Editor's Note Ongoing hospital closures are driving up travel times and out-of-pocket costs for rural Americans who need surgery, according to a February 12 report in HealthDay. Citing two recent studies published in Annals of Surgery and JAMA, respectively, the article details how rural hospital closures have forced more patients…

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Editor's Note Outdated and inaccurate preference cards cost hospitals millions of dollars in delayed surgeries wasted supplies—but with the right strategy, they can become a powerful tool for efficiency and cost reduction. This was among the main takeaways of a 2025 OR Business Management Conference presentation from Jason Goodwin, MPH,…

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Editor's Note A large international clinical trial found that incisional negative pressure wound therapy (iNPWT) does not reduce surgical site infections (SSIs) following emergency laparotomy. The SUNRRISE trial, conducted across 34 hospitals in the UK and Australia and published January 27 in Jama Network, randomized 821 patients to receive either…

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It is with great pleasure that we welcome you to the 2025 OR Business Management Conference, taking place from February 10 to 12 at the Saddlebrook Resort in Tampa, Florida. We hope you will make the most of this premier event, which is dedicated to equipping perioperative business leaders with…

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Editor's Note Financial incentives can shape surgeons’ decision-making, but their effectiveness depends on the structure of the payment model. This is the central message of a January 26 article in Forbes reporting on two studies: one linking a sharp increase in hernia cases to a simple Medicare coding change, and…

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Editor's Note The first study to directly compare kidney-related adverse outcomes between perioperative use of gabapentin and pregabalin shows that the former drug carries a higher risk, Renal and Urology News reported January 21. Published in Frontiers in Medicine, the study involved a trial emulation of 1,280 propensity-matched surgical patients…

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Editor's Note Sleep surgery outperforms continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) therapy in reducing of motor vehicle accidents (MVA) risk among patients with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), particularly those with poor CPAP adherence or severe disease, according to research published January 21 by the American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery.…

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Editor's Note Optimizing surgeon stress could enhance surgical performance and patient outcomes, according to a large cohort study published January 15 in JAMA Surgery. Researchers focused particularly on physiological markers of surgeon stress during the first 5 minutes of a procedure, revealing a significant inverse relationship with major patient complications.…

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Editor's Note A meta-analysis reveals that cataract surgery often leads to temporary tear film instability, with symptoms potentially lasting up to three months, according to a January 16 article in Medscape. However, the impact on other dry eye measures remains unclear due to inconsistent findings across studies. Researchers analyzed 20…

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Editor's Note A study presented at the ASH Annual Meeting 2024 found that the current Caprini score, a widely used model for assessing perioperative venous thromboembolism (VTE) risk, underestimates risk in Black patients while overestimating it in Latino patients. Hematology Advisor reported the news January 6. According to the article,…

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