Editor's Note The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced on June 12 that it would postpone the planned July update to its overall Hospital Quality Star Ratings. CMS says the delay will allow time for more analysis of the effects of changes made to some of the measures…

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Editor's Note In this study, the use of radial-artery grafts for coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) resulted in a lower rate of cardiac adverse events and a higher rate of patency at 5 years than saphenous-vein grafts. A total of 1,036 patients (534 radial artery, 502 saphenous vein) from six…

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The Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI) has released a sterilization standard on quality management for central service (CS) sterile processing. The new standard, ANSI/AAMI ST90: 2017 Processing of Health Care Products: Quality Management Systems for Processing in Health Care Facilities, provides guidelines to support quality management systems…

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Editor's Note A change of policy to allow the practice of overlapping surgery for urgent neurosurgical procedures in a tertiary care, safety-net hospital significantly reduced length of stay, in this study presented May 1 at the American Association of Neurological Surgeons in New Orleans. Of 452 cases analyzed (201 in…

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Editor's Note The submission deadline for all Ambulatory Surgery Center Quality Reporting (ASCQR) program web-based measures is May 15, 2018, the Ambulatory Surgery Center Association reported on April 24. ASC-8: Influenza Vaccination Coverage among Healthcare Personnel is reported through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Healthcare Safety Network.…

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Editor's Note One-third of postoperative readmissions are unlikely to reflect problems with surgical quality, this study finds. Readmissions with diagnoses that were considered associated with surgical quality accounted for 25,521 of 39,664 readmissions (64%) at a VA medical center between October 1, 2007 and September 30, 2014. The proportion of…

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Editor's Note In this study, a significant mismatch was found between parents’ and pediatric surgeons’ expectations on the role of the surgeon on the day of surgery, with parents expecting more direct involvement by the attending surgeon. A total of 110 parents and 84 pediatric surgeons and surgical residents completed…

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Creating a positive patient experience creates patient satisfaction, which can affect reimbursement. But it’s not just business that calls many OR leaders to focus on patient experience. Having been a patient who has had surgery, it’s near and dear to my heart,” says Carol Pehotsky, DNP, RN, NEA-BC, ACNS-BC, CPAN,…

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Editor's Note All eligible Medicare-certified ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs) that want to avoid future penalties must complete a new electronic form by April 14 via the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Healthcare Safety Network website in order to report on ASC-8: Influenza Vaccination Coverage among Healthcare Personnel, the Ambulatory…

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Editor's Note The poor design of electronic health records (EHRs) poses challenges for primary care practices to generate the required reports for federal value-based payment programs, this study finds. An analysis of survey responses from 1,492 practices in 12 states, found that the reports generated for meaningful-use participation, which requires…

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