13 announced that it is permitting the marketing of clinical decision support software that alerts providers to potential strokes in their patients. The Viz.AI Contact application is designed to analyze computed tomography images of the brain and send a text…

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Editor's Note Healthcare workers and others who work the night shift, especially rotating night shifts, are significantly more likely to have Type 2 diabetes than those who work only days, this study finds. The analysis of more than 270,000 people also found that the more nights employees work, the greater…

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Editor's Note Bringing specially trained dogs into ICUs can safely and substantially ease patients' physical and emotional pain, according to Johns Hopkins researchers. Having seen how successful animal-assisted therapy was in the inpatient rehabilitation unit at Johns Hopkins, the researchers adapted the hospital’s protocol to safely bring dogs to ICU…

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