Editor's Note In this study, 30-day complications rates increased after the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) warned against the use of power morcellation in women undergoing hysterectomy for benign gynecologic indications. In a cohort of 75,487 women who had hysterectomies, statistically and clinically significant increases in major (1.9% to 2.4%)…

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Editor's Note Though still underused, this study found civilian prehospital tourniquet application tied to a six-fold reduction in mortality in peripheral vascular injuries. The Texas Tourniquet Study Group analyzed 1,026 patients with vascular injuries of the arms or legs admitted to 11 Level I trauma centers in Texas from 2011…

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Editor's Note Joint Commission president Mark R. Chassin, MD, FACP, says he doesn’t want healthcare organizations to just imagine a day of zero harm, he wants them to achieve it, the Joint Commission announced on April 4. Dr Chassin talked about “Leading the Way to Zero” in an article for…

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Editor's Note Movement in the OR is associated with microbial load, this study finds. Researchers determined areas in the OR with high and low numbers of people in transit and placed air samplers and settle plates in representative locations during 21 surgical procedures, in four ORs, during two seasons of…

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Editor's Note One-year mortality after contemporary laparoscopic bariatric surgery is low at <0.25%, which is much lower than previously reported, this study finds. Of 158,606 bariatric procedures analyzed between 2008 and 2012, the 30-day and 1-year mortality rates, respectively were: 0.13% and 0.23% for laparoscopic Roux-en-Y bypass (LRYGB) 0.06% and…

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Editor's Note Changes in gene expression in intestinal tissue of patients after Roux-en-Y gastric bypass (RYGB) surgery explain and predict blood glucose improvement and body weight loss, finds this study presented March 18 at the Endocrine Society’s annual meeting in Chicago. The findings are based on the first 19 patients;…

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Editor's Note The Joint Commission on March 14 announced that three revised requirements across the Life Safety (LS) and Environment of Care (EC) chapters went into effect March 11. The revisions are: LS.02.01.30, element of performance (EP) 13, is designed to maintain alignment with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid…

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  Editor's Note The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) is working with the Institute for Healthcare Improvement/National Patient Safety Foundation and sister Health and Human Services agencies to promote a wide variety of information and activities for Patient Safety Awareness Week March 11 to March 17. The annual…

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Editor's Note The ECRI Institute on March 12 released its 2018 Top 10 Patient Safety Concerns for Healthcare Organizations. Topping the list is diagnostic errors, followed by opioid safety across the continuum of care. Eighth on the list is device cleaning, disinfection, and sterilization. The list is not representative of…

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Editor's Note The Joint Commission on February 28 announced the update of its sentinel event statistics for 2017. Of 805 reports reviewed, the Top 10 events most frequently reported included: unintended retention of a foreign body−116 events (first place) wrong-patient, wrong-site, wrong-procedure−95 events (third place) medication error−32 events (eighth place)…

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