Editor's Note This study led by researchers at the University of Colorado, Denver, finds an association between a communication and optimal resolution (CANDOR) program and increases in most measures of healthcare professional satisfaction. CANDOR is used when a patient experiences an unexpected adverse outcome. The analysis included survey data from…

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Editor's Note A study led by researchers at Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University in Chicago finds non-Hispanic Black, low income, and publicly insured patients received higher rates of delayed appendicitis diagnoses and long postoperative hospital stays. The cohort study included 80,312 patients who underwent open or laparoscopic appendectomy in…

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Editor's Note This study led by American College of Surgeons researchers finds that most hospitals that implemented an enhanced recovery program (ERP) for colorectal surgery had difficulty improving process compliance. Researchers evaluated improvement uniformity among 151 hospitals participating in an 18-month implementation protocol for 6 ERP process measures (oral antibiotics,…

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Editor's Note This study, presented March 7 at the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS) annual meeting in Las Vegas, finds high reported satisfaction and outcomes in patients who had outpatient joint arthroplasty procedures in academic medical centers. The study included 281 outpatient total joint arthroplasty (TJA) and unicondylar knee…

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Editor's Note This study by researchers at Elevance Health, Inc, Indianapolis, Indiana, finds increased rates of adverse outcomes over a 1-year period in adults who survived the acute phase of COVID-19. A total of 13,435 individuals with post-COVID-19 condition (ie, long COVID) and 26,870 individuals with no evidence of COVID-19…

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Editor's Note Although most people have largely returned to normal activities, mental health is still a concern, finds surveys conducted between March 2020 and September 2022 by Pew Research Center and other organizations. Among the findings: 41% of adults experienced high levels of psychological distress at some point in the…

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Editor's Note California health officials, on March 3, announced plans to relax guidance on masking in healthcare and other indoor high-risk settings and to end vaccination requirements for healthcare workers, effective April 3, the March 3 Los Angeles Times reports. Also, starting March 13, those who test positive for COVID-19…

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Editor's Note This study led by researchers at the VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System and David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Los Angeles, finds that postoperative mortality was higher in Black men than Black women, White men, and White women. A total of 1,868,036 Black and White Medicare…

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Editor's Note The Joint Commission on March 1 announced a revision to Performance Improvement (PI) standard PI:01.01.01, Element of Performance (EP) 4, which has to do with data collection on significant discrepancies between preoperative and postoperative diagnoses. The revision was made after healthcare organizations expressed confusion with the requirement. The…

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Editor's Note This study from the Mayo Clinic finds that despite calls for the expansion of outpatient surgery to mitigate the growing backlog of surgical cases during COVID-19, the transition of general surgery procedures from inpatient to outpatient settings occurred in only a small subset of procedures. This cohort study…

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