Editor's Note Guidelines for stroke treatment currently recommend clot removal within 6 hours of onset. However, a new study led by researchers from Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, finds that clot removal up to 24 hours leads to significantly reduced disability. This international multi-center study randomly assigned 206 stroke…

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  Editor's Note Every year, Perioperative Nurse Week focuses attention on the work of more than 160,000 nurses who advocate for surgical patients. During the week, perioperative nurses are honored by colleagues and communities to highlight the ways in which nurses are working to improve patient safety−before, during, and after…

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Editor's Note The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program has had the unintended consequence of increased short- and long-term mortality in heart failure patients, this study finds. Five years ago, as part of the Affordable Care Act, federal policy makers introduced the Hospital Readmission Reduction…

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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 8 announced the update of its Patient Blood Management standards to align with AABB standards. Among the changes: educational requirements for those who order and/or transfuse blood defined guidelines on transfusion orders procedures for emergent/urgent patients, including massive blood loss intraoperative methods for…

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Editor's Note The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on November 6 cleared a new complete blood cell count (CBC) test that can be run in more healthcare settings and offers faster results for patients and providers. The FDA granted premarket clearance and a Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments of 1988 (CLIA)…

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Editor's Note Overlapping surgery can be safely performed without risking patient safety, this study from Emory University Hospital finds. Of 2,275 neurosurgical cases included in the analysis, 1,303 were overlapping and 972 were nonoverlapping. The researchers found no difference between overlapping and nonoverlapping neurosurgical procedures in terms of 90-day postoperative…

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Editor's Note The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on November 6 issued a Safety Alert saying that Physio-Control (Redmond, Washington) launched a voluntary field action for specific lots of Infant/Child Reduced Energy Defibrillation Electrodes manufactured by Cardinal Health (Dublin, Ohio). There is an issue with the artwork on the electrodes…

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Editor's Note Electronic mandatory incident reporting system data entry and an initiative to understand and address reporting barriers and motivators were associated with sustained increases in adverse event reporting by pediatric anesthesiologists, in this study. Of 72,384 pediatric anesthetics analyzed, there were 2,689 adverse events. A subgroup of 54,469 cases…

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Editor's Note Poor preoperative cognition, as assessed by preoperative Mini-Cog screening, is prevalent among older total joint patients and predictive of adverse outcomes, including postoperative delirium, longer hospital stay, and greater likelihood of discharge to a place other than home, this study finds. Of 211 patients 65 years of age…

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