Editor's Note The Joint Commission reported on January 31 that it had confirmed with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) that organizations are required to have two exercises of their emergency operations plan annually. Among the organizations to which the requirement applies are: deemed hospitals critical access hospitals…

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Editor's Note Clinical Advice Service (CAS), a nurse-run telephone triage service for after-hour calls, developed at the Stanford University School of Medicine, provides well-coordinated care to neurosurgery patients while reducing physician workload, this study finds. Between July 2016 and June 2017, CAS nurses received 1,021 after-hours calls from neurosurgery patients.…

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Editor's Note The Joint Commission on November 3 updated its emergency management requirements for hospital, ambulatory, home health, and hospice settings, effective November 15. The updated standards will assist healthcare organizations in more effectively planning for disasters and coordinate with federal, state, tribal, regional, and local emergency preparedness systems. The…

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Editor's Note Nearly 40 members of Congress and staff on October 12 received training from surgeon members of the American College of Surgeons (ACS) on how to stop life-threatening bleeding. The class was designed to teach individuals with no prior medical knowledge how to control rapid bleeding from traumatic injuries…

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Editor's Note In response to the destruction caused by hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria, the ECRI Institute is providing free access to resources, publications, and tools to help guide healthcare facilities affected by natural disasters. The Disaster Preparedness and Recovery Resource Center, which includes links to material from the ECRI…

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Editor's Note Acute care surgery (ie, an organized system of trauma, general surgery, and critical care) implementation has occurred unevenly across the US, with rural communities and regions the slowest, this study finds. Of 1,690 hospitals surveyed, 272 had implemented acute care surgery by 2015−an increase from 34 in 2001…

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Editor's Note Private vehicle transport was associated with a significantly lower likelihood of death compared with ground emergency medical services (EMS) transport for patients with gunshot and stab wounds in this study. In this analysis of 103,029 patients in the National Trauma Data Bank, 87.6% were male, 47.9% were black,…

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Editor's Note At least 23 hospitals in the Houston area affected by flooding from Hurricane Harvey have moved patients to other facilities, and another 25 are considered vulnerable to flooding or shortages of staff and supplies, the August 29 Houston Chronicle reports. The full tally of evacuated patients was not…

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Editor's Note Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Tom Price, MD, has declared a public health emergency because of flooding and lingering rain in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, the August 28 Healthcare Finance News reports. This declaration gives healthcare providers in Texas and Louisianian greater flexibility in treating people displaced by the…

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Editor's Note Flooding from Hurricane Harvey is pushing some Houston hospitals to close or evacuate, the August 27 Modern Healthcare reports. Baylor College of Medicine and clinics closed Sunday, August 27, as did all Texas Children’s Hospital’s pediatrics practices and urgent care locations. The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer…

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