Editor's Note A new surgical risk/benefit calculator that can predict a bariatric/metabolic patient’s possibility of postoperative remission at 1 year for five weight-related comorbidities will soon be released by the Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery Accreditation and Quality Improvement Program (MBSAQIP), the American College of Surgeons (ACS) announced on August 20.…

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Editor's Note The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) on August 19 announced that it plans to update the quality measurement methodology of the Overall Hospital Quality Star Ratings in 2021. The Star Ratings are located on CMS’ Hospital Compare website. While the new methodology is being finalized, CMS…

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Editor's Note In this study, experts graded the four major publicly reported hospital quality rating systems on their strengths and weaknesses−most received a C and the highest was a B. The grades were: US News & World Report−B Medicare & Medicaid Services’ Star Ratings−C Leapfrog−C- Healthgrades−D+. The researchers found that…

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Editor's Note The Joint Commission on August 14 released new sentinel event statistics for the first half of 2019. The latest data also introduce new categories for describing sentinel events, including suicide-related events, surgical or invasive procedure events, anesthesia-related events, and product or device events. The top five most frequently…

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Editor's Note Patients who had complex surgical procedures for cancer at community hospitals that were affiliated with top-ranked cancer hospitals were less likely to die within 90 days after surgery than patients treated at nonaffiliated hospitals, this study finds. Data for more than 14,000 Medicare patients showed 90-day mortality after…

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Editor's Note In this study of opioid-naïve patients having major surgery, researchers found a number of patient characteristics associated with greater opioid use in the first month after surgery. Of 1,181 patients analyzed, the following were significantly associated with increased postoperative opioid consumption: younger age nonwhite race lack of college…

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Editor's Note In this study, aggressive pulmonary treatment after surgery with oscillation and lung expansion (OLE) reduced the rate of postoperative pulmonary complications in high-risk patients having open thoracic, aortic, or upper abdominal surgery. A total of 419 patients (209 with OLE treatment and 210 without) were included in the…

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Editor's Note Though the annual volume of gastroenterology and gastrointestinal (GI) advanced laparoscopic abdominal surgical procedures is three-fold higher for US News & World Report’s top-ranked hospitals, the volume does not appear to be associated with improved patient outcomes, this study finds. In this analysis of 51,869 abdominal procedures, the…

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Editor's Note Acute and chronic sleep deprivation patterns are common in acute care surgeons and worsen on post-call day 2, finds this study. In this analysis of 1,421 nights for 17 acute care surgeons, the average amount of sleep was 6.54 hours, with 64.8% of sleep patterns categorized as acute…

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Editor's Note The US News & World Report on July 30 released its 2019-2020 Best Hospitals Honor Roll. The top five are: Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore Cleveland Clinic New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia and Cornell, New York City. In the specialty rankings: University of…

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