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Early data suggest new protocol to risk-stratify chest pain patients, potentially preserving resources without compromising safety
Emergency providers are accustomed to seeing patients with chest pain. In fact, it is the second most common complaint in the ED. However, while more than half of these patients are either admitted or placed in an observation unit for rounds of expensive tests, a cardiac cause is ruled out most of the time.
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Nurses text, send images from the OR with new app
Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children in Orlando, FL, uses a new app that feeds information from the operating room directly to the smartphones of a patient’s family and loved ones. It’s called EASE, which stands for Electronic Access to Surgical Events.
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Study: Minimally invasive surgery could lower healthcare costs by hundreds of millions a year
A new analysis of surgical outcomes nationwide concludes that more use of minimally invasive surgery for certain common procedures can dramatically reduce postoperative complications and shave hundreds of millions of dollars off the nation’s healthcare bill.
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One year after surgery, preoperative program to quit smoking still shows benefits
Patients receiving a brief intervention to help them quit smoking before surgery are more likely to be nonsmokers at one-year follow-up, reports a study in Anesthesia & Analgesia.
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Administering lorazepam for patients receiving general anesthesia questioned
Although sedatives often are administered before surgery, a randomized trial finds that among patients undergoing elective surgery under general anesthesia, receiving the sedative lorazepam before surgery, compared with placebo or no premedication, did not improve the self-reported patient experience the day after surgery, but was associated with longer time until extubation and a lower rate of early cognitive recovery, according to a study published in the March 3 issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association.
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Can you offer total hips and knees in 23 hours? Yes!
Start posting patients for hip replacements and send them home in less than 24 hours directly from your surgery center. No 72-hour-stay facility is needed.
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Day surgery patients registered at the bedside
At Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta at Egleston, patient access recently switched to bedside registration at the hospital’s 30-room day surgery department.
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Evidence of economic burden of disparate care for minorities continues to grow
A recent tragic case involving informed consent obtained from parents with limited English proficiency led to a successful lawsuit against the hospital. Eliminating health disparities for minorities would have reduced direct medical care expenditures by $229.4 billion for the years 2003-2006, according to a 2011 study. “If we don’t get a handle on health disparities, the implications are far bigger than social justice,” says LaVeist, the study’s lead author.
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System made changes to stop ‘no authorizations’
Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare made changes to prevent clinically related denials.
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If they’re so difficult to reprocess, why are duodenoscopes approved for surgery?
With all of the difficulties in cleaning duodenoscopes, and the potential for outbreaks of carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae, some outpatient surgery managers are questioning why these scopes are approved by the Food and Drug Administration. However, the benefits outweigh the risks, some sources say.