Editor's Note ECRI Institute announced on March 17 that is collaborating with the London School of  Economics in a project examining medical device pricing across different countries. Medical devices are estimated to account for 6% to 7% of total health expenditure in the US and European countries, but little is…

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Editor's Note Emergency general surgery patients who were managed early in the academic year with an influx of new residents fared equally well, if not better, than patients who were managed later in the year in this study. Compared to patients managed later, early patients had lower risk-adjusted odds of…

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Editor's Note This study was designed to understand nurses’ perceptions of using an electronic health record (EHR) at the point of care. At 1 year after EHR adoption, the nurses said: it did not improve patient care the learning curve was steep they had lower confidence using the EHR than…

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Editor's Note The Joint Commission on March 16 announced that the new Patient Blood Management Certification Review Process Guide (2016) is now available. Contents include a description of activities that take place during an on-site certification review and tips to prepare for the review process.   Patient Blood Management Certification…

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Editor's Note Large numbers of pediatric patients have tonsillectomies and adenoidectomies (T&As) in ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs) despite higher rates of complications in younger patients and patients with more comorbidities, this study finds. In this retrospective review, researchers from Stanford University, Stanford, California, analyzed 115,214 children having T&As in hospitals,…

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Editor's Note RNs at Kaiser Permanente’s Los Angeles Medical Center began a 7-day strike on March 15, PR Newswire reports. The focus of the strike is on: improving staffing to protect patient care achieving economic gains to retain experienced RNs and increase recruitment of new RNs. The walkout affects 1,200…

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Editor's Note The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on March 15 announced that Olympus (Center Valley, Pennsylvania) has issued updated, validated manual reprocessing instructions for the TJF-160F and TJF-160 VF duodenoscope models to replace those provided in the original device labeling. The FDA reviewed the updated reprocessing instructions and the…

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Editor's Note In this study, a new risk-stratification scale identified high-risk patients for readmission within 30 days after total hip replacement with 89.1% accuracy. Nearly 269,000 hip replacement patients from the State Inpatient Database were analyzed, and factors associated with an increased risk of readmission were used to create the…

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Editor's Note The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced March 9 that about 1,900 diagnosis codes and 3,651 hospital inpatient procedure codes will be added to the ICD-10 coding system in FY 2017, AHA News Now reports. The large number of…

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Editor's Note Ambulatory surgery center (ASC) and car wash owners urged Connecticut lawmakers to roll back taxes they imposed last year to help balance the state’s budget, the March 9 The Republic reports. Owners say the taxes are a burden and predict establishments that operate on slim margins will close. An…

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