Editor's Note In partnership with the World Health Organization (WHO), The Joint Commission and The Joint Commission and Joint Commission International (JCI) invite organizations, health professionals, patients, and their advocates to recognize World Patient Safety Day Tuesday, September 17. This year’s theme is “improving diagnosis for patient safety.” This theme…

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Editor's Note A recent study conducted at a tertiary care hospital in India showed concurrent COVID-19 infection on patients undergoing emergency surgery resulted in notably longer hospital stays and higher rates of postoperative complications. Published September 8 in Cureus, the retrospective cohort study analyzed data from 48 COVID-19-positive patients and…

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Editor's Note Patients with depressive symptoms are nearly twice as likely to experience delirium after major surgery, according to a meta-analysis published September 4 in the journal Anaesthesia. The evaluation of the link between preoperative depression and postoperative delirium included data from 42 studies involving more than 4.6 million patients.…

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Editor's Note The U.S. healthcare sector is projected to experience a shortage of 100,000 workers by 2028, according to an August 29 report by Mercer. This shortfall is expected to affect key roles such as nursing assistants, nurse practitioners, and specialized primary care physicians. Nursing assistants are projected to have…

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Editor's Note Healthcare employment in the US rose by 31,000 from August to September, according to the latest report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), released September 6. That is compared to an overall monthly gain of 142,000 in August. Healthcare employment also trended up in ambulatory healthcare services,…

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Editor’s Note The Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC) is advocating for clearer reprocessing instructions for medical devices to improve patient safety and efficiency, Outpatient Surgery Magazine August 19 reports. Many current instructions for use (IFUs) are considered overly complex, outdated, and difficult to interpret, especially for…

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Editor's Note The Accreditation Association for Ambulatory Health Care (AAAHC) announced on August 21 the release of an updated version of its Medication Reconciliation Toolkit, designed to help ambulatory healthcare professionals minimize medication errors and improve patient outcomes. The toolkit emphasizes the importance of accurately documenting all medications including vitamins,…

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Editor's Note A new study, the Stop-or-Not Trial, has found no significant difference in outcomes for patients undergoing noncardiac surgery who either continued or discontinued their renin-angiotensin system (RAS) inhibitor therapy, MedPage Today August 31 reports. The randomized clinical trial, which included over 2,200 patients, reported the rate of death…

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Editor's Note A recent study from two tertiary care centers highlighted significant sex differences in long-term outcomes after cardiac surgery, especially concerning postoperative atrial fibrillation (postopAF), MedPage August 21 reports. The study, published in JAMA Network, found that while women were less likely than men to develop postopAF following a…

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Editor's Note Research reveals nearly 10% of patients treated with prescription opioid painkillers develop opioid dependency or opioid use disorder (OUD), Healio reported on August 13. Additionally, nearly 30% of patients exhibit signs and symptoms indicating potential OUD. Originally published in the journal Addiction, the data are from a systematic…

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