Editor's Note Hospitals participating in Medicare’s Comprehensive Care for Joint Replacement model or its Bundled Payments for Care Improvement initiative for lower extremity joint replacement episodes report reducing skilled nursing facility (SNF) use and improving care coordination, in this survey. Interviews of executives or administrators in each of 22 hospitals…

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Editor's Note A new enhanced recovery after surgery (ERAS) pathway has been developed and implemented at the University of Alabama at Birmingham to enhance recovery after cesarean delivery. Updated guidelines for the ERAS pathway include: Intake of water and clear sports drinks before surgery to keep mother hydrated. Walking after…

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Editor's Note The Joint Commission announced on July 25 that its Direct Data Submission (DDS) platform is now available for submission of CY 2018 electronic clinical quality measure (eCQM) data and future submissions. For CY 2018, there are now two eCQM data submission methods for accredited hospitals with ORYX eCQM…

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Editor's Note After implementing two presurgery checklists from the American College of Surgeons Strong for Surgery (S4S) program, most diabetic patients met blood sugar control recommendations, and many patients quit smoking before surgery. Use of the checklists along with an Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS) approach resulted in decreased length…

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Editor's Note In high-risk hip fracture patients, an Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS) program lowers mortality rates, reduces hospital stays, and results in fewer complications, finds this study presented July 23 at the American College of Surgeons 2018 Quality and Safety Conference in Orlando, Florida. Results showed that ERAS: cut…

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Editor's Note During a 5-year quality improvement project, an academic medical center’s bariatric surgery program lowered its rates of postoperative complications and readmissions, surgical site infections (SSIs) and urinary tract infections (UTIs), and bleeding despite doubling its surgical volume, finds this study presented July 23 at the American College of…

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Editor's Note Frailty posed a higher risk of mortality in younger coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) patients than older patients, this Canadian study finds. In this analysis of 40,083 patients who underwent CABG surgery between 2008 and 2015, researchers found that frailty was associated with poor early and long-term postoperative…

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Value-based payment (VBP) models of patient care have not been shown to effectively reduce healthcare costs, according to a recent report from the Healthcare Financial Management Association (HFMA). But that conclusion comes with several caveats, such as: • It’s too soon to have data on programs like the Medicare Shared…

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Editor's Note Preventability of readmissions changes with time, this study finds. Readmissions within the first week after discharge were more likely to be preventable by hospital-based interventions, whereas later readmissions were less likely to be preventable and more amenable to ambulatory and home-based interventions. This analysis of 822 patients readmitted…

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Editor's Note Surgeon-reported complications in morbidity and mortality (M&M) conferences and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) Patient Safety Indicators (PSIs) are complementary approaches for identifying adverse events and informing quality improvement efforts, this study finds. Of 6,563 surgical hospitalizations analyzed, 647 (9.9%) had at least one complication…

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