Editor's Note The American College of Radiology (ACR) on March 11 issued a recommendation that CT scans not be used as a first-line screening test to diagnose COVID-19, the March 11 AuntMinnie.com reports. Though early reports from China indicated that CT could detect COVID-19, even when DNA tests were negative,…

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Editor's Note This study led by Johns Hopkins researchers provides additional evidence of a median incubation period of approximately 5.1 days for the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Of 181 confirmed cases of COVID-19 (from China and other countries) with identifiable exposure and symptom onset windows in the analysis, the…

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Editor's Note This study of Medicare patients at 340 teaching hospitals and matched patient controls at 2,444 nonteaching hospitals found that as risk of mortality increased, the mortality benefit of treatment at teaching hospitals also increased, though with marginally higher costs. Included in the analysis were 86,751 pairs of general,…

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Editor's Note A system-wide, multipronged pain management and opioid reduction program significantly reduced postoperative opioid discharge prescriptions written for more than 5 days, this study finds. Surgeon education, monitoring, and incentives lead to a shift from longer-term to shorter-term prescriptions for patients after surgery, reducing postoperative opioid prescriptions of more…

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Editor's Note The Food & Drug Administration (FDA) on March 2 announced that it had joined with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to make more respirators, including certain N95s, available to healthcare personnel during the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak. Currently, the majority of respirators are used in industrial…

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Editor's Note The Risk Analysis Index (RAI) frailty screening tool, which was previously validated in the VA health system, can be efficiently implemented in multispecialty, multihospital healthcare systems to predict adverse postoperative outcomes, including mortality, readmission, and extended hospital stays, this study finds. From July 1 to December 31, 2016,…

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Editor's Note This study from Linda Aiken, PhD, and colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, found that high levels of nurse burnout are associated with lower patient satisfaction. In this analysis of nurse burnout and patient satisfaction in 463 hospitals in four states, 50% of the hospitals where burnout…

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Editor's Note Common definitions of malnutrition do not apply to all cancers, and the best approach for surgeons to identify malnourished cancer patients preoperatively is specifically related to the type of cancer the patient has, this study finds. Of 205,840 major cancer surgical procedures for six different cancers analyzed: 16%…

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Editor's Note An automated drying and storage cabinet with forced filtered air is advantageous for rapid drying of endoscope internal and external surfaces and reducing the risk of microbial growth after reprocessing, this study finds. Using the automated drying cabinet, internal channels of all bronchoscopes, colonoscopes, and duodenoscopes studied were…

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Editor's Note The Joint Commission on February 26 announced that it had made minor modifications to its on-site survey process that will go into effect March 1, 2020. The modifications were made to better accommodate critical survey activities for all accreditation programs, except for laboratory services accreditation. The modifications also…

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