Editor's Note The Joint Commission on November 23 announced that it had updated its 2023 ORYX performance measure reporting requirements, effective January 1, 2023. Key updates for hospitals and critical access hospitals include: Three new electronic clinical quality measures (eCQMs)—hospital harm, severe hypoglycemia; hospital harm, severe hyperglycemia; and ST-segment elevation…

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Editor's Note  The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released a new memorandum on November 28 emphasizing the importance of enforcing regulations and expectations to create a safe environment for hospital staff when delivering patient care, the American Hospital Association reported on November 28. According to the memo, the…

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Editor's Note This study, by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, and California Department of Public Health, finds significant increases in healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) in California acute-care hospitals during the COVID-19 pandemic, specifically, central-line-associated bloodstream infections (CLABSIs) and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bloodstream infections (BSIs). The researchers found…

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Editor's Note The Food and Drug Administration, on November 23, identified the recall by Baxter Hillrom of its WatchCare Incontinence Management System (IMS) as Class I, the most serious. The recall was initiated because of the risk for radiofrequency (RF) emissions from WatchCare devices that may interfere with other devices,…

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Editor's Note A shortage of medications used in treatment of pediatric illnesses are causing additional challenges for healthcare providers amid spikes in respiratory viruses, according to a November 22 CNN story, reports Becker’s Hospital Review November 23. It was reported by the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP) that as…

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Editor's Note Part 1 of the Benchmark Questionnaire on Operating Room Business Practices (Elective Cases Only) closes December 5, 2022 at 8 pm ET. We ask that you take 10 minutes to complete the survey to help highlight best OR Practices for our readers.  The first part of this 2-part survey…

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Editor's Note This French study finds that during the Delta and Omicron periods of COVID-19, parents’ vaccination status was associated with hospital admissions for their children younger than 5 years of age, for whom vaccines were not licensed. During the study period, 599 children were admitted to the hospital. For…

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Editor's Note The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on November 16 identified the recall by Insulet of its Omnipod DASH Insulin Management System Personal Diabetes Manager (PDM) as Class I, the most serious. The recall was initiated because of PDM battery issues, including: Battery swelling Fluid leakage from the battery…

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COVID-19 was a catalyst that helped accelerate innovation in healthcare by a decade, says Jay Banerjee, chief operating officer and cofounder of ImmersiveTouch, a virtual reality (VR) surgery company in Chicago. “Many things that would have taken 20 to 30 years happened sooner,” Banerjee says. “Telemedicine; electronic health records; remote…

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After writing my latest article on surgical robots (Operationalizing a robotics program for evenings, weekends, pp 13–15, 19) for this issue of OR Manager, I reminisced on how the surgical robot has evolved and how my interest in surgical robots began.   Reminiscing about robots It all began with the…

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