This article concludes OR Manager’s special series on artificial intelligence (AI). Parts 1 and 2 (May 2019 and June 2019) introduced AI, defining the different types of technology and describing its many current and potential applications for surgery. The series also presented examples of AI (June and July 2019). We…

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Surgeons are the biggest factor in any effort to streamline and standardize the purchase of new surgical devices—and thereby lower costs. But surgeons often balk at getting involved in product review and selection because of the additional demands on their time. Two leading healthcare organizations have moved past this stumbling…

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Editor's Note The Food & Drug Administration on July 12 identified the recall by Hamilton Medical AG (Bonaduz, Switzerland) of its Hamilton-G5 Ventilators as Class I, the most serious. The recall was initiated because of a software failure that stops the ventilators after displaying an error message, leaving patients to…

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Editor's Note Preliminary experience in the automated detection and classification of fractures using artificial intelligence (AI) shows promise, and AI may enhance processing and communicating probabilistic tasks in orthopedic surgery, this study finds. For fracture detection, researchers compared the human findings in 10 studies with AI findings. In two studies,…

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Editor's Note Retooling paper-based measures to electronic format for reporting performance measures can help reduce hospitals’ reporting burden. However, in this study by Joint Commission and State University of New York researchers, a simplified risk model using electronic health record (EHR) elements could not capture most risk factors in the…

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Editor's Note The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) on June 21 issued final updates to its national coverage policy for Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement (TAVR). The update provides more flexibility in how centers meet volume requirements for performing TAVR, while emphasizing the importance of the heart team for…

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Editor's Note A visible-light continuous environmental disinfection (CED) system, used with manual cleaning, resulted in a significant reduction in microbial surface contamination and surgical site infections (SSIs) in an orthopedic OR, in this study. Samples were taken from 25 surfaces within two contiguous ORs sharing an air supply after manual…

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Editor's Note At a precision medicine conference in Boston on June 18, Harvard Law School professor Jonathan Zittrain likened the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in healthcare to asbestos, saying: “it’s all over the place, even though at no point did you explicitly install it, and it has possibly some…

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Editor's Note The Joint Commission on June 19 announced that the National Association for Healthcare Quality (NAHQ) has issued a new report−“Key Workforce Competencies for Quality-Driven Healthcare”− that focuses on creating a new framework for competencies needed by healthcare organizations to meet new goals for quality-driven healthcare. Among the competencies:…

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Blood loss during labor and delivery (L&D) and surgical procedures can lead to serious complications that might be prevented with early detection; however, detection can be challenging. For example, clinicians have traditionally estimated blood loss visually—a subjective and often inaccurate process. Humans’ eyes simply aren’t good at making precise measurements,…

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