The government and insurance companies have imposed increasing penalties on healthcare facilities in recent years for readmissions. And with good reason: High readmission rates greatly increase costs and sometimes signal poor patient safety practices. In 2015, roughly 2 million patients were readmitted, costing Medicare $27 billion, according to the Centers…

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Editor's Note The use of nonopioid analgesics intraoperatively was one of eight factors found to predict postoperative pain in the first 24 hours after spine surgery, finds this study that will be presented Saturday April 21 at the 2018 World Congress on Regional Anesthesia & Pain Medicine in New York…

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Editor's Note Joint Commission president Mark R. Chassin, MD, FACP, says he doesn’t want healthcare organizations to just imagine a day of zero harm, he wants them to achieve it, the Joint Commission announced on April 4. Dr Chassin talked about “Leading the Way to Zero” in an article for…

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Editor's Note In this study from the UK, researchers found a robust relationship between a surgeon’s daily OR schedule and surgical performance (indexed by duration of procedure). The researchers say surgeons should reorder their OR schedule, starting their days with the simpler cases and building up to the more difficult…

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Editor's Note Changes in gene expression in intestinal tissue of patients after Roux-en-Y gastric bypass (RYGB) surgery explain and predict blood glucose improvement and body weight loss, finds this study presented March 18 at the Endocrine Society’s annual meeting in Chicago. The findings are based on the first 19 patients;…

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Editor's Note In patients having noncardiac surgery who develop a perioperative acute myocardial infarction (AMI), about one in three died in-hospital or were readmitted within 30 days of discharge, finds this study presented March 10 at the 2018 American College of Cardiology Annual Scientific Session. Among more than 3 million…

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Editor's Note Reductions in hospital length of stay (LOS) for surgical procedures between 2008 and 2014, were not linked to a greater use of postacute care facilities in this study. Researchers studied the relationship between decreased LOS and postacute care using summary measures from the US National Inpatient Sample with…

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Editor's Note Great strides in burn care over the past 30 years have dramatically increased burn patients’ chances of survival by 2% per year, this study finds. Between 1989 and 2017, there were 10,384 burn admissions with 355 mortalities. Researchers looked at the main factors that influenced risk of death…

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Editor's Note Surgical readmission rates have declined in the past decade, and rates of decline increased during the Hospital Readmission Reduction Program (HRRP) period, this study finds. Between 2005 and 2014, rates of readmission across 8 targeted procedures declined from 12.2% to 8.6%. Before the Affordable Care Act, rates of readmission…

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Editor's Note Neurocognitive dysfunction is highly prevalent in total joint candidates and predisposes patients to suboptimal postoperative outcomes including increased ICU admissions and prolonged rehabilitation, this study finds. The researchers found that nearly 54% of 99 patients analyzed had neurocognitive dysfunction, which correlated with age more than 60 years, body…

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