Editor's Note Discontinuity in nursing care in hospitals was high and negatively impacted patient clinical conditions in this study. Discontinuity in care declined from nearly 100% in the first 24 hours, to 70% at 36 hours, and to 50% by the 10th day after admission. Each instance of discontinuity lead…

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Editor's Note The Surgical Apgar Score (SAS) was found to be significantly predictive but weakly discriminative for major complications and death after emergency high-risk abdominal surgery in this study. The risk of major complications, death, and ICU admission increased significantly with decreasing SAS (P < .001). The score’s c-statistics were…

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Editor's Note Surgical residents who perceived negative effects of The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education’s duty hour policies on patient safety were more likely to violate duty hour policies, this study finds. Of 4,554 residents in 184 programs analyzed: 25.3% felt the current duty hour policies negatively affected patient…

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Editor's Note In this study, a Risk Analysis Index was found to measure frailty in surgical patients with predictive ability equal to other frailty tools, with an additional advantage of rapid, real-time, preoperative assessment feasible for guiding surgical decision making. The Index measures frailty prospectively using a questionnaire or retrospectively…

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Editor's Note The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on November 22 categorized the recall by SentreHeart (Redwood City, California) of its FindrWIRZ Guidewire System as Class I, the most serious. The recall was initiated because the PTFE coating may separate from the packaging and potentially cause serious injuries to patients. The…

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Editor's Note This study led by Linda H. Aiken, PhD, University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing, Philadelphia, finds that employment of more nurse assistants relative to the number of professional nurses in hospitals is associated with higher mortality and lower quality of care. Every 10-point increase in the percentage of…

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Editor's Note Patients who were readmitted to a nonindex hospital after having emergency general surgery were significantly more likely to have had their index surgery at a large, teaching, safety-net hospital, this study from Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, finds. Readmission to a nonindex hospital was independently associated with mortality…

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Editor's Note A new training model at the University of Alabama at Birmingham Hospitals improved cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) training in emergency room nurses, finds this study presented November 15 at the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions 2016. Quarterly training sessions using mobile simulation stations for 1 year led to improved…

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Editor's Note Patients who have a laparoscopic appendectomy can go home the same day of surgery with similar outcomes to patients who spent a night in the hospital, this study finds. In this analysis of 12,703 patients, those who were discharged the same day of surgery had an overall readmission…

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Editor's Note Disability and social determinants of health influence readmission risk differently when added to the Medicare risk adjustment models for the three conditions Medicare focuses on for hospital payment, finds this study. Pneumonia patients who already had difficulties with activities of daily living (ADL) before admission were more likely…

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