Editor's Note The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) on October 14 issued a final rule with comment period for implementing provisions of the new physician payment system required by the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA), according to the October 14 Modern Healthcare. The rule…

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Editor's Note At 10 years, prostate cancer mortality was low irrespective of the treatment and with no significant difference among treatments, this study finds. Treatments included active monitoring (1.5 deaths/1,000 person years), radical prostatectomy (0.9 deaths/1,000 person years), and external-beam radiotherapy (0.7 deaths/1,000 person years). Surgery and radiotherapy were associated…

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Editor's Note The Joint Commission on October 5 announced its 2017 ORYX performance measurement requirements, effective January 1. Though the Joint Commission is closely aligned with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Hospital Inpatient Quality Reporting Program, it has not adopted all of the electronic clinical quality measures…

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Editor's Note Variation in hospital readmissions is highest on the first day and declines rapidly in the first 7 days after discharge, which suggests that most readmissions after 7 days may be due to community and household factors beyond the hospital’s control, this study finds. The analysis included hospital readmissions…

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Editor's Note In this study, nonhierarchical modeling to measure hospital performance frequently misclassified average-quality hospitals as low quality, and hierarchical modeling misclassified low-quality hospitals as average. At low hospital case volumes, hierarchical modeling missed 90.6% of low-quality hospitals, and nonhierarchical modeling missed 65.3%. However, 38.9% of hospitals classified as low-quality…

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Editor's Note Suboptimal postoperative outcomes are the primary driver of high overall costs of care after bariatric surgical procedures, this study finds. The study included morbidly obese patients who underwent laparoscopic vertical sleeve gastrectomy (74 patients) or laparoscopic Roux-en-Y gastric bypass (270 patients) at a single institution from 2010 to…

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Editor's Note Postoperative outcomes in the Veterans Affairs (VA) health system have consistently improved for the past 15 years, this study finds. In this analysis of nearly 705,000 patients undergoing noncardiac surgical procedures at 143 hospitals, absolute rates and likelihood of complications, mortality, and failure to rescue significantly decreased 40%…

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Editor's Note At 10 years, prostate cancer mortality was low irrespective of the treatment, and with no significant difference among monitoring (1.5 deaths/1,000 person years), surgery (0.9/1,000), or radiotherapy (0.7/1,000), finds this study. Radical prostatectomy and external beam radiotherapy were associated with lower incidences of disease progression and metastases than…

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Editor's Note In this study of patients having transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR), younger age, male gender, history of diabetes, and moderate to severe residual aortic regurgitation were significantly associated with an increased risk of infective endocarditis. Patients who developed endocarditis had high rates of in-hospital and 2-year mortality. Of…

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Editor's Note Using a computerized mathematical model, Johns Hopkins researches investigated whether they could improve heart and lung transplants by transferring patients from low- to high-volume transplant centers. Among the findings: For heart transplants, 10 lives were saved after one center closure, and 240 lives were saved after up to…

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