Barriers, benefits of using mobile health technology postoperatively
Editor's Note This survey of 800 patients identified a range of potential barriers and benefits to using mobile health technology to enhance recovery after surgery. Potential barriers included: protecting personal health information technology effectiveness and failure preference for face-to-face interaction with their surgeons level of effort required ability of older…
FDA: Abbott updates pacemaker firmware to address cybersecurity vulnerabilities
Editor's Note The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced on August 29 that it had approved a firmware update that is intended as a recall, specifically a corrective action, to reduce the risk of patient harm due to cybersecurity vulnerabilities for certain Abbott (formerly St Jude Medical) implantable cardiac pacemakers.…
Postop pain predicts readmissions, ED visits
Editor's Note Postoperative pain trajectories can identify patients at risk for 30-day readmissions and emergency department (ED) visits, and are not mediated by postdischarge complications, this study finds. In this analysis of 211,231 surgical procedures (45.4% orthopedic, 37.0% general, and 17.6% vascular), the 30-day unplanned readmission rate was 10.8%, and…
Flooding from Harvey prompts HHS to declare public health emergency
Editor's Note Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Tom Price, MD, has declared a public health emergency because of flooding and lingering rain in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, the August 28 Healthcare Finance News reports. This declaration gives healthcare providers in Texas and Louisianian greater flexibility in treating people displaced by the…
FDA: Cook Medical issues recall correction, removal of certain sizes of Zenith Alpha thoracic endovascular graft
Editor's Note The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on August 25 announced a recall correction to the instructions for use by Cook Medical (Bloomington, Indiana) for its Zenith Alpha thoracic endovascular graft. This correction removed the indication for blunt thoracic aortic injury (BTAI) because Cook has received an increase in…
Houston Hospitals hit by flooding from Harvey
Editor's Note Flooding from Hurricane Harvey is pushing some Houston hospitals to close or evacuate, the August 27 Modern Healthcare reports. Baylor College of Medicine and clinics closed Sunday, August 27, as did all Texas Children’s Hospital’s pediatrics practices and urgent care locations. The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer…
STOP-Bang screening associated with risk of postop complications in OSA patients
Editor's Note This meta-analysis found that patients at higher risk for obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), as determined by preoperative STOP-Bang screening, had a higher risk of postoperative adverse events and longer length of hospital stay, compared with lower risk-OSA patients. The analysis included 10 studies with 23,609 patients (7,877 high-risk…
Effectiveness of intraop teaching course for surgeons
Editor's Note In this study, a half-day faculty development course designed to equip surgical educators with frameworks shown to promote learning in the OR helped faculty members deliver improved instruction as perceived by surgical residents. A total of 19 faculty members completed the course. Associate professors demonstrated improved briefing, debriefing,…
Payment variation in CABG episodes of care can affect bundled payments
Editor's Note Wide variation was found in 90-day coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) episode payments for Medicare and private payer patients in this study. The differences were driven by increased use of evaluation and management services, higher utilization of inpatient rehabilitation, and patients with multiple readmissions. In the analysis of…
Patient falls from OR, procedure tables during anesthesia care
Editor's Note In this analysis of patient falls from OR and procedure tables during anesthesia care, researchers queried two independent closed claims databases. They identified 21 claims (1.2% of cases) in the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) Closed Claims Project and 0.07% of cases in the secure records of a…