Editor's Note On Sunday, August 7, the Senate passed a spending bill allocating billions of dollars to climate reform and healthcare focused programs, including provisions that give “Medicare the power to negotiate drug prices for a small subset of drugs” and extend “enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies” for 3 years,…

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Editor's Note  The number of Americans without health insurance coverage has hit a record low of 8% this year, exceeding the previous low of 9% in 2016, the Department of Health and Human Services July 3 reports. Since 2020, 5.2 million people have gained coverage, including 4 million adults and…

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Editor's Note This Canadian study finds that hospitals impacted by COVID-19 can reduce their surgical backlogs by scheduling elective surgeries on the weekends. Using machine learning algorithms, the researchers demonstrated that even after resuming their usual level of surgical cases, the wait list would not decrease without a substantial increase…

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Editor's Note US News & World Report on July 26 posted its 2022-2023 Best Hospitals rankings, highlighting the top 20 hospitals named to its Honor Roll for delivering exceptional care across many specialties. For the seventh consecutive year, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota, ranked number one. Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles,…

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Editor's Note This study led by nurse researchers Linda Aiken, PhD, RN, FAAN, and Karen Lasater, PhD, RN, FAAN, at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing, Philadelphia, finds that if New York state enacts nurse staffing legislation currently under consideration, many lives would be saved and shorter hospital stays…

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Editor's Note The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) on July 27 updated its Overall Hospital Quality Star Ratings for 2022—giving 429 hospitals a five-star rating, based on their performance across five quality categories, the July 27 Becker’s Hospital Review reports. There also were: 890 hospitals that received a…

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Cancer treatment delays in COVID-19 patients This large prospective cohort study from the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York City, found that multiple patient factors, underlying primary malignant neoplasm, multimorbidity, geographic location, receipt of vaccine, and COVID-19 severity and diagnosis date were linked to delays in cancer treatment during…

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ORs rebounding from the financial impact of COVID-19 are looking for ways to reduce expenses. With rising costs coming from all angles of the economy, some have adopted systemwide processes to reduce, streamline, and improve surgical instrumentation sets. Two major health systems, the Cleveland Clinic and Thomas Jefferson University Hospital…

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With inflation hitting yet another record-breaking high—9.1% at the time of publication—hospitals and health systems continue to contend with challenging supply chain disruptions that force leaders into a constant state of putting out fires. Supply chain issues are not new. But instead of having time to plan ahead and implement…

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Lynn Webb, PhD, assistant dean of the Vanderbilt School of Medicine, Nashville, Tennessee, shared an anecdote about unprofessional behavior with attendees of the recent OR Business Management Conference in San Antonio, Texas. A nurse reported that a surgeon was performing a transverse colon resection, and at the appropriate point, they…

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