Editor's Note No significant difference was found between endoscopic and open vein–graft harvesting in the risk of major adverse cardiac events, in this study. This analysis of 1,150 patients in 16 Veterans Affairs cardiac surgery centers found that during a median follow-up of 2.78 years, the primary outcome of a…

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Editor's Note Implementation of AORN’s 2015 guidelines for OR attire, which also were adopted by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, has not decreased surgical site infections (SSIs) and has increased healthcare costs, this study finds. For the study, data were collected on general, cardiac, neuro-, orthopaedic, and gynecologic…

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Editor's Note To reduce contamination of the surgeon in the OR, the two-person gowning technique must be highly monitored, or the single-person gowning technique should be used, finds this study from the department of orthopedic surgery and rehabilitation at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, Oklahoma City. For the…

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Editor's Note Reoperations after bariatric surgery occurred mainly within the first 10 years, and revisional surgeries (ie, conversions, corrections, and reversals) were more common after banding and vertical banded gastroplasty than gastric bypass, this Swedish study finds. In this analysis of 2,010 patients with 26 years of follow-up, first-time revisional…

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Editor's Note In the first 2 years of Medicare’s Comprehensive Care for Joint Replacement (CJR) program, there was a modest reduction in spending per procedure without an increase in complication rates, this study finds. Comparing costs associated with 280,161 joint replacement procedures in 803 hospitals required to participate in the…

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Editor's Note An annual poll from Gallup found nurses rated the highest among professions in the US for their honesty and ethical standards for the 17th straight year. A total of 84% of respondents rated the honesty and ethical standards of nurses as “very high” or “high.” Physicians came in…

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Total joint replacements contribute hefty profits to hospitals and healthcare systems. Once the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) starts reimbursing surgery centers—as is done for hospital outpatient surgery departments (HOPDs)—the competition between hospitals, HOPDs, and ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs) will intensify. “Total joints are the hot ticket in…

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Editor's Note In this study, an ultrarestrictive opioid prescribing strategy was associated with a reduction in the number of pills dispensed without changes in postoperative pain, complications, or increases in prescription refill requests. In this case-control 2-year analysis of 1,231 women having surgery for gynecologic cancer, those having ambulatory or…

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Editor's Note New research from the Hip Implant Prosthesis Study (HIPS) team at the University of Bristol Medical School that analyzed hip replacements in more than 1 million patients in the United Kingdom and Sweden found that: Small-head (less than 36 mm in diameter) cemented metal-on-polyethylene implants were the most…

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Editor's Note Fish oil did not increase perioperative bleeding and reduced the number of blood transfusions in cardiac surgery patients, in this study. A total of 1,516 cardiac surgery patients were randomized to perioperative fish oil or placebo−from 2 to 5 days before surgery until discharge. The primary outcome of…

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