Editor's Note Postoperative complications add an important marginal cost to Medicare payments and lead to a substantial portion of payments to hospitals, this study finds. Analyzing Medicare data for three procedures from 2009 to 2012, payments per uncomplicated surgical procedure were $13,500 for colectomy, $12,300 for total knee arthroplasty, and…

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Editor's Note The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) on May 1 expanded its “Access and Quality in VA Healthcare” tool to include inpatient quality data for all VA medical centers, the May 2 AHA News Now reports. The tool, released last month, shows how VA centers compare with regional and…

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Editor's Note In this study, data show that Veterans Affairs (VA) hospitals have a similar or more favorable quality compared with non-VA hospitals. Data for 129 VA and 4,010 non-VA hospitals were evaluated on 17 outcome measures (9 Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality Patient Safety Indicators [PSIs], 4 mortality…

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As part of the shift to value-based care, a logical step for healthcare organizations is to adopt enhanced recovery after surgery (ERAS) protocols. The literature supporting the use of ERAS is growing, with many studies demonstrating that it leads to shorter length of stay (LOS) and fewer complications. Results of…

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Editor's Note A study of 14 South Carolina hospitals found the use of a 19-item surgical checklist developed by the World Health Organization resulted in a 22% decrease in postoperative mortality over 3 years, compared with hospitals not participating in the checklist program. In the 14 participating hospitals, mortality was…

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Editor's Note The Joint Commission announced April 19 that it is seeking hospital success stories about electronic clinical quality measure (eCQM) capture and submission to share with other accredited hospitals via the new 2017 Pioneers in Quality: Proven Practices Collection. Hospitals whose submissions are selected also will be recognized as…

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Editor's Note Adverse event-free admissions provide a patient-centered indicator that aligns directly with patient safety, this study finds. Using Medicare data from 2009 to 2011, researchers found that 64% of 24 million admissions had no adverse events. Multiple events were recorded in 22.7%, and 15% of these had more than…

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Editor's Note For women with stage I endometrial cancer, the use of total abdominal hysterectomy compared with total laparoscopic hysterectomy resulted in equivalent disease-free survival at 4.5 years and no difference in overall survival in this study. Of 760 women included in the analysis, disease-free survival at 4.5 years was…

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Editor's Note Total hip replacement patients experience meaningful and lasting improvement in quality of life (QOL) through at least 5-years after the procedure, this study finds. The analysis included 188 total hip replacement patients at seven hospitals who were evaluated with a standard quality-of-life assessment, called the “Short Form 36,”…

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Editor's Note This study validates a methodology, using the Veterans Affairs Surgical Quality Improvement Program (VASQIP) risk calculator, to identify patients with a high risk of 30-day mortality after elective surgery who may benefit from referral for tertiary care. The methodology predicted that 16% (90 of 565) of patients would…

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