Surgeons usually don’t have a high awareness of costs, partly because they haven’t had an easy way to know them. An unfortunate byproduct of this lack of knowledge can be higher OR costs. “Imagine what it’s like if, when you go to the grocery store, there are no price tags,…

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Ccommon cost-saving strategies in the OR include increasing workflow efficiency, reducing turnover times, implementing standardized preoperative protocols, and improving surgical case scheduling and first case on-time starts (FCOTS). These interventions aim to decrease under- and overutilized time in the OR, but there is conflicting evidence about their economic value. Many…

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Among the changes occurring in healthcare delivery is an emerging trend that suggests ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs) may find themselves with a new type of business partner—or possible competition. That would be the microhospital, which occupies a fraction of the space of a standard inpatient hospital, with some, but not…

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Editor's Note The global market for gastrointestinal (GI) endoscopy devices is expected to see a compound annual growth rate of 5.09% through 2020, the June 13 Becker’s GI & Endoscopy reports. A large, growing patient pool is driving growth, but risks and complications tied to GI endoscopy procedures also will…

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Editor's Note Medicare payments for bariatric surgery are significantly lower at hospitals with low complication rates, and cost savings are most prominent in patients at highest risk for complications, this study finds. The analysis of 38,374 bariatric surgery patients found a strong correlation between complication rates and episode payments−hospitals in…

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Editor's Note Despite concerns that quality improvement efforts may widen disparities, national racial disparities in surgical mortality are narrowing, this study finds. Using Medicare claims data from 2005 to 2014, Harvard researchers found that, overall, national mortality trends improved for both black and white patients by 0.10% and 0.07% per…

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Editor's Note For the first time, less than half of physicians have an ownership stake in their practices, according to a study by the American Medical Association. Surgical sub-specialties have the highest share of physician owners (59.3%), followed by radiology (56.3%). Emergency medicine has the lowest share of owners (27.9%)…

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Editor's Note According to statistics from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), in 2014, 17.2 million hospital visits (inpatient and outpatient) included surgical procedures. More than half (57.8%) occurred in a hospital-owned outpatient surgery setting, and the remaining (42.2%) were inpatient. Private insurance was the primary payer for…

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Editor's Note Quality improvement (QI) measures can be effective in reducing readmissions, relative to the status quo, but cost savings vary, this meta-analysis finds. In this review of 50 QI studies, interventions reduced readmissions by an average of 12.1% for heart failure patients and 6.3% among the general population. However,…

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Editor's Note The ECRI Institute (Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania) on May 25 issued a free public resource to protect hospitals from ransomware attacks. The new guidance, “Ransomware Attacks: How to Protect Your Medical Device Systems,” provides recommendations for adapting general cybersecurity principles to the requirements of medical devices, including a list…

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