Surgery/Specialties Editor's Note Cardinal Health is voluntarily recalling 9.1 million potentially contaminated surgical gowns, 7.7 million of which were distributed to 2,807 facilities across the country, the January 22 Becker’s Hospital Review reports. The company took the action after learning of unsanitary environmental conditions at a plant in China that manufacturers…
Editor's Note Medicare may be overpaying surgeons for postoperative care they provide to patients, according to a new Rand Corporation analysis in the January 23 New England Journal of Medicine. The authors of the analysis suggest that federal officials should incorporate ways to more objectively measure the amount of postoperative…
Editor's Note The timing of total knee arthroplasty (TKA) is important to optimize its benefits, but 90% of patients are waiting too long to have it and getting less benefits, and some 25% of patients are having it prematurely when the benefits are minimal, this study finds. Of 3,417 knees…
Editor's Note The effectiveness of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) in managing pain, healing, and recovery after bone fracture depends on when you take them, this study from McGill University finds. The researchers found that NSAIDs are most effective in promoting postoperative healing when taken during the active phase of the…
Editor's Note The Food & Drug Administration (FDA) on January 16 announced that Cardinal Health has alerted it customers to potential quality issues affecting some of its Level 3 surgical gowns and PreSource procedural packs that contain the gowns. Cardinal Health and the FDA recommend that customers immediately discontinue use…
Editor's Note In this article, the American College of Surgeons and the Johns Hopkins Medicine Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality, which launched the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) Safety Program for Improving Surgical Care and Recovery (ISCR) in 2016, announce that they are expanding the scope…
Editor's Note A virtual system for in-home physical therapy (PT) provided similar patient outcomes after total knee arthroplasty (TKA), with lower costs than traditional in-person PT, finds this study. A total of 306 TKA patients were randomly assigned to have traditional PT, either at home or at clinic visits, or…
Editor's Note Reproductive hazards are present in the OR and may contribute to pregnancy complications and infertility in female surgeons, this review finds. Hazards include radiation, surgical smoke, working conditions, sharps injuries, anesthetic gases, and intraoperative use of toxic agents. Studies comparing female surgeons with the general population show increased…
Editor's Note The safety of bariatric surgery has improved since 1993, and there has been a growth in the number of bariatric procedures performed, this study finds. However, utilization has only marginally increased. Of an estimated 1,903,273 patients who had bariatric surgery between 1993 and 2016, the mean age was…
Editor's Note This study finds that robotic surgery increased dramatically from 2012 to 2018 and has diffused widely across a broad range of common procedures. This trend was associated with a decrease in the use of open and laparoscopic minimally invasive procedures. In this analysis of 169,404 patients in 73…
