Editor's Note The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on June 19 announced the recall by Maquet/Datascope (Fairfield, New Jersey) of its System CS100, CS100i, and CS300 Intra-Aortic Balloon Pumps. The recall also applies to System 98 or System 98XT IABP that was converted to a CS100i or CS 300 IABP.…

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Editor's Note Techniques used to clean and sterilize flexible ureteroscopes left behind contamination that included debris, residue, and bacteria, in this study presented June 14 at the 44th Annual Conference of the Association for Professionals in Infection Control. Researchers with Ofstead & Associates (St Paul, Minnesota) sampled 16 ureteroscopes at…

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Editor's Note The American College of Rheumatology (ACR) and American Association of Hip and Knee Surgeons (AAHKS) have released a new guideline to help reduce postoperative total hip and knee infections through the perioperative management of antirheumatic medications. Among the recommendations: Discontinuing biologic therapy before surgery in patients with inflammatory…

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Editor's Note The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on June 16 announced the recall by Hospira, Inc, a Pfizer company, of the following: 42 lots of 8.4% Sodium Bicarbonate Injection, USP, 50 mL vials 5 lots of Neut (Sodium Bicarbonate 4% additive solution) 5 mL vials 5 lots of Quelicin…

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Editor's Note In this study, Medicare’s Hospital Value-Based Purchasing (HVBP) program was not associated with improvements in quality measures of clinical process or patient experience. HVBP also was not associated with a significant reduction in two of three mortality measures (ie, acute myocardial infarction or heart failure). It was associated…

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Editor's Note Revisions to the Life Safety (LS) and Environment of Care (EC) chapters for Behavioral Health Care, Laboratory, Nursing Care Centers, and Office-Based Surgery accreditation programs, based on adoption of the 2012 editions of the National Fire Protection Association’s NFPA 101: Life Safety Code and NFPA 99: Health Care…

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Editor's Note The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on June 15 issued a Safety Alert for frameless stereotaxic navigation systems because of navigational accuracy errors during surgical procedures. Some of these errors have led to patient deaths, serious or life-threatening injuries, and inaccurate, aborted, or prolonged surgical procedures. The FDA…

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Editor's Note Failure to rescue occurs predominantly in patients who have more than one complication with a dose-response relationship as complications accrue, this study finds. More than 266,000 patients in the Veterans Affairs Surgical Quality Improvement Program were included in the analysis. Of those who had a complication, more than half…

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Editor's Note More than 500,000 physicians and other providers will get a 2% cut in their Medicare payments because of poor performance in the Physician Quality Reporting System (PQRS), the June 13 Modern Healthcare reports. The penalties are based on 2015 claims data. Though Medicare is phasing out PQRS and…

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Editor's Note Clinical and managerial competence, engagement with employees, and presence on the unit were the most important factors for retaining a satisfied nursing workforce in this study. A total of 279 nurses at a 391-bed Magnet hospital were surveyed with the Baptist Health Nurse Retention Questionnaire. Results showed that…

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