Editor's Note The US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) on May 9, issued a new draft recommendation on screening for breast cancer, recommending that all women get screened for breast cancer every other year starting at age 40. In a statement, the American College of Radiology (ACR) and Society of…

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Editor's Note Though the processes of care for emergency coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery were altered by the COVID-19 pandemic, patient mortality did not change for COVID-19-negative patients; however, COVID-19 positive patients did have significantly higher mortality as well as infectious complications, finds this study presented May 6 at…

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Editor's Note This update to the 2014 "Strategies to Prevent Surgical Site Infections in Acute Care Hospitals" recommends that antibiotics be discontinued after a patient’s incision has been closed in the OR, even if drains are present. The expert panel members writing the update add that continuing antibiotics after closure…

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Editor's Note The American Cancer Society, on May 2, announced new research that discovered both favorable and unfavorable changes in major cancer risk factors, preventive behaviors and services, and screenings during the COVID-19 pandemic. On the favorable side, smoking, physical inactivity, and heavy alcohol consumption declined, and human papillomavirus vaccination…

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Editor's Note The American College of Surgeons (ACS) announced May 1 that throughout the month of May it will promote STOP THE BLEED in collaboration with the Chicago Cubs, City of Chicago’s Office of Emergency Management and Communications (OEMC), and programming to educate and empower the public to learn simple…

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Editor's Note This study, led by researchers at the University of California San Diego, La Jolla, finds that an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot assistant can provide responses to patient questions that are of comparable quality and empathy to those of physicians. A total of 195 randomly drawn patients’ medical questions…

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Editor's Note The Joint Commission, on April 26, announced that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) requirement to count the volume of ventricular assist device (VAD) implants by surgeons will be reinstated on May 11. CMS stopped this requirement during the COVID-19 public health emergency.

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Editor's Note This study, published in The Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety, analyzes 68 closed claims cases on wrong-site surgery from 2013 to 2020. The services most frequently responsible for these cases were: Orthopedics (35.3%) Neurosurgery (22.1%) Urology (8.8%). The most common types of procedures involving wrong-site…

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Editor's Note The Accreditation Association for Ambulatory Health Care (AAAHC), on April 10, announced the release of updated standards for its 3-year Advanced Orthopaedic Certification program, which will take effect July 1, 2023. The updated Certification Handbook for Advanced Orthopaedics, v42, introduces new terminology and standards architecture plus a revised…

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Editor's Note In response to questions, on April 21, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) provided an update to its Safety Communication that enables the use of existing inventory of the O&M Halyard FLUIDSHIELD Surgical N95 Respirator Masks, Orange (Regular), Level 3, (Model 46727). The FDA recommends that, if necessary,…

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