Editor's Note Malnourished hospitalized surgical and medical patients who participated in a nutrition quality improvement (QI) program had improved readmission rates and length of stay (LOS), but surgical patients had a significantly greater reduction in readmissions than medical patients, in this study. Of 1,269 patients analyzed, 288 were surgical patients…

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Editor's Note In this study, perioperative red blood cell (RBC) transfusions were significantly associated with development of new or progressive postoperative venous thromboembolism (VTE) within 30 days of a surgical procedure. Of 750,937 patients included in the analysis, 47,410 (6.3%) received at lest one perioperative RBC transfusion. Of these, 6,309…

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Editor's Note In this study, researchers at UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles applied machine learning to arterial pressure waveforms to develop an algorithm that predicted intraoperative hypotension 15 minutes before it occurred in 84% of cases. Two sets of data were used to build the algorithm. One set consisted…

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Editor's Note The Food & Drug Administration (FDA) on June 5 updated its Safety Communication: “Recommendations to Reduce Surgical Fires and Related Patient Injury.” Among the recommendations: Perform a fire risk assessment before each surgical procedure. Encourage communication among anesthesia personnel, surgeons, and OR staff. Practice safe use and administration…

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Editor's Note The American College of Surgeons on May 23 announced that a partnership between the Military Health System and civilian trauma institutions is underway to create the first fully integrated military-civilian trauma system. The system will train military surgeons before deployment, help surgeons retain skills while deployed, and bring…

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Editor's Note A Hawaii statewide collaborative for surgical patient safety successfully reduced colorectal surgical site infections (SSIs) and improved patient safety culture, finds this study. Between January 2013 and June 2015, Hawaii’s 15 hospitals implemented the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality’s (AHRQ’s) Comprehensive Unit-based Safety Program (CUSP) in addition…

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To improve healthcare delivery and eliminate duplication, hospitals are banding together into systems in which specialties such as labor and delivery and smaller surgical cases are performed at satellite hospitals, and larger, more complex procedures are done at the main campus. This is the approach taken at the Cleveland Clinic,…

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Editor's Note For veterans having surgical procedures performed in the VA healthcare system, homelessness is an important risk factor for unplanned readmission, finds this study. Analyzing 232,373 surgical procedures performed on 199,879 patients, researchers found that 5,068 of the procedures were performed on homeless patients. The rate of readmission within…

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Editor's Note Ambient intraoperative OR temperature had a negligible effect on core temperature when patients were warmed with forced air in this study. The effect was larger when patients were passively insulated, but the magnitude remained small. A total of 292 adult patients were randomized to ambient temperatures 19º, 21º,…

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Editor's Note Opioid abuse or dependence after major surgical procedures was associated with increased readmission rates and healthcare utilization. Of 16,016,842 patients in the National Readmission Database analyzed, 94,903 (0.6%) had diagnoses of opioid abuse or dependence. Comparing patients with and without opioid abuse or dependence, researchers found that patients…

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