Editor's Note The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services on December 9 announced that 758 hospitals will have a 1% reduction in Medicare payments for missing targets for hospital-acquired conditions. More than half (54%) of the hospitals were also penalized last year. Penalties are expected to total $364 million. Among…
Editor's Note The Food and Drug Administration on December 11 announced that Boston Scientific (Marlborough, Massachusetts) recalled its Chariot Guiding Sheath because of the risk of shaft separation. The company received 14 complaints of shaft separation, four of which involved separation of the distal shaft. The Sheath is used to…
Editor's Note The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) on December 10 updated its Physician and Hospital Compare websites to include new data and quality measures. Among the additions: performance scores on preventive care, diabetes, cardiovascular care, and patient safety for approximately 275 group practices and 40,000 individual healthcare…
Editor's Note Cardiac complications are the leading cause of death within 30 days after noncardiac surgery. This article reviews what is known about perioperative cardiac complications (ie, from induction of anesthesia to within 30 days after surgery), preoperative methods of predicting complications, perioperative cardiac interventions, and postoperative monitoring. The researchers…
Editor's Note Overall US spending on healthcare grew 5.3%, and per-capita spending grew 4.5% in 2014, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid reports. The share of gross domestic product allotted to healthcare spending was 17.5%, up from 17.3% in 2013. The increase in spending was primarily driven by coverage expansion…
Editor's Note In this study, a supplemental alert for severe intraoperative hypotension did not reduce the duration of hypotension or hospitalization. Because intraoperative hypotension is associated with complications that might be ameliorated by earlier intervention, researchers randomized 1,598 patients to hypotension alerts and 1,567 to no alerts. The median time…
Editor's Note The Food and Drug Administration on December 7 categorized the recall of Inspirtion LS, 5i, and 7i ventilator systems manufactured before January 21, 2015, by eVent Medical (Lake Forest, California) as Class I, the most serious. The recall was initiated because a faulty switch on the ventilators’ power…
Editor's Note The Leapfrog Group’s annual awards on hospital quality and patient safety recognized 98 top facilities for 2015. Out of the 98 facilities honored, 12 were children’s hospitals, 24 were rural hospitals, and 63 were urban hospitals. California, Massachusetts, and Maine had the most top hospitals on the list.…
Editor's Note Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists (CRNAs) are the main anesthesia providers ensuring patient access to anesthesia care in lower-income areas where patients are more likely to be uninsured, unemployed, and/or Medicaid eligible, this study finds. Anesthesiologists are more closely aligned with counties that have higher income populations. Lessening restrictions…
Editor's Note Surgical unit safety culture was significantly associated with lower colon surgical site infection (SSI) rates in this study led by Martin A. Makary, MD, MPH, professor of surgery, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore. Dimensions of safety culture that were linked with lower SSI rates, included: teamwork across units organizational…
