Editor's Note In its July Health Technology eSource, ECRI Institute reported on Boston Medical Center winning the 2018 Health Devices Achievement Award for its pulmonary care app. The ICOUGH Recovery app promotes better engagement with and adherence to the hospital’s recommended postoperative pulmonary care protocol, which focuses on: (I)ncentive spirometry…

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Editor's Note The ECRI Institute on May 17 announced that Boston Medical Center had won the 2018 Health Devices Achievement Award for its patient-centric mobile pulmonary care app. The ICOUGH Recovery app guides patients through the hospitals postoperative pulmonary care protocol, which focuses on: Incentive spirometry Coughing and deep breathing…

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Editor's Note Surgeons at the Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, completed the first successful penis transplantation in the US in a patient who had a subtotal penectomy for penile cancer. Operative reinterventions were needed on postoperative days 2 and 3 for hematoma evacuation and skin eschar debridement. At 3 weeks, no…

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Editor's Note The ECRI Institute on April 23 announced the winners of its seventh annual Healthcare Supply Chain Achievement Award, which recognizes hospitals and healthcare systems for their comprehensive and effective use of ECRI Institute’s PriceGuide™ and SELECTplus® supply and capital procurement advisory programs. Eleven winners were selected from nearly…

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Editor's Note The ECRI Institute on January 22 announced the released its annual “Top 10 Hospital C-suite Watch List." Among the new and emerging innovations to watch are: Acuity-adaptable rooms, where hospitals keep a patient in the same room from admission to discharge, regardless of acuity level. Insertable cardiac monitors…

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Editor's Note The ECRI Institute on January 19 announced the release of a special Health Devices guidance article featuring recommendations and alternative solutions for dealing with the IV-fluid minibag (50-250 mL) shortage that resulted form Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico. The guidance provides a functional equivalence chart for IV solution…

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Editor's Note Food and Drug Administration (FDA) commissioner Scott Gottlieb, MD, issued a statement December 4 on the FDA’s final guidance on medical device additive manufacturing, also known as 3D printing. The FDA has reviewed more than 100 devices currently on the market that were manufactured on 3D printers, including…

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With each passing year, the business of healthcare delivery grows more complex—never more so than in 2017, when a new administration began to grapple with a major overhaul of the Affordable Care Act and changes to provider payment models. Thanks to an unprecedented number of proposals submitted for the 2018…

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Editor's Note RTI Surgical (Alachua, Florida) on October 25 launched its Fortilink-C interbody fusion system with Tetrafuse 3D technology, the October 26 Becker’s Spine Review reports. Tetrafuse 3D technology combines titanium, allograft bone, and PEEK all in one device. The 3D-printed, polymer-based, cervical interbody device incorporates micro, macro, and nano-rough…

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Editor's Note A new app developed by students at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s (UWM’s) App Brewery and a neuropsychologist at the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW) monitors critical brain functions during neurosurgical procedures in which patients are awake. The app, called “NeruoMapper,” assists neurosurgeons who are removing tumors by helping…

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