Editor's Note The American College of Surgeons (ACS) on August 4 issued a Statement on Operating Room Attire for surgeons in and out of the OR. The statement  provides detailed guidelines on wearing the skullcap in a way that ensures patient safety, facilitates enforcement of the standard on wearing scubs…

Read More

Editor's Note The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid’s (CMS) hospital readmission penalties will hit a new high over the next year as the government agency withholds more than half a million dollars in payments, the August 2 Kaiser Health News reports. CMS will punish more than half of US hospitals…

Read More

Editor's Note For four cardiovascular and four cancer procedures, surgeon specialization was an important predictor of operative mortality, independent of volume, this study finds. Analyzing Medicare data for more than 25,000 surgeons and nearly 700,000 patients, the relative risk reduction from greater specialization in the cardiovascular procedures ranged from 15%…

Read More

Editor's Note The high proportion of emergent surgical cases that require vascular repair demonstrates the importance of having vascular surgeons immediately available at the hospital, this study finds. Of 299 patients in 12 surgical subspecialties that were included in the study, there were indications for vascular surgery assistance in 156…

Read More

Editor's Note A survey by Loftware, Inc (Portsmouth, New Hampshire), shows that only 15% of medical device companies are currently compliant with the next phase of the Food and Drug Administration's Unique Device Identification (UDI) regulation, the August 3 PRWEB reports. The deadline is September 24. Of 120 companies polled,…

Read More

Editor's Note US News & World Report on August 2 released it 27th Annual Best Hospitals list, which compares nearly 5,000 hospitals nationwide in 25 specialties, procedures, or conditions. The Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, is Number 1 this year, followed by the Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio, and the…

Read More

Editor's Note Double gloving by anesthesia providers was associated with less spread of oral inoculum to the workstation but was not uniformly protective in this simulation study. Between-case cleaning was found to be ineffective in removing contaminants, indicating that biologic material from one patient may still be present for subsequent…

Read More

Editor's Note The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on July 27 requested that all blood establishments in Miami-Dade and Broward Counties cease collecting blood immediately until they implement testing of each unit of blood with an investigational donor screening test for Zika virus RNA or the use of an approved…

Read More

Editor's Note In a new study funded by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), safety-net hospitals performed equally as well as other hospitals when evaluated according to medical-surgical mortality rates. Analyzing data from 1,891 hospitals in 31 states, researchers found that despite ongoing financial disadvantages, the quality of…

Read More

Editor's Note On July 27, PinnacleHealth (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania) announced the opening of its Surgery Optimization Clinic to support orthopedic patients at high risk for surgical complications. Other high-risk surgical patient service lines will be added by the end of the year. The aim of the program is to improve patient…

Read More