Editor's Note Healthcare systems need to find innovative solutions to address the nursing shortage, according to a 2023 report from American Hospital Association (AHA), reports December 9 Becker’s Hospital Review. The report noted that the US nursing workforce lost over 100,000 people within the last 3 years, which is the…

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Editor's Note In this study, researchers from Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut, find that mortality after major surgery is elevated in older adults who are frail or who have probable dementia. A total of 1,193 major surgical procedures in 992 Medicare beneficiaries were analyzed. Among the findings: Overall,…

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Editor's Note An observational study, led by researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) and released on November 30 in The BMJ, the flagship journal of the British Medical Association, shows that higher levels of oxygen given to patients under general anesthesia can add risk of injury, VUMC reported on November…

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Editor's Note This prospective Danish study finds that transfer to a postanesthesia care unit (PACU) immediately after elective hip and knee arthroplasty might be unnecessary in low-risk patients. A total of 696 total knee (274), total hip (287), and unicompartmental knee (135) arthroplasty patients were analyzed. Of those, 307 bypassed…

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Editor's Note This study led by researchers from Hennepin Healthcare, Minneapolis, Minnesota, finds that clinician burnout and intent to leave increased throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, but rose sharply in late 2021. In this survey study of 20,627 US clinicians (physicians, residents, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants) in 120 large healthcare…

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Editor's Note Overall healthcare employment in the US was up in November to a seasonally adjusted 16,623,800 workers, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on December 2. That’s up 44,700 since October. Hospital employment also was up by 11,000 jobs. The overall unemployment rate for November was 3.7%, for a…

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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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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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