Editor's Note The Environmental Protection Agency, on April 11, proposed new regulations to reduce exposure to ethylene oxide (EtO), which include more stringent air emission standards and protections for workers who are exposed to EtO when sterilizing medical devices. The proposed standards are estimated to cut EtO emissions from commercial…

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Editor's Note The American College of Surgeons (ACS), on April 14, announced the launch of its new multi-year Power of Quality campaign aimed at improving care for all surgical patients by expanding its quality programs to more hospitals nationwide. These evidence-based quality programs have been proved to improve patient outcomes,…

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Editor's Note A quality improvement study led by clinicians at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, FL, improved clinical alarm management skills and reduced alarm fatigue and desensitization among nurses in a surgical intensive care unit. The study included 115 direct-care nurses working full-time, modified full-time, or part-time schedules in a…

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Editor's Note The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), on April 12, issued a Safety Communication recommending that consumers, healthcare providers, and facilities not use certain surgical N95 respirators and to use caution with certain surgical masks and pediatric face masks, all manufactured by O&M Halyard. The FDA says it is…

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Editor's Note This study from HCA Healthcare, Nashville, Tennessee, finds an increase in healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) in patients with COVID-19, but no increase in patients without COVID-19. More than 5 million hospitalizations in 182 hospitals between 2020 and 2022 were included in the analysis. The incidence of HAIs per 100,…

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Editor's Note In this study, researchers from the Duke Infection Control Outreach Network Surveillance Team, Duke University School of Medicine,  Durham, North Carolina, find that surgical site infection (SSI) rates did not decrease in community hospitals from 2013 to 2018. SSI data was collected from patients having 26 common surgical…

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Editor's Note The Joint Commission, on April 12, announced that it and Kaiser Permanente are still accepting applications for the 2023 Bernard J. Tyson National Award for Excellence in Pursuit of Healthcare Equity. The award, now in its third year, gives national recognition to a healthcare organization for an intervention…

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Editor's Note At ACC.23 (the American College of Cardiology 2023 conference), Sunil Rao, MD, director of interventional cardiology at NYU Langone and president of the Society of Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions (SCAI), spoke about the shift in interventional procedures from hospitals to ambulatory surgical centers (ASCs), Cardiovascular Business April 10…

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Editor's Note The Joint Commission, on April 10, released a new Quick Safety advisory on preventing patient burns from light sources used during laparoscopic or arthroscopic procedures. Burns from these light sources can go unnoticed because they typically do not produce smoke or charring, even of surgical drapes, The Joint…

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Editor's Note This Japanese study finds that surgical site infections (SSIs) were lower after intraoperative wound irrigation with normal saline than with povidone-iodine. A total of 941 patients having gastroenterological surgery were randomized to intraoperative wound irrigation for 1 minute before skin closure with 40 mL of aqueous povidone-iodine (study…

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