Editor's Note The Joint Commission on April 24 announced that it will be posting spring 2019 updates to the E-dition® of its accreditation and certification manuals in May. The changes, which can be viewed on an organization’s Joint Commission Connect® extranet site, will go into effect July 1 unless otherwise…

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Editor's Note The off-label use of defoaming agents, lubricants, and tissue glue is common, and these insoluable substances are not removed during reprocessing, this study finds. Of 69 fully reprocessed endoscopes examined in four hospitals, microbial cultures were positive for 50% or more. The researchers, led by Cori Ofstead, MSPH,…

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Editor's Note The Food & Drug Administration on April 16 announced it is considering additional regulatory actions, including consulting with federal health experts for guidance, to reduce the risks of contamination and infections associated with duodenoscopes. The FDA is also working with manufacturers of disposable duodenoscopes that would make reprocessing…

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Editor's Note Compared with preoperative independent functional status, preoperative dependent functional status was independently associated with worse outcomes after primary total hip arthroplasty in this study. Of 43,179 patients analyzed, those who were less able to care for themselves: were 2 to 3 times more likely to have surgical complications…

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Editor's Note The Food & Drug Administration on April 23 announced new steps it will be taking to help reduce risks associated with surgical staplers for internal use and implantable staples. The proposed steps include: Reclassifying surgical staplers from Class I (low risk) to Class II (moderate risk). Issuing guidance to…

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Editor's Note The Center’s for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is legally responsible for setting and updating the work element of its relative value units (RVUs), which form the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule used to determine physician payments. In practice, however, updating what is known as the “work RVU” is…

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Editor's Note In this study, survival rates for geriatric patients were significantly improved when emergency general surgery procedures were performed at hospitals with higher operative volumes. Of 41,860 surgical procedures evaluated at 200 hospitals, mortality decreased as hospital emergency operative volume increased. For every standardized increase in volume, reduction in…

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Editor's Note A new artificial intelligence (AI) system developed by researchers at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine improved the ability to diagnose prostate cancer in this study. The system, called “FocalNet,” helps identify and predict the aggressiveness of the disease by evaluating MRI scans. Results showed that FocalNet…

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Editor's Note The Food & Drug Administration (FDA) on April 15 identified the recall of Brainlab's Spine & Trauma 3D Navigation Software as Class I, the most serious. The Software is being recalled because of the potential for incorrect information to display during surgery, which may prevent the surgeon from…

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Editor's Note Machine learning can be used to improve surgical risk prediction compared to traditional risk calculators, this study from Singapore finds. The traditional Combined Assessment of Risk Encountered in Surgery and the American Society of Anesthesiologists Physical Status models were compared with machine learning models in the prediction of…

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