Editor's Note Over the last 10 years, private equity has taken over many of the nation’s health care facilities—from hospitals to nursing homes to physician practices—spending $1 trillion and instituting changes designed to rapidly increase profits, NBC News reported April 9. Studies have found that these takeovers can have serious…

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From integrating new technology to navigating shifts in care delivery and mitigating burnout, the most pressing challenges for healthcare organizations tend to be multifaceted problems that demand multifaceted solutions. For evidence of that, look no further than the Top 10 Patient Safety Concerns 2024 list from ECRI. For every risk…

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Editor's Note The US Food and Drug Administration has classified recalls of Boston Scientific’s Obsidio Conformable Embolic and Fresenius Kabi USA’s Ivenix Infusion System Large Volume Pump (LVP) software as class 1, the most serious category and an indicator of risk of serious injury or death. No injuries or deaths…

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The US Food & Drug Administration (FDA) announced a Class 1 recall on Monday for Abbott/Thoratec Corp.’s HeartMate II and HeartMate 3 Left Ventricular Assist System (LVAS) due due to biological material buildup obstructing the devices. According to an April 16 CBS News report, surgeons first noticed problems with the…

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Editor's Note Adverse events are a ubiquitous, inevitable consequence of surgical practice, and more must be done to support surgeons before and after they occur. This is the central message of a video published March 27 by Urology Times, in which British urologist Kevin Turner, MA DM FRCS, of Royal…

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Editor's Note Findings published March 4 in Jama Network show that preoperative urine culture is a low-value intervention for most surgical patients and should be de-implemented. Despite guidelines to the contrary from Infectious Diseases Society of America and the American College of Physicians, preoperative urine testing and antibiotic treatment persists…

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Editor's Note Using phenylephrine as an intraoperative vasopressor could lead to higher risk of postoperative delirium compared to ephedrine, according to findings published in the April issue of Anesthesiology. Posted online last September, these findings confirm researchers’ original hypothesis. “The treatment of intraoperative hypotension with phenylephrine may impair cerebral perfusion…

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Editor's Note A medical device developed by researchers at Northwestern University and Washington University School of Medicine could enable clinicians to monitor the health of a patient’s organs following surgery. The findings appeared in the journal Science on March 7.  Patients who undergo gastrointestinal surgeries—including pancreatic surgery—can develop anastomotic leaks…

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Editor's Note Quality of care drops when hospitals move from public to private ownership, according to review published in the March issue of the Lancet Public Health. The meta-analysis uses evidence from 13 longitudinal studies across the United States, Canada, Croatia, England, Germany, Italy, South Korea, and Sweden. Researchers evaluated…

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Editor's Note In a recent study, black children undergoing emergency appendectomy had a four times greater risk of postoperative complications than white children, independent of socioeconomic status or type of appendicitis. Anaesthesia, the journal of the Association of Anaesthetists, published the findings February 22. Researchers note that this is the…

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