Editor's Note The Food & Drug Administration (FDA) on November 26 identified the recall by Zimmer Biomet (Warsaw, Indiana) of its Osteogen Implantable Bone Growth Stimulator, SpF PLUS-Mini Implantable Fusion Stimulator, and SpF-XL Implantable Spinal Fusion Stimulator as Class I, the most serious. The recall was initiated because of the…

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Editor's Note The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services should measure surgeon spending at a group level or incorporate multiple years of data to reduce misclassification of surgeon performance in its Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) program, this study finds. University of Michigan researchers found that annual cost-profiles of individual…

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Editor's Note The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on November 26 announced that it plans to modernize its 510(k) approval pathway by pushing device manufacturers to rely on predicate devices that are not older than 10 years. Under the existing pathway, manufacturers can pursue expedited approval for devices that are…

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Editor's Note In this study, a multimodal program that included education, role-play, and debriefing resulted in a lower prevalence of job stress in intensive care unit (ICU) nurses. A total of 198 ICU nurses from 8 hospitals in France were randomized to the multimodal program intervention group (101 nurses) or…

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Editor's Note The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on November 20 announced the nationwide recall by Fresenius Kabi USA (Lake Zurich, Illinois) of 163 lots of sodium chloride injection, USP, 0.9%, 10 mL and 20 mL vials. The recall was initiated because the product insert incorrectly states that the vial…

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Editor's Note The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) published a summary of its new Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans, online November 12 in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The updated guidelines provide information on types and amounts of physical activity that provide substantial health benefits. For…

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Editor's Note New data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) shows that 93% of eligible clinicians who participated in the Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) under the Quality Payment Program (QPP) received positive payment adjustments for their performance last year, the November 9 EHR Intelligence reports. Only…

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Editor's Note In patients having coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) surgery, no significant difference was found in the risk of major adverse cardiac events between open and endoscopic vein-graft harvesting procedures, this study finds. In this analysis of 1,150 patients at 16 Veterans Affairs centers over a median follow-up of…

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Editor's Note Cigarette smoking rates in the US have dropped to the lowest level ever recorded, according to the November 9 Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. The smoking rate for adult smokers fell from 15.5% in 2016 to 14% in 2017, a rate 67% lower than it was in 1965.…

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Editor's Note A nurse’s ability to provide optimal patient care is influenced by a variety of factors, not just nurse to patient ratios, this study finds. In this study of 136 neonatal intensive care nurses caring for 418 infants during 332 12-hour shifts, subjective workload was the one variable that…

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