Editor's Note The Joint Commission announced August 7 that the applicability of its Ambulatory Health Care Accreditation standards for telehealth organizations, which provide remote services, deploy in-person staff, and/or have equipment used between patients, is being evaluated. In the meantime, areas of noncompliance related to infection control, equipment and utility…

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Editor's Note In this study of opioid-naïve patients having major surgery, researchers found a number of patient characteristics associated with greater opioid use in the first month after surgery. Of 1,181 patients analyzed, the following were significantly associated with increased postoperative opioid consumption: younger age nonwhite race lack of college…

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Editor's Note In this study, aggressive pulmonary treatment after surgery with oscillation and lung expansion (OLE) reduced the rate of postoperative pulmonary complications in high-risk patients having open thoracic, aortic, or upper abdominal surgery. A total of 419 patients (209 with OLE treatment and 210 without) were included in the…

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Editor's Note Though the annual volume of gastroenterology and gastrointestinal (GI) advanced laparoscopic abdominal surgical procedures is three-fold higher for US News & World Report’s top-ranked hospitals, the volume does not appear to be associated with improved patient outcomes, this study finds. In this analysis of 51,869 abdominal procedures, the…

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Editor's Note Acute and chronic sleep deprivation patterns are common in acute care surgeons and worsen on post-call day 2, finds this study. In this analysis of 1,421 nights for 17 acute care surgeons, the average amount of sleep was 6.54 hours, with 64.8% of sleep patterns categorized as acute…

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Editor's Note In response to an increase in adverse events related to direct oral anticoagulants (DOACs), the Joint Commission, on July 31, issued a new Sentinel Event Alert on managing DOAC risks. The alert: provides guidance for safe use and management of DOACs stresses understanding the risks, benefits, side effects,…

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Editor's Note The US News & World Report on July 30 released its 2019-2020 Best Hospitals Honor Roll. The top five are: Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore Cleveland Clinic New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia and Cornell, New York City. In the specialty rankings: University of…

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Editor's Note Hospitals with more nurses who have bachelor of science in nursing (BSN) degrees have better outcomes for patients after cardiac arrest, this study finds. For the study, researchers from the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, analyzed data from the American Heart Association’s Get with the Guidelines-Resuscitation registry, RN4CAST-US hospital…

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Editor's Note The “July Effect”−the idea that more errors occur in July because of the influx of new interns and residents starting their in-hospital training−does not apply to cardiac surgery, this study finds. For more than 470,000 cardiac procedures analyzed (coronary bypass, aortic valve, mitral valve, thoracic aortic aneurysm), in-hospital…

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Editor's Note Laypeople currently trained in the American College of Surgeons (ACS) Bleeding Control Basic (B-Con) course may not be prepared to care for bleeding individuals because the principles for correct Combat Application Tourniquet (CAT) application taught in the course are not fully translatable to other commercial or improvised tourniquets,…

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