Editor's Note The AORN Guideline for Medical Device and Product Evaluation is now open for public comment. The public comment period will close on April 1.  This guideline, according to the AORN website, “provides guidance to perioperative team members for developing and implementing a process to evaluate US Food and…

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Editor's Note At the 2022 AORN Global Surgical Conference and Expo last week, AORN announced an update to its retained surgical items (RSI) guidance in a session presentation titled, “RSI Guideline, Update 2022,” led by Julie Cahn, DNP, RN, CNOR, RN-BC, ACNS-BC, CNS-CP, AORN senior perioperative practice specialist. This marks…

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Editor's Note According to the New York Times, which collected data from the US Department of Health and Human Services, COVID-19 cases have decreased nationwide in the last 2 weeks, Becker’s Hospital Review March 24 reports. However, the same data set shows that the number of COVID-19 cases have actually…

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Editor's Note On March 15, the FBI and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) recommended all organizations take action to “enable, enforce, and properly configure” their multifactor authentication (MFA) protocols, the American Hospital Association (AHA) March 16 reports. Russian state-sponsored actors are reportedly exploiting known vulnerabilities in MFA protocols, including…

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Editor's Note This Canadian study finds that many cancers went undetected because of disruptions in the healthcare system in response to COVID-19. The week-to-week rate of diagnoses was steady before COVID-19, but fell 34.2% in March 2020, with only a slow recovery of 1% per week during the study period.…

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Editor's Note According to a March 16 Politico article, titled “Some hospitals ask patients, visitors to remove N95s, citing CDC,” some US hospitals are asking patients and visitors to swap their N95 masks with surgical masks or wear a surgical mask over the N95, Becker’s Hospital Review reports. The staff…

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Editor's Note In this study led by researchers at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York City, increased age was found to be the greatest independent risk factor for COVID-19 associated mortality. Of 7,556 patients included in the analysis, 1,556 died, 949 were admitted to ICU, and 227…

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Editor's Note This retrospective cohort analysis led by researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, Boston, finds that a crisis standards of care (CSOC) scoring system designed to allocate scarce resources during the COVID-19 pandemic was associated with racial inequities. A total of 498 adult patients…

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Editor's Note The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on March 16, designated the recall of SD Biosensor’s Standard Q COVID-19 Ag Home Test as Class I, the most serious. The recall was initiated because the test, which uses a nasal swab sample to detect COVID-19 antigens, is not authorized, cleared,…

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Editor's Note On March 14, the Biden administration released a recommendation via the US Department of Veteran Affairs (VA) to restructure the VA healthcare system, including closing over 150 clinics and hospitals and constructing several new facilities, Becker’s March 15 reports. Citing information from the March 15 Washington Post article…

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