Editor's Note ECRI Institute on June 5 announced a new consultative service focused on helping healthcare organizations prevent surgical fires by uncovering hidden vulnerabilities. There have been guidelines published by ECRI Institute and others to prevent and extinguish fires for many years, but implementation of the guidelines is the challenge,…

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Editor's Note The Food & Drug Administration on June 4 announced that it had approved new labeling on potential risks for liquid-filled intragastric balloons by Apollo Endosurgery and ReShape Lifesciences. The new labeling for the Orbera and ReShape balloon systems includes more information about possible deaths linked to the use…

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Editor's Note In this study, the use of radial-artery grafts for coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) resulted in a lower rate of cardiac adverse events and a higher rate of patency at 5 years than saphenous-vein grafts. A total of 1,036 patients (534 radial artery, 502 saphenous vein) from six…

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Editor's Note The Food & Drug Administration on June 1 announced the recall by SunMed Holdings of 18,808 units of its STAT-Check and Medline manual resuscitator bags. The recall was initiated because the patient port retaining ring of the bags may not fully seat, which could allow the patient port…

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Editor's Note Rates of infection after colonoscopies and osophagogastroduodenoscopies (OGDs) performed in ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs) are higher than previously thought and vary widely by facility, this study from Johns Hopkins finds. Rates of postendoscopic infection per 1,000 procedures within 7 days were: 1.1 for screening colonoscopy 1.6 for nonscreening…

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Editor's Note The Joint Commission on May 31 issued a new Quick Safety advisory to help prepare healthcare organizations for disasters such as, power failure, fire, flood, industrial accident, or cyberattack. The advisory, "Quick Safety 41: Emergency management: Need for continuity of operations planning," provides risk factors, safety recommendations, and…

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Editor's Note The Food & Drug Administration on June 1 identified the recall by Medtronic of its HeartWare Ventricular Assist Device (HVAD) system as Class I, the most serious. The recall was initiated because of the possibility for an interruption to occur in the electrical connection between the system’s power…

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Editor's Note Awake video assisted thoracic surgery (AVATS) performed with local anesthesia and sedation allows for resection of lung cancers previously deemed inoperable because of a patient’s poor pulmonary function, finds this study presented May 23 at the American Thoracic Society International Conference in San Diego. For the study, 246…

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Editor's Note Though the overall frequency of peripheral nerve block use in outpatient surgery is low, regional anesthesia offers significant positive effects for postoperative outcomes and hospital efficiency metrics, this study finds. Of 12,911,056 outpatient surgical procedures in the National Anesthesia Clinical Outcomes Registry, 3,297,372 (25.5%) were amenable to a…

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Editor's Note The Food and Drug Administration on May 22 identified the recall by Abbott of all lots of its HeartMate 3TM Left Ventricular Assist System as Class I, the most serious. The recall was issued because of a malfunction in the device’s outflow graft assembly that may cause the…

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