Jackie Syrop

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has recommended that health care facilities take steps to ensure appropriate safeguards are in place to reduce the risk of failure due to cyber attack.

Recent research from the University of Michigan Health Systems published in JAMA Internal Medicine found that hospitals with the highest rates of cardiac arrests are more likely to have the poorest survival rates for those cases.

University of Florida researchers analyzed anonymous network utilization records for workstations in the emergency department (ED) at one academic medical center for 15 days, and after comparing the data to ED work index data from hospital information systems, they found that health care workers spent a substantial amount of staff time on Facebook.

The largest study to date on reducing rates of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infections in ICU patients found that bloodstream infections in these patients can be reduced by more than 40 percent through universal decolonization practices.

The FDA approved Prothrombin Complex Concentrate (Kcentra), a first-in-class treatment for urgent vitamin K antagonist (VKA) anticoagulation reversal in adults with acute major bleeding.

Miscommunication is a frequently cited cause of preventable medical error, A new study finds that ambient background noise, whether it is loud equipment, talk among team members, or music, is a patient and surgical safety factor that can affect auditory processing among surgeons and surgical team members in the operating room (OR).

Researchers at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) have published a study in Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology's May 2013 issue showing that copper surfaces in intensive care unit (ICU) rooms reduced health-acquired infections (HAIs) by 60 percent.

A statewide neonatal screening program in New Jersey designed to detect critical congenital heart defects (CCHDs) using pulse oximetry has been shown to save lives while putting little burden on hospital staff, according to a report from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has issued a proposed rule, published in the Federal Register on May 10, 2013, to increase payments to US acute care hospitals by almost $27 million in fiscal year 2014.

The Joint Commission recently issued important recommendations to tackle the problem of medical device "alarm fatigue" in hospitals and its associated safety concerns.