Uncategorized Editor's Note Patients who underwent desensitization therapy and received kidney transplants from HLA-incompatible live donors had a substantial survival benefit, compared with patients who did not undergo transplantation or those who waited for transplants from deceased donors, this study finds. Researchers from Johns Hopkins, Baltimore, enrolled 1,025 patients at 22…
Editor's Note The Joint Commission and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are collaborating on an initiative designed to adapt, enhance, and disseminated CDC guidelines on infection prevention in ambulatory health care settings. The initiative, “Adaptation and Dissemination of Outpatient Infection PrevenTion (ADOPT) Guidance,” will focus on free-standing…
Editor's Note The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has released a toolkit to help healthcare providers track and respond to ICD-10 performance indicators. The toolkit includes tips and resources for: assessing ICD-10 progress using key performance indicators to identify potential issues that could affect productivity or cash flow addressing…
Editor's Note Physician practices each year spend 785 hours per physician to track and report quality measures for Medicare and private health insurers at a cost of more than $15.4 billion a year, this study finds. Eight in 10 physicians surveyed reported spending more effort on quality measures now than…
Editor's Note Olympus Corporation (Center Valley, Pennsylvania) has agreed to pay $623.2 million to resolve civil and criminal allegations that it paid kickbacks to hospitals and physicians in exchange for purchasing its endoscopes and equipment, the March 1 Modern Healthcare reports. The government alleged that Olympus lacked training and didn’t…
Editor's Note A meta-analysis of 11 studies showed a significant association between patients who had a colonoscopy with nonmalignant findings and reductions in colorectal cancer and mortality rates. Cancer rate reductions were greater for screening colonoscopy than for diagnostic colonoscopy, and results were similar for men and women. One explanation…
Editor's Note The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on February 23 updated its Safety Communication on the November 2015 recall of Custom Ultrasonics automated endoscope reprocessors. The update recommends that healthcare facilities transition to alternative methods to reprocess flexible endoscopes as soon as possible. In November, the FDA cited violations…
Editor's Note Capnographic monitoring during outpatient colonoscopy with moderate sedation increased costs significantly and did not improve patient safety or satisfaction, this study finds. The analysis included 966 patients (465 without and 501 with capnography) who underwent colonoscopy at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston. Patients and nurses reported…
Editor's Note As part of efforts to improve care delivery, data sharing, and transparency, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) on February 22 published a list of Medicare fee-for-service providers and suppliers currently approved to bill Medicare. The Moratoria Provider Services and Utilization Data Tool includes interactive…
Editor's Note The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on February 19 announced that it had reviewed updated reprocessing instructions and validation data issued by Pentax Medical (Montvale, New Jersey) for its ED-3490 Video Duodenoscope. The FDA recommends that facilities train staff on the updated instructions and implement them as soon…
