January 8, 2018 | Today’s News

Congress to consider $2 billion increase in NIH funding

An article in The New York Times reports that the U.S. Congress is considering a $2 billion increase to the budget of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The writer notes that the bipartisan proposal is in direct opposition to funding cuts proposed by President Donald J. Trump.

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Report finds that physicians add $2.3 trillion to U.S. economy

A report released by the American Medical Association estimates that physicians generate $2.3 trillion per year in the U.S. economy and support the employment of nearly 12.6 million people. The report calculates the direct and indirect economic impact of physicians. Other findings include the following:

• Physicians supported an average of 182,370 total jobs at the individual state level, including their own and other direct positions, as well as indirect employment.
• The average state-level value of physician-supported wages and benefits was $16.7 billion.
• Nationally, physicians supported $92.9 billion in state and local tax revenues during 2015.

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Read the report (PDF)…

Two studies published in the January issue of the Journal of Orthopaedic Trauma examine predictive models for mortality after hip fracture surgery. In the first, researchers reviewed data on 535,475 hip fracture patients older than 50 years of age from the National Inpatient Sample database, and identified the following eight essential predictors for mortality: age, timing of surgery, male sex, congestive heart failure, pulmonary circulation disease, renal failure, weight loss, and fluid and electrolyte disorders.

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In the second study, conducted in the Netherlands, the authors reviewed data on 1,050 consecutive patients who underwent hip fracture surgery and identified the following nine predictors for 30-day mortality: age ≥85 years, in-hospital fracture, signs of malnutrition, myocardial infarction, congestive heart failure, current pneumonia, renal failure, malignancy, and serum urea >9 mmol/L.

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Data from a study conducted in Australia and published online in the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research suggest that more than 80 percent of bone loss during menopause may be cortical. Researchers used high-resolution peripheral quantitative computed tomography and StrAx software to quantify distal tibial and distal radial microstructure among 199 monozygotic and 125 dizygotic twin pairs, aged 25 to 75 years. Over a mean 3.1-year follow-up (range: 1.5 to 4.5 years), they found that annual increases in tibial cortical porosity accelerated. The researchers noted that the greatest bone loss—of which 80 percent was cortical—occurred in women transitioning from perimenopause to postmenopause. They also note that more than 90 percent of appendicular bone loss occurred during and after menopause.

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A study published online in the journal JAMA Surgery suggests that implementation of an interdisciplinary perioperative care intervention may help reduce complications for surgical patients. Members of the research team assessed clinical outcomes for older adults who underwent elective abdominal surgery prior to (n = 143) and following implementation (n = 183) of the Perioperative Optimization of Senior Health (POSH) quality improvement initiative. They found that, despite a higher mean age and morbidity burden, patients in the POSH intervention cohort had fewer complications, shorter hospitalizations, more frequent discharge to home, and fewer readmissions than patients in the control cohort.

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Modern Healthcare reports that The Joint Commission (TJC) will now cite healthcare organizations if surveyors witness an employee who fails to follow correct hand hygiene guidelines. TJC already requires healthcare organizations to have a hand hygiene program and to demonstrate improvements in compliance. Poor hand hygiene of healthcare employees is considered by many experts to be a major contributor to hospital-acquired infections (HAIs). The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has estimated that approximately 722,000 HAIs occurred in the U.S. during 2011, with about 75,000 associated inpatient deaths.

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View the TJC 2018 National Patient Safety Goals…

Last call: Committee positions closing soon

A number of openings on the AAOS Committee Appointment Program website are closing Jan 12, 2018. Act now to apply for the following positions:

• Committee on Ethics and Outside Interests (two members)
• Instructional Course Committees
  • Adult Reconstruction Knee (one member)
  • Foot and Ankle (chair)
  • Hand and Wrist (chair)
  • Pediatrics (chair)
  • Practice Management (chair)
  • Shoulder and Elbow (chair, one member)
  • Spine (chair)
  • Sports Medicine and Arthroscopy (chair)
  • Tumor (chair)
• Program Committees
  • Adult Reconstruction Knee (one member)
  • Hand & Wrist (one member)
  • Practice Management/Rehabilitation (two members)
  • Shoulder & Elbow (one member)

Learn more and submit your application…  (member login required)