Editor's Note An acute-care surgery model that caps surgeon call shifts at 12 hours instead of 24 hours for covering surgical emergencies has led to shorter hospital stays, lower infection rates, and lower overall costs for patients with acute appendicitis, finds this study presented October 30 at the American College…

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Editor's Note Artificial intelligence (AI) in the form of a machine-learned algorithm correctly triaged the vast majority of postoperative patients to the ICU, in this pilot study presented October 29 at the American College of Surgeons Clinical Congress 2019 in San Francisco. The algorithm included 87 clinical variables and 15…

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Editor's Note An Enhanced Recovery Pathway (ERP) created by the Mayo Clinic’s colorectal surgery service a decade ago has now been adopted by other surgical services in seven medical centers that are members of the Mayo Clinic Care Network, the October 15 Harvard Business Review reports. The ability of each…

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Editor's Note The Joint Commission on October 23 announced that a new Dashboard Report is now available for accredited ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs). The report provides performance measurement data on select measures and is intended to facilitate conversations on data, performance measures, and quality improvement during the survey process. Using…

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Editor's Note New research from the ECRI Institute finds that diagnostic tests and medication events are the most frequent safety risks patients face in ambulatory care. ECRI Institute’s “Deep Dive: Safe Ambulatory Care, Strategies for Patient Safety & Risk Reduction” identifies solutions for five types of safety challenges in ambulatory…

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Editor's Note The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on October 18 released an update to its “Guideline for infection control in healthcare personnel, 1998.” The updated document, “Infection Control in Healthcare Personnel: Infrastructure and Routine Practices for Occupational Infection Prevention and Control Services (2019),” applies to a broader range…

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Editor's Note Medical marijuana shows early promise for lessening opioid use and potential abuse in a meta-analysis presented October 20 at the Anesthesiology 2019 annual meeting in Orlando, Florida. Overall the results suggest that medical marijuana may provide some benefits such as, decreased opioid overdose rates, decreased opioid use, improved…

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Our series on Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS), which began last month with an overview of its history and perioperative pathway, continues in this issue with examples of improved outcomes and the roles played by perioperative team members (see p 18). ERAS, known to speed recovery and increase patient satisfaction,…

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Editor's Note The Joint Commission on October 16 announced that it was seeking comments on proposed standards for the Advanced Total Hip and Total Knee Replacement Certification program for hospitals, critical access hospitals, and ambulatory surgery centers. The new standards were developed to further promote patient safety and quality of…

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Editor's Note In this study, heart failure with or without symptoms was associated with an increased risk of postoperative mortality at 90-days and complications at 30-days in ambulatory surgery patients. In this analysis of 355,121 patients having noncardiac ambulatory surgical procedures, 90-day mortality was 2% in patients with heart failure…

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