Fatal attacks at ASCs spur stronger safety measures
Healthcare facilities are places of healing. Sometimes they also can be places of danger and death—just like the rest of the world. When an ambulatory surgery center (ASC) became the site of a fatal stabbing 3 years ago, outpatient surgery leapt into the public eye, and not in a good…
Johns Hopkins students design improved Ebola protection suit
Editor's Note Johns Hopkins University engineering students have designed an Ebola protection suit with a more comfortable hood and face mask that makes breathing easier, and it has a battery-powered system that lowers humidity in the suit. The University and DuPont have signed license and collaboration agreements allowing DuPont to…
Editorial
The Hospital Safety Score, issued twice yearly, uses national performance measures from the Leapfrog Hospital Survey, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), and the American Hospital Association. Leapfrog rated 2,571 hospitals on their ability…
Top 10 Patient Safety Concerns for 2016
Healthcare is striving to become an industry of high-reliability organizations. Part of being a high-reliability industry means staying vigilant and identifying problems proactively. That’s one function of patient safety organizations (PSOs), such as ECRI Institute PSO, and one of the reasons ECRI produces its annual Top 10 list of patient…
Critical shortage of cardiothoracic surgeons coming
Editor's Note By 2035, cardiothoracic surgeons will be responsible for more than 850,000 surgical patients, a 61% increase from 2010, according to this study presented May 17 at the annual meeting of the American Association for Thoracic Surgery in Baltimore. Cases per surgeon per year in 2010 averaged 135 for…
Can converting to synthetic surgical gloves lower hospital operating room costs?
Type 1 natural rubber latex allergic reactions are avoidable in the OR. Typically, surgical gloves are the last products remaining in the OR that contain natural rubber latex (NRL). Higher-cost, clinically acceptable synthetic latex surgical gloves are readily available. However, OR leaders can encounter significant resistance from hospital administrators when…
Public reporting measures don’t indicate hospital safety
Editor's Note Common measures used to rate hospital safety, such as the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) Patient Safety Indicators and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Hospital-acquired Conditions, do not accurately capture the quality of care provided, this study finds. Only one measure out of…
AHA asks CMS to suspend VBP pain questions
Editor's Note The American Hospital Association (AHA) on April 29 asked the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to suspend their pain-related questions in the Value-Based Purchasing (VBP) Program until concerns are addressed that the questions may contribute to the opioid epidemic, AHA News Now reports. The AHA says…
Working night shift linked to heart disease
Editor's Note Female RNs working a rotating night shift for 5 years or more was associated with a statistically significant increased risk of coronary heart disease (CHD) in this study. The analysis included nearly 190,000 RNs involved in the Nurses’ Health Studies (NHS), who were followed over 24 years in…
Motor vehicle driving performance of anesthesia residents after overnight work shifts
Editor's Note After six consecutive night shifts, anesthesia residents experienced significantly impaired control of all driving variables including speed, lane position, throttle, and steering in a driving simulator. They also were more likely to be involved in collisions. In addition, reaction times increased with a significant increase in the number of minor…
Free Daily News
- Study: Black CABG patients disadvantaged in accessing best hospitals
- Health system to pilot AI-powered OR cameras; leaders acknowledge privacy challenges
- 3D modeling advances cardiovascular surgery at Boston Children's Hospital
- Report: Healthcare ransomware compromises millions of patient records, costs billions in downtime
- First ACS cancer report highlights neoadjuvant therapy expansion, improvements
- Hospitals continue to grapple with IV fluid shortage
- Proposed tariffs, stricter immigration policies threaten healthcare workforce, supply chain
- Hospital addresses barriers to patient rest, recovery
- Study: Psilocybin therapy reduces depression in frontline clinicians
- Exclusive articles preview OR Business Management Conference sessions