Editor's Note Medicare may be overpaying surgeons for postoperative care they provide to patients, according to a new Rand Corporation analysis in the January 23 New England Journal of Medicine. The authors of the analysis suggest that federal officials should incorporate ways to more objectively measure the amount of postoperative…

Read More

Editor's Note The timing of total knee arthroplasty (TKA) is important to optimize its benefits, but 90% of patients are waiting too long to have it and getting less benefits, and some 25% of patients are having it prematurely when the benefits are  minimal, this study finds. Of 3,417 knees…

Read More

Editor's Note In this article, the American College of Surgeons and the Johns Hopkins Medicine Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality, which launched the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) Safety Program for Improving Surgical Care and Recovery (ISCR) in 2016, announce that they are expanding the scope…

Read More

Editor's Note A virtual system for in-home physical therapy (PT) provided similar patient outcomes after total knee arthroplasty (TKA), with lower costs than traditional in-person PT, finds this study. A total of 306 TKA patients were randomly assigned to have traditional PT, either at home or at clinic visits, or…

Read More

Editor's Note The safety of bariatric surgery has improved since 1993, and there has been a growth in the number of bariatric procedures performed, this study finds. However, utilization has only marginally increased. Of an estimated 1,903,273 patients who had bariatric surgery between 1993 and 2016, the mean age was…

Read More

Editor's Note Royal Philips has issued an urgent field safety notice for its CombiDiagnost R90 GCF fluoroscopy system, the January 10 MassDevice reports. When the tilting feature is used, the device could be locked in a “Table Up/Down” state, an issue that could result in the entry of contrast agent…

Read More

An effective handoff helps ensure care transitions are safe and efficient, but achieving the ideal handoff can be challenging. Part 1 of this two-part series provided an overview of the role of handoffs in the perioperative setting (OR Manager, January 2020, 22-23, 25). This article offers best practices for successful…

Read More

At Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) Health System in Richmond, implementation of Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS) incorporates principles of Lean thinking, a management methodology that emphasizes “…maximize[ing] customer value while minimizing waste. Simply, lean means creating more value for customers with fewer resources,” according to the Lean Enterprise Institute.1 Several…

Read More

Of the approximately 57 million surgical procedures performed annually in the US, it is estimated that hospital inpatient procedures (overnight admissions) account for less than 20% of cases. Many procedures once performed in hospital outpatient surgery departments (HOPDs) have moved to ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs) over the past 15 years,…

Read More

Starting the first cases of the day on time is key for maintaining the OR schedule. A delay in first case on-time starts (FCOTS) can lead to less OR utilization, greater facility costs, and dissatisfaction among physicians, OR staff, and patients. It’s a problem in many surgical suites, but when…

Read More