Editor's Note The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on April 18 designated the recall by Medtronic of its HVAD (HeartWare [left] ventricular assist device) system controllers and DC adapters as Class I, the most serious. Medtronic is issuing an updated controller and has begun to remove current HVAD controllers. The…

Read More

Editor's Note Center accreditation alone does not ensure high-quality care for bariatric surgical patients, this study finds. In this analysis of 145,527 patients across 165 bariatric centers of excellence, serious complication rates varied 17-fold at the national level and 2.1-fold at the state level. Complication rates varied at centers with…

Read More

Editor's Note Inspired by aviation and medical best practices for handling crises, researchers have developed a Stress-APGAR protocol to help managers anticipate burnout in employees, according to the April 26 Harvard Business Review. The Stress-APGAR acronym includes five key areas: Appearance: How does the employee look−overly tired, changes in weight,…

Read More

Editor's Note Delos Marshall “Toby” Cosgrove, MD, will step down as CEO of the Cleveland Clinic by the end of the year, the May 1 Cleveland.com reports. Dr Cosgrove will stay on in an advisory role, and his successor will be a practicing physician, keeping up with the Clinic’s history…

Read More

Editor's Note Air particle counts (APCs) in the OR increase in relation to traffic and door openings, this study finds. Over 1 week, researchers recorded APCs in 5-minute intervals and movement of healthcare workers in the OR. Trained observers recorded information about traffic, door openings, job title of the opener,…

Read More

Editor's Note An analysis by Absolute Reports predicts the global lumbar spine fusion market will see a 4.9% compound annual growth rate through the next 4 years, according to the April 26 Becker’s Spine Review. Driving market growth is: a growing demand for minimally invasive spine surgeries an increasing incidence…

Read More

Editor's Note The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on April 27 issued a Safety Alert saying the agency had approved label changes on the use of general anesthetic and sedation drugs in children younger than 3 years. The changes include: A new warning that exposure to these drugs for lengthy…

Read More

Editor's Note Contrary to claims that overlapping surgeries are dangerous or harmful to patients, they were not found to be associated with worse patient outcomes in this study presented April 25 at the 2017 American Association of Neurological Surgeons Annual Scientific Meeting in Los Angeles. The analysis included 14,872 neurosurgical…

Read More

Editor's Note The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has started converting older, inactive paper healthcare records to electronic health records (EHRs) in an effort to reduce the amount of office space used for storage of patient records and to streamline the claims processes, the April 24 EHR intelligence reports. This…

Read More

Editor's Note A survey by SERMO (a global social network for physicians) of 3,086 physicians from 26 countries found that 46% have witnessed an EHR malfunction or outage that endangered a patient’s health or safety, according to the April 24 Becker’s Health IT & CIO Review. A total of 55%…

Read More