Editor's Note This study finds that the estimated cost of waste in the US health care system ranges from $760 billion to $935 billion and accounts for some 25% of healthcare spending. Projected potential savings from interventions to reduce waste, excluding savings from administrative complexity, range from $191 billion to…

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Editor's Note The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) on September 26 released a final rule that revises discharge planning requirements for hospitals, the September 26 Becker’s Clinical Leadership & Infection Control reports. Among the requirements: Hospitals must prioritize patients’ care goals and treatment preferences during discharge planning. Hospitals…

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Editor's Note 2019 continues to be a year of change in the healthcare industry as well as great innovation. HealthStream has broken down the top 10 trends and identifies solutions that can help an organization streamline initiatives and improve outcomes. Among the top trends: Amazon is becoming a major disrupter.…

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Editor's Note When deep learning algorithms were compared with health-care professionals in classifying diseases using medical imaging, diagnostic performance was equivalent between the two. In this meta-analysis of 14 studies, researchers found that deep learning systems correctly detected a disease state 87% of the time, compared with 86.4% for healthcare…

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OR leaders live with many challenges, ranging from obtaining adequate reimbursement to having sufficient staff on hand. Despite constant pressures, most respondents to the 2019 annual OR Manager Salary/Career Survey remain satisfied with their jobs. In all, 70% are satisfied with their current jobs or positions, comparable to the 67%…

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Editor's Note There are gender differences in how physicians perceive EHR-related stress, satisfaction, and usability, finds this study. Of 25 ICU physicians who participated in the study, 48% were men and 52% were women. Overall task performance scores were similar, but men reported significantly higher perceived EHR workload stress and…

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Editor's Note The Joint Commission on August 28 announced five new inpatient performance measures for the Comprehensive Cardiac Center Certification program, which will be effective January 1, 2020. Data collection for the measures will be mandatory for currently certified programs and organizations seeking initial certification. In addition to the mandatory…

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Staffing headaches for OR managers continue, according to the 2019 annual OR Manager Salary/Career Survey, with more than a third of respondents reporting that the percentage of open positions compared with 12 months ago has increased for both RNs and surgical technologists (STs). The clock has to be turned back…

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Extensive research by Cori L. Ofstead, MSPH, and her colleagues at Ofstead & Associates (St Paul, Minnesota) has raised concerns about insufficient reprocessing of gastrointestinal endoscopes and ureteroscopes—even when recommended practices are followed—and their new study makes a compelling case for more stringent reprocessing of bronchoscopes as well. In their…

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Editor's Note In this study of more than 1 million Medicare patients, 4.8% were super-users of healthcare and incurred 31.7% of Medicare expenditures after surgery. A machine learning approach identified the following as the most significant risk factors linked to super-utilization of healthcare in the year following surgery: hemiplegia/paraplegia weight…

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