Improving readability of discharge instructions linked to fewer follow-up phone calls
Editor's Note Making discharge instructions easier to read resulted in fewer phone calls from traumatic injury patients after discharge, finds this study presented October 25 at the American College of Surgeons Clinical Congress 2017 in San Diego. A total of 1,006 patients were included in the study, 493 in…
Nonoperative treatment of appendicitis linked to higher death rate
Editor's Note Twice as many patients with appendicitis are being treated without surgery compared to 20 years ago; however, nonoperative management is associated with a higher death rate, finds this study presented October 26 at the American College of Surgeons Clinical Congress 2017 in San Diego. A total of 477,680…
Study: Cloth skull caps more effective than bouffant disposable caps in preventing airborne contamination
Editor's Note Surgeon’s cloth skull caps that expose small amounts of the ears and hair are not inferior to bouffant disposable hats that cover those features, finds this study presented October 25 at the American College of Surgeons Clinical Congress 2017 in San Diego and published online October 26 in…
Standardized ambulatory surgery protocol reduces postop pain, ED visits
Editor's Note Standardizing clinical processes for outpatient hernia repairs reduced postoperative pain and unplanned returns to the emergency department (ED), finds this study presented October 23 at the American College of Surgeons 2017 Clinical Congress in San Diego. Researchers developed a standardized eight-step protocol that incorporated best practices and enhanced…
ACS NSQIP recognizes 66 hospitals for meritorious outcomes
Editor's Note The American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (ACS NSQIP) on October 18 recognized 66 of 680 hospitals participating in the adult program for achieving meritorious outcomes for surgical patient care in 2016. ACS NSQIP hospitals are required to track outcomes for inpatient and outpatient…
ACS NSQIP pilot identifies geriatric–specific risk factors that affect surgical outcomes
Editor's Note A new pilot study from the American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (ACS NSQIP) finds that adding geriatric-specific risk factors to traditional risk factors could significantly improve the ability of surgeons to predict poor surgical outcomes in older patients. The study involved 36,399 older surgical…
Low-cost, high-volume services account for most of unnecessary healthcare spending
Editor's Note Low-cost, high-volume healthcare services account for a high percentage of unnecessary spending, adding strain to the healthcare system, this study finds. In this analysis of 5.5 million patients in Virginia, researchers found that services providing no net health benefits cost the state’s healthcare system more than $586 million…
Comparison of internal medicine, general surgery residents’ postop risk assessments
Editor's Note Risk assessments of postoperative complications and death in surgically complex patients were not significantly different between internal medicine and general surgery residents in this study. However, both groups overestimated the risks compared with the American College of Surgeons’ National Surgical Quality Improvement Project (ACS NSQIP) risk adjusted model.…
Two firms awarded grants to develop medical devices for children
Editor's Note The Philadelphia Pediatric Medical Device Consortium (PPMDC) has chosen two companies out of eight finalists to receive grants of $50,000 each to develop medical devices for children. The devices include a: speech generating system that allows hospitalized children who are unable to speak to communicate with clinicians handheld…
Diffusion, implementation of acute care surgery across the US
Editor's Note Acute care surgery (ie, an organized system of trauma, general surgery, and critical care) implementation has occurred unevenly across the US, with rural communities and regions the slowest, this study finds. Of 1,690 hospitals surveyed, 272 had implemented acute care surgery by 2015−an increase from 34 in 2001…
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