Editor's Note Hospitals with low failure to rescue (FTR) rates had significantly more staffing resources than hospitals with high FTR rates, this study finds. In this analysis of 44,567 surgical patients in the Michigan Quality Surgical Collaborative, hospital FTR rates across low, middle and high tertiles were 8.9%, 16.5%, and…

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Editor's Note The American College of Surgeons on June 6 called for interested hospitals to join a new cohort of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) Safety Program for Improving Surgical Care and Recovery (ISCR). In the program, presented in collaboration with the Johns Hopkins Medicine Armstrong Institute…

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Editor's Note In this study, women who averaged approximately 4,400 steps per day had significantly lower mortality rates than women who took approximately 2,700 steps per day. Of 16,741 women with a mean age of 72 years analyzed, their mean step count was 5,499 per day. A step volume of approximately…

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Editor's Note A new report from the National Institutes of Health, Radiological Society of North America, American College of Radiology, and The Academy, provides a roadmap for translational research on artificial intelligence (AI) in medical imaging. The report summarizes key priorities: creating structured AI use cases that define and highlight…

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Editor's Note A closed ICU model was associated with significantly reduced rates of central line associated blood stream infection (CLABSI), catheter associated urinary tract infection (CAUTI), and ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) in this study, presented May 22 at ATS 2019, the annual international conference of the American Thoracic Society in Dallas.…

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Editor's Note Targeting a patient’s mean arterial pressure (MAP) during cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) by monitoring cerebral blood flow autoregulation may reduce the incidence of delirium after cardiac surgery in older patients, this Johns Hopkins study finds. In this analysis of 199 patients, the incidence of delirium was significantly greater in…

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Editor's Note Antibiotic delivery is significantly faster for sepsis patients treated in an emergency department (ED) if they are assigned a higher score on an acuity scale used for patient triage, finds this study presented May 22 at ATS 2019, the annual international conference of the American Thoracic Society in…

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Editor's Note Regional anesthesia was not associated with decreased readmission rates and costs after total knee arthroplasty (TKA) in this study. In this analysis of 138,362 privately insured TKA patients 18-64 years of age, the adjusted 90-day readmission rate was 1.8% for those who did not receive regional anesthesia compared…

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As part of a special series on artificial intelligence (AI), OR Manager is taking a deep dive into the many facets of this new technology and its impact on patient care. Part 1 of this introduction to the series (OR Manager, May 2019, 1, 7-11) defined several different types of…

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Though long fasting before a surgical procedure is tied to increased patient risks, the outdated guideline of NPO after midnight continues to be practiced by many healthcare organizations. In 1999, the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) revised their fasting guidelines to clear liquids up to 2 hours before surgery and…

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