Editor's Note Ambulatory surgery patients who received follow-up care via a mobile app had fewer in-person visits during the first 30 days after surgery, finds this study. Of 65 women having outpatient breast reconstruction surgery, 32 were in the mobile app group, and 33 were in the in-person follow-up care…

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Editor's Note Patients who live alone can recover effectively and safely at home after total hip arthroplasty (THA) and total knee arthroplasty (TKA), finds this study presented March 14 at the 2017 Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons in San Diego. Of 638 patients analyzed (364 THA,…

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The postanesthesia care unit (PACU) is no longer used just to recover patients after surgery. Multiple departments use it for various procedures, from electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) to regional blocks, as well as to ease emergency department (ED) overcrowding. This makes it difficult to manage bed availability, OR scheduling, and patient…

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Editor's Note The use of inpatient rehabilitation compared with a monitored home-based program did not improve mobility at 26 weeks after total knee surgery, this study finds. In the study, 81 patients received 10 days of hospital inpatient rehabilitation followed by an 8-week home-based program, and 87 patients received only…

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Editor's Note To help surgical patients recover faster, Rush University Medical Center in Chicago has started providing them with a computer app that prompts, monitors, and encourages activities that promote healing. The app, called “SeamlessMD,” can be downloaded to a patient’s smartphone, tablet, or computer and is part of Rush’s…

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Editor's Note Researchers at Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, have developed a tool that helps predict the possibility of survival and independence at discharge for elderly patients with traumatic brain injury. The tool, which accounts for variables such as age, gender, and severity of brain injury, was evaluated in…

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Editor's Note Implementation of a Perioperative Surgical Home (PSH) program for patients undergoing ambulatory laparoscopic cholecystectomy in a Kaiser Permanente practice model was associated with significantly reduced length of stay and unplanned hospital admission in this study. The analysis included 878 patients in the preimplementation period and 1,082 in the…

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Editor's Note Implementation of a novel program by researchers from Emory University, Atlanta, for patients with newly created ileostomies reduced 30-day readmissions by 58% and cost of readmissions per patient by more than 80%. Typically, nearly 30% of patients with newly-formed ileostomies require readmission from severe dehydration or associated complications.…

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Editor's Note The American College of Surgeons (ACS) in collaboration with Johns Hopkins has launched a new multimillion dollar surgical quality improvement initiative funded and guided by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. The new program will enable hospitals to implement Enhanced Recovery after Surgery (ERAS) protocols, which have…

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When leaders at Memorial Healthcare, a 154-bed community hospital in Owosso, Michigan, wanted to get a jump on preparing for bundled payments, they chose to focus on total hip and knee surgery. Creating a perioperative surgical home (PSH) for this patient population paid off in enhanced patient satisfaction and reductions…

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