Innovative technology and surgical procedures, including artificial intelligence, will be explored in depth during the OR Manager Conference, September 18-20 in New Orleans. The new OR of the Future gives attendees a unique opportunity to learn through interactive experiences, educational sessions, and discussions with leading experts: product manufacturers as well…

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Surgeons are the biggest factor in any effort to streamline and standardize the purchase of new surgical devices—and thereby lower costs. But surgeons often balk at getting involved in product review and selection because of the additional demands on their time. Two leading healthcare organizations have moved past this stumbling…

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Editor's Note The Harvard Business School’s Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness has teamed up with the American College of Surgeons (ACS) to develop a value-based measurement program for hospitals and surgical practices. The program, “Transforming Healthcare Resources to Increase Value and Efficiency [ACS THRIVE],” will be tested at 10 to…

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Editor's Note In this study, researchers developed service- and surgeon-specific statistical models using linear regression and machine learning to predict case-time duration at a large academic medical center. Results showed: The machine-learning algorithm had the highest predictive capability. The surgeon-specific was superior to the service-specific model, with higher accuracies and…

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Editor's Note Hospital network participation was not associated with improvements in surgical outcomes or Medicare expenditures, compared with hospitals not in a network, this study finds. In this analysis of nearly 2 million Medicare beneficiaries having general, vascular, cardiac, or orthopedic surgery between 2007 and 2014 at network (1,868) or…

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Editor's Note House Leaders will vote the week of July 15 on a measure to repeal the Affordable Care Act’s 40% tax on high-cost healthcare insurance plans, the July 12 Bloomberg Tax reports. The measure is expected to have wide bipartisan support. Democrat Rep Joe Courtney of Connecticut is the…

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Editor's Note Residing in a disadvantaged neighborhood in Maryland and being discharged from a hospital serving a large proportion of disadvantaged neighborhoods were independently associated with increased risk of readmission in this study. 2015 data from Maryland hospitals showed a 14.1% 30-day readmission rate for patients living in neighborhoods in…

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Editor's Note Though hospitals still expect to increase their supply purchases from Amazon in the next 3 years, the percentage of respondents to a UBS Group survey who are negotiating sourcing agreements with the retailer has declined from 11% in 2018 to 7% in 2019, the July 8 Bloomberg News…

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Editor's Note The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) hospital penalization in the Hospital Acquired Condition Reduction Program (HACRP) was not associated with significant changes in rates of hospital acquired conditions (HACs), 30-day readmissions, or 30-day mortality and does not appear to drive meaningful clinical improvements, this study finds.…

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Editor's Note The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced on July 9 that it has formed a summit of key industry stakeholders and government leaders to provide insight as the Trump administration seeks to streamline, improve, and align measures used across federal healthcare quality programs. The Quality Summit,…

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