Internal surgical staplers made headline news in 2019. Reports discussed the little-known US Food and Drug Administration database housing tens of thousands of stapler-related problem reports and covered the agency’s recent proposal to reclassify staplers as Class II devices, instead of the more lightly regulated Class I. ECRI Institute named…

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Editor's Note The Joint Commission on October 16 announced that it was seeking comments on proposed standards for the Advanced Total Hip and Total Knee Replacement Certification program for hospitals, critical access hospitals, and ambulatory surgery centers. The new standards were developed to further promote patient safety and quality of…

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Editor's Note The Joint Commission announced on Octobere 9 that the 2020 National Patient Safety Goals (NPSGs) are now available on its website. Included are the revised elements of performance “NPSG.15.01.01: Reduce the risk for suicide” that went into effect earlier this year. The new requirements are designed to improve…

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Editor's Note This study from researchers at the Cleveland Clinic found a consistent, strong association between geographic indicators for socioeconomic status and important surgical outcomes. Of 1,573,740 hospital discharges analyzed, adjusted odds of inpatient mortality significantly increased as geographic distress increased across all measures of geographic risk. The odds of…

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Editor's Note In this study of patients with displaced femoral neck fractures, the incidence of secondary procedures did not differ significantly between patients who had total hip arthroplasty (THA) and those who had hemiarthroplasty. THA was associated with modestly better function over 2 years but with a slightly higher incidence…

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Editor's Note The Joint Commission announced October 2 that it will be retiring the Leading Practice Library December 31, 2019. These customer-submitted resources that were developed in 2008 to assist organizations in complying with complex standards have become outdated. Newer and higher quality resources are available on the Joint Commission…

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Editor's Note Researchers from Intermountain Healthcare and Stanford University say 10 seconds is how long it takes for their new model, which uses artificial intelligence (AI), to accurately identify key findings in chest x-rays of patients in the emergency department suspected of having pneumonia. The researchers presented the findings of…

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Editor's Note In this study, a machine learning algorithm resulted in the most accurate estimation of operative case-time duration. Researcher developed models to predict case-time duration using linear regression and supervised machine learning. Each model included an all-inclusive model, service-specific models, and surgeon-specific models. The data set used included 46,986…

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Editor's Note This study found that surgical site infections (SSIs) occurred most commonly after total joint replacement revision procedures and were related to many patient comorbidities, which were significantly associated with a higher risk of SSIs. In this analysis of 335,134 total knee replacements (TKRs) and 163,547 total hip replacements…

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Editor's Note The Joint Commission announced on September 18 that the deadline for submitting applications for the John M. Eisenberg Patient Safety and Quality Awards is October 1. Started by the Joint Commission and the National Quality Forum (NQF) in 2002, the awards recognize the outstanding work of individuals and…

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