Articles
Higher Hospital Readmissions Aren't Linked To Fewer Deaths
February 13, 2013 9:24 am | by Jordan Rau | CommentsA study published Tuesday finds that there's no major link between hospitals with high readmissions and those with low mortality rates. The findings come as Medicare ramps up financial penalties for hospitals with higher readmission rates in an effort to improve quality and contain costs.
How Much Does Surgery Cost? Good Luck Finding Out
February 12, 2013 9:27 am | by Steve James | CommentsResearchers at the University of Iowa set out to see if they could learn, and then compare, the price of a common procedure -- hip replacement -- at hospitals across the United States. Of those they surveyed, only 16 percent could immediately provide a complete price, including the doctor's fees and hospital costs, for the procedure. And 47 percent of the hospitals came up with a figure only after health care providers were separately contacted.
Surgery Plus tPA Boosts ICH Outcomes
February 11, 2013 9:33 am | by Chris Kaiser | CommentsA minimally invasive procedure paired with tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) to remove blood clots in brain tissue after hemorrhagic stroke appears safe and effective, and may even lead to cost savings, a phase II trial suggested.
Keys to Successful Surgical Quality Improvement
February 8, 2013 9:18 am | by Betty Hintch | CommentsSaint Francis Hospital and Medical Center’s team approach to surgical quality improvement resulted in a 62 percent reduction in catheter-associated urinary tract infections.
Blood In, Blood Out
February 6, 2013 9:35 am | by David Mantey, Executive Editor, PD&D | CommentsA new device is designed to recover blood spilled during open-heart and major trauma surgery and concentrate the blood cells for transfusion back to the patient.
Woman's Radical Procedure Transforms Liver Into Super Organ
February 5, 2013 9:11 am | by Sydney Lupkin | CommentsAfter years of alternately ignoring the symptoms and getting misdiagnosed with ailments such as irritable bowel syndrome, a doctor in Philadelphia finally told Allison Sarver she had chronic pancreatitis. Furthermore, Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore had been performing a surgery on some of their patients that involved removing the entire pancreas, extracting its insulin-producing cells -- called islets -- and moving them to the patient's liver.
Hospitalist Survey: Patient Loads Often At Unsafe Levels
February 4, 2013 9:40 am | by Alvin Tran | CommentsNearly forty percent of hospital-based general practitioners who are responsible for overseeing patients’ care say they juggle unsafe patient workloads at least once a week, according to a study published Monday as a research letter in JAMA Internal Medicine.
High-Risk Lung Cancer Criteria Questioned
February 1, 2013 2:25 pm | by Crystal Phend | CommentsHigh-risk criteria in lung cancer haven't been picking out truly higher-risk patients and instead may be unnecessarily keeping some from more complete resection, a study suggested. There was no difference in surgical complications, mortality, and final pathology between patients who met the major criteria -- lung function or diffusion capacity half of normal or worse -- to be considered "high risk" and those who didn't.
Spine Surgery Safety Not Seasonal
February 1, 2013 9:14 am | by Kathleen Struck | CommentsThe storied "July effect" that new residents and fellows have on patient outcomes in teaching hospitals is negligible in spinal surgery patients, researchers found. A retrospective review of nearly 970,000 admissions over 8 years for spinal surgery showed little difference between mortality rates during July in teaching hospitals compared with other months.
Nonsurgical Mitral Valve Placement Doable
January 30, 2013 9:03 am | by Crystal Phend | CommentsPercutaneous mitral valve replacement may be on the horizon, first-in-man results with the transcatheter CardiAQ valve suggest. Compassionate use in an 88-year-old man with class IV heart failure and severe symptomatic mitral regurgitation yielded good valvular function on postoperative transesophageal and 3-dimensional echo, with little paravalvular leak.
Good Showing For Robotics In Gastric Cancer
January 25, 2013 6:28 pm | by Charles Bankhead, Staff Writer, MedPage Today | CommentsPatients with non-metastatic gastric cancer had similar survival and other outcomes following robotic or conventional laparoscopic gastrectomy, according to a large retrospective series from Korea. Both surgical techniques led to a five-year survival of 94 percent and disease-free survival (DFS) of 92 percent.
Surgery Improves Survival With GI Stromal Tumors
January 25, 2013 11:42 am | by Cole Petrochko, Staff Writer, MedPage Today | CommentsImatinib therapy with surgical removal of residual tumors outperformed imatinib therapy alone among patients with recurrent and metastatic gastrointestinal stromal tumors
Outcomes Of Attending Surgeons After Overnight Trauma Shifts
January 22, 2013 12:33 pm | CommentsBased on their findings, the authors concluded that performance of general surgery operations the day after an overnight in-hospital trauma shift did not affect complication rates or readmission rates. At this time, there is no compelling evidence to mandate work-hour restrictions for attending general surgeons.
Checklists May Improve 'Crisis' Care in the OR
January 18, 2013 8:58 am | by Kristina Fiore | CommentsUsing a checklist helped assure compliance with processes set up to handle a crisis situation -- such as a cardiac arrest or massive hemorrhage -- in the operating room, researchers found. Teams using checklists were 75-percent less likely to miss a critical step in resolving a simulated crisis than teams that relied on memory to recall what they should do.
Biomarkers May Signal Early Transplant Rejection
January 16, 2013 10:32 am | by Ravi Parikh | CommentsResearchers have discovered a set of biomarkers that could detect early signs of chronic heart transplant rejection — a process that is often undetectable until function of the heart has been irreversibly compromised. The discovery of such short-term markers provides an opportunity to intervene upon a recipient’s transplanted heart before failure occurs.
