Daily Tiered Huddles help prioritize and resolve OR problems
When you have a problem, are you empowered to solve it? What happens when staff encounter an obstacle? Cleveland Clinic’s Tiered Huddle process empowers all caregivers to see problems and tackle issues on their own or escalate them for assistance. The tiered huddles have energized teams to work across the…
Establishing quality standards for ERAS care elements
At Virginia Commonwealth University System (VCU Health) in Richmond, we are using quality standards to establish operational definitions for elements of Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS). This article describes what those standards are and how they are implemented. Previous articles in this series appeared in the October 2019 and November…
Analysis of OR efficiency in ASCs vs hospital outpatient departments
Editor's Note Ambulatory surgery center (ASC) outpatient procedures were more efficiently performed than those performed at a hospital outpatient department (HOP) in this study. Of 220 procedures included in the study (114 ASC, 106 HOP): mean turnover time was 29.8 minutes for HOP vs 24.5 for ASC ancillary time was…
Use of medical scribes improves workflow of surgeons, residents in an outpatient setting
Editor's Note Incorporating medical scribes into surgical practices to reduce time surgeons spend on patient documentation and managing electronic health records increases the number of patients seen by surgeons and residents in outpatient clinics, finds this study presented October 29 at the American College of Surgeons Clinical Congress 2019 in…
FDA clears Heartvista’s AI-assisted cardiac MRI tool
Editor's Note Heartvista (Los Altos, California) has obtained clearance from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for its artificial intelligence (AI)-assisted One Click autonomous MRI acquisition software for cardiac ischemia exams, the October 30 BioWorld MedTech reports. Integrated with existing MRI scanners, the software uses AI to guide image acquisition,…
Smartphone data helps surgeons understand their patients' postop recovery
Editor's Note Surgeons can better understand the effect of a patient's postoperative physical activity on their recovery by capturing passively-collected accelerometer data from their patients’ smartphones, finds this study presented October 28 at the American College of Surgeons Clinical Congress 2019 in San Francisco. Patients enrolled in the study downloaded…
Cholecystectomy tied to better outcomes when performed soon after admission
Editor's Note Delaying a cholecystectomy for acute cholecystitis more than 3 days after admission increased the rate of complications, hospital readmissions, and lengthened hospital stays, in this study presented October 30 at the American College of Surgeons Clinical Congress 2019 in San Francisco. Using 2012 to 2016 ACS National Surgical…
Joint Commission: Deadline approaching for submission of CY 2019 eCQM data
Editor's Note The Joint Commission on October 29 announced that the deadline for onboarding to the Direct Data Submission (DDS) Platform for submission of CY 2019 electronic clinical quality measures (eCQMs) is December 20. Organizations that submitted CY 2018 eCQMs through the DDS Platform do not need to be onboarded…
12-hour call shifts improve patient outcomes, lower costs
Editor's Note An acute-care surgery model that caps surgeon call shifts at 12 hours instead of 24 hours for covering surgical emergencies has led to shorter hospital stays, lower infection rates, and lower overall costs for patients with acute appendicitis, finds this study presented October 30 at the American College…
AI outperforms clinicians’ judgment in triaging postop patients to ICU
Editor's Note Artificial intelligence (AI) in the form of a machine-learned algorithm correctly triaged the vast majority of postoperative patients to the ICU, in this pilot study presented October 29 at the American College of Surgeons Clinical Congress 2019 in San Francisco. The algorithm included 87 clinical variables and 15…
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