Editor's Note The Joint Commission on June 20 announced “Quick Safety 42: Identifying human trafficking victims.” The Quick Safety focuses on: recognizing signs of human trafficking knowing when to involve law enforcement becoming familiar with community resources that can help the victims.

Read More

Editor's Note Malnourished hospitalized surgical and medical patients who participated in a nutrition quality improvement (QI) program had improved readmission rates and length of stay (LOS), but surgical patients had a significantly greater reduction in readmissions than medical patients, in this study. Of 1,269 patients analyzed, 288 were surgical patients…

Read More

Editor's Note Robot-assisted and open cystectomies are equally effective in treating bladder cancer, this 7-year study finds. Conducted at 17 institutions, 350 patients with bladder cancer were randomized to the open (175 patients) or the robot-assisted (175 patients) surgical approach. The researchers found lower blood loss and transfusion rates and…

Read More

Editor's Note The Joint Commission announced on June 20 that it is seeking comments on proposed changes to the National Patient Safety Goal (NPSG) 03.05.01 on reducing harm from anticoagulant therapy. Revised requirements, which will address the use of new direct oral anticoagulant medications, include: drug selection dosing and monitoring…

Read More

Editor's Note Surgeon and Harvard Medical School professor Atul Gawande, MD, has been named CEO of the Boston-based Amazon, JP Morgan Chase, and Berkshire Hathaway healthcare venture, the June 20 Modern Healthcare reports. The companies, which are focused on lowering the cost of care primarily for their nearly 1.2 million…

Read More

Editor's Note In patients with traumatic out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) after traffic collisions, advanced life support (ALS) performed by physicians was associated with increased chance of 1-month survival compared with ALS or basic life support (BLS) performed by emergency medical services (EMS) personnel, this Japanese study finds. Of 4,328 patients…

Read More

Editor's Note In a study on the effectiveness of reprocessing flexible bronchoscopes presented June 14 by Ofstead and Associates at the Association for Professionals in Infection Control’s annual conference in Minneapolis, the majority of bronchoscopes were found to be contaminated and damaged even when cleaned and high-level disinfected according to…

Read More

Editor's Note In a June 19 letter to healthcare providers, the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) says it continues to evaluate information from several sources, including manufacturers, on the risks associated with Type III endoleaks with various endovascular graft systems used for treatment of abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAAs) and aorto-iliac…

Read More

Editor's Note In this study, perioperative red blood cell (RBC) transfusions were significantly associated with development of new or progressive postoperative venous thromboembolism (VTE) within 30 days of a surgical procedure. Of 750,937 patients included in the analysis, 47,410 (6.3%) received at lest one perioperative RBC transfusion. Of these, 6,309…

Read More

Editor's Note The Food & Drug Administration (FDA) on June 14 issued a Safety Alert for compounded drugs containing triamcinolone and moxifloxacin by Guardian Pharmacy Services (Dallas, Texas). At least 43 patients have reported adverse events after receiving eye injections of the compounded triamcinolone and moxifloxacin drug during cataract surgery.…

Read More