Stronger academic partnerships could improve nurse recruitment
Editor's Note Chief Nursing Officers should reestablish academic partnerships in order to strengthen pipelines into the nursing industry that were fractured during the COVID-19 pandemic, according a January 29 analysis in Health Leaders Media. As the healthcare industry nationwide struggles with inadequate staffing, widespread nurse burnout, and many veteran nurses…
FDA updates safety recall of certain saline, sterile water medical products
Editor's Note The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on January 24 updated its safety recall communication from November 6 to add to the voluntary recalls of saline and sterile water medical products associated with Nurse Assist, LLC. The FDA recall notice lists various water-based medical products manufactured by Nurse…
Impending sale of federal helium reserve raising concerns over supply chain disruptions
Editor's Note The US government's sale of the Federal Helium Reserve, a large underground helium stockpile in Amarillo, Texas, has raised concerns about the supply of helium for critical healthcare applications, especially MRI machines, NBC News reported January 25. The Federal Helium Reserve reportedly provides up to 30% of the…
TPG announces investment in Compass Surgical Partners to fuel growth in ASC joint ventures
San Francisco & Raleigh, North Carolina—(BUSINESS WIRE)—TPG (NASDAQ:TPG), a leading global alternative asset management firm, today announced a significant strategic investment in Compass Surgical Partners (“Compass” or the “Company”), an independent full-service ambulatory surgery center (ASC) development and management partner. TPG Growth, the firm’s middle market and growth equity platform,…
Blast from the past: Improving medication safety in the OR
The US Food and Drug Administration receives more than 100,000 medication-related reports, and some of them, according to the AORN Journal, “involve patient death.” AORN’s 2024 updated guidelines include safety updates for perioperative staff when handling, transporting, and administering medication, which can be a complex process prone to errors. In…
Thyroid hormone replacement boosts risk of abdominal surgery complications
Editor's Note: Preoperative thyroid hormone replacement independently predicts operative morbidity and length of stay following major abdominal surgery, according to a January 23 report in the American Journal of Surgery. To determine the association between preoperative thyroid hormone replacement and complications following major abdominal surgery, researchers performed a retrospective case…
Machine learning study shows AI’s potential for predicting kidney transplant outcomes
Editor's Note: Artificial intelligence (AI) leveraging machine learning (ML) and natural language processing (NLP, a subset of machine learning) models can help identify donors with kidneys unsuitable for organ transplant, according to a study published November 1 in Jama Surgery. Despite the unmet need, many deceased-donor kidneys are discarded or…
More health systems embrace dual roles for C-suite executives
Editor's Note: Stacking additional responsibilities and titles atop pre-existing leadership responsibilities is becoming more common among health system executives, according to a January 24 report in Becker’s Hospital Review. Not including the most obvious overlapping pairings, such as chief medical officer and chief medical informatics officers, the most common parings…
Competition tight in annual “top hospital” rankings
Editor's Note: The 250 best hospitals in the US perform at such a high level that those at the lower end of the rankings aren’t much different from those at the higher end, according to a January 23 report from Chief Healthcare Executive. Released annually by Healthgrades, the 2024 "Top…
DOJ cracking down on AI tools for clinical decision-making
Editor's Note: The U.S. Justice Department is investigating how the healthcare industry is using artificial intelligence (AI) tools to analyze and make decisions using patients’ electronic health records (EHRs), Bloomberg Law reported January 29. So far, DOJ has served subpoenas related to EHRs to at least three major pharma companies:…