Surgery/Specialties 
Editor's Note Thirty-day data from the 225-patient LUCY (Evaluation of FemaLes who are Underrepresented Candidates for Abdominal Aortic AneurYsm Repair) Study showed that at least 28% more women became eligible for minimally invasive endovascular abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) repair when using Endologix’s (Irvine, California) Ovation abdominal stent graft system, according…
Editor's Note Ketamine does not decrease delirium or lower levels of pain in older adults after major surgery and might cause harm by inducing hallucinations and nightmares, this study finds. A total of 672 patients were randomly assigned to a placebo group (222 patients), a 0.5 mg/kg ketamine group (227),…
Editor's Note According to statistics from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), in 2014, 17.2 million hospital visits (inpatient and outpatient) included surgical procedures. More than half (57.8%) occurred in a hospital-owned outpatient surgery setting, and the remaining (42.2%) were inpatient. Private insurance was the primary payer for…
Editor's Note The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on May 23 identified the recall by Abbott-Thoratec (Pleasanton, California) of its HeartMate II Left Ventricular Assist (LVAS) Pocket System Controller as Class I, the most serious. Abbott-Thoratec has receives 70 reports of incidents in which the controller malfunctions after an exchange,…
Editor's Note The Food and Drug Administration on May 16 announced the recall by Abbott of specific lots of three coronary dilation and balloon catheters: NC Trek RX Coronary Dilation Catheter NC Traveler Coronary Dilation Catheter NC Tenku RX PTCA Balloon Catheter. The affected lots were manufactured between January 2015…
Editor's Note Temperatures above 90o F were associated with a 28.9% increase in odds for surgical site infections (SSIs) compared to temperatures less than 40o F in this study. Analyzing data on millions of patients in the National Inpatient Sample database from 1998 to 2011, researchers found that SSIs were seasonal, with…
Accurate OR case scheduling is a key performance indicator that is challenging to manage. The published literature often focuses on scheduling algorithms using historical data, the surgeon’s own estimate, or a mix of similar procedures. This mathematical approach neglects the cultural, economic, behavioral, and process challenges that impact attempts to…
Fine-tuning physician preference cards to reduce instrument use and sterilization is a well-known way to cut costs, but one that is often hard to implement. At Bassett Healthcare (Cooperstown, New York), we had success with a simple intervention involving collaboration with nearly 50 surgeons across multiple departments. We reviewed more…
Editor's Note A mandatory change from surgical skull caps to bouffant caps in the OR did not reduce surgical site infections (SSIs), this study finds. In this analysis of 15,000 class I (clean) surgical procedures performed 13 months before and 13 months after surgical skull caps were banned at a…
Editor's Note After emergency general surgery, frailty is associated with increased rates of mortality, discharge to an institution, and resource use, this Canadian study finds. Of 77,184 patients analyzed, 19,779 were frail. Death within 1 year of surgery occurred in 33.5% of frail patients, compared with 19.8% of nonfrail patients. Risk…
