Editor's Note The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on October 20 categorized the recall by TeleFlex Medical of its Willy Rusch Tracheostomy Tube Set as Class I, the most serious. The recall was issued because of the possibility that the connector may disconnect from the tracheostomy tube during use on…

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Editor's Note Researchers from the University of Utah School of Medicine, Salt Lake City, have developed a risk prediction tool, called a “nomogram,” that uses a scoring system to determine a patient’s risk for returning to the surgical ICU within 72 hours after discharge. The study was presented October 20…

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Editor's Note The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on October 18 announced the recall by Medtronic of certain lots of its Pipeline embolization device, Alligator retrieval device, and X-Celerator hydrophilic guidewire. The recall also includes the stylet containing UltraFlow flow directed micro catheters and Marathon flow directed micro catheters. The…

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Editor's Note Monitoring patients’ postoperative functional recovery using a commercially available, wireless activity tracker is feasible and strongly correlates with complications reported by patients, finds a study presented October 17 at the 2016 Clinical Congress of the American College of Surgeons. The median number of steps that patients took on…

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Editor's Note The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on October 14 categorized the recall by Leonhard Lang of its Skintact DF29N Multi-function Defibrillation Electrodes as Class I, the most serious. The electrode is being recalled because of a connector compatibility issue with the Welch Allyn automatic external defibrillator (AED), model…

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Editor's Note The addition of patient-generated wound photographs to existing data significantly improved diagnostic accuracy of surgical site infections (SSIs) and prevented overtreatment in this study. When photographs were added, overall diagnostic accuracy improved from 67% to 76%, and specificity increased from 77% to 92%, but sensitivity did not significantly…

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Editor's Note The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on October 13 updated its Safety Alert on the Stӧckert 3T Heater-Cooler System by LivaNova to provide new information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) about Mycobacterium chimaera infections associated with the use of the system in US patients…

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Recent outbreaks of deadly infections linked to flexible endoscopes have made headlines, and the Food and Drug Administration has issued strict guidelines for reprocessing these devices. However, cleaning and disinfection may not be effective under the recommended protocols, says Cori L. Ofstead, MSPH, epidemiologist and president and chief executive officer,…

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Patient satisfaction scores are more important than ever in light of value-based care and their influence on Medicare reimbursement. Employing top-notch surgeons, improving teamwork and communication, and minimizing case delays are some ways to help boost HCAHPS (Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems) survey scores. But healthcare providers…

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In the United States and globally, the use of reprocessed medical devices labeled and marketed by their original equipment manufacturers as “for single use only” has become commonplace. Large health systems have saved many millions of dollars annually and diverted many hundreds of tons of medical waste by using reprocessed…

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