Variation in postoperative outcomes across federally designated hospital star ratings

JAMA Surgery

2024-06-18

(Press-News.org) About The Study: Although Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) hospital star rating was associated with postoperative mortality, serious complications, and readmissions, there was wide variation in surgical outcomes within each star rating group. These findings highlight the limitations of the CMS hospital star rating system as a measure of surgical quality and should be a call for continued improvement of publicly reported hospital grade measures.

Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Adrian Diaz, M.D., M.P.H., email adrian.diaz@osumc.edu.

To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/

(doi:10.1001/jamasurg.2024.1582)

Editor’s Note: Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, conflict of interest and financial disclosures, and funding and support.

# # #

Embed this link to provide your readers free access to the full-text article This link will be live at the embargo time https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamasurgery/fullarticle/10.1001/jamasurg.2024.1582?guestAccessKey=c72bc5f7-bcaf-4213-9726-a42d20e0ec2e&utm_source=For_The_Media&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=ftm_links&utm_content=tfl&utm_term=061824

END

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Sepsis patients could get the right treatment faster, based on their genes

2024-06-18

Sepsis patients could be treated based on their immune system’s response to infection, not their symptoms. New research uncovers how different people respond to sepsis based on their genetic makeup, which could help identify who would benefit from certain treatments and lead to the development of targeted therapies. The team, from the Wellcome Sanger Institute, the University of Oxford, and collaborators, built on their previous work that identified different subgroups of patients with sepsis. They aimed to understand more about why sepsis response varies between patients and the different underlying immune response pathways. The new study, published today (18 June) in Cell Genomics, ...

Odors are encoded in rings in the brain of migratory locusts

2024-06-18

The migratory locust Locusta migratoria is an economically important crop pest that is said to have come to Egypt in the Old Testament as the eighth of the ten biblical plagues, "to devour all that plants that grow". The migratory locust is rarely found in Europe, but in Africa and Asia it not only causes millions of dollars’ worth of damage but also has a deadly impact on local people, threatening their food and their very existence. The locusts occur in two phases: as solitary animals and in swarms. The insects are most feared when they ...

New global research aims to improve survival rates for pancreatic cancer patients

2024-06-18

A new study published today in JAMA Network Open by an international cohort of researchers provides the latest data on the effectiveness of treating pancreatic cancer patients with chemotherapy (with or without radiation therapy) before surgery to remove a tumor. The study focuses specifically on pancreatic adenocarcinoma patients. The research found that after treatment and surgery, nearly five percent of patients had no detectable cancer cells left in the area where the tumor was, achieving a pathological complete response (pCR). “PCR means that the cancer has responded extremely well to the treatment, leaving no ...

Medication treatment for opioid use disorder offered at only a third of outpatient mental health facilities

2024-06-18

Only a third of outpatient community mental health treatment facilities in 20 states with the highest opioid related overdose deaths report offering medication treatment for opioid use disorders, suggesting efforts may be needed to strengthen such services, according to a new RAND study. Among the 450 clinics surveyed, factors that increased the likelihood that clinics would provide medication for opioid use disorders included being a certified behavioral health clinic and providing integrated mental and substance use disorder treatment. Researchers found that most clinics that did not offer medication treatment said they referred patients to other clinics for ...

Salk scientist Jesse Dixon named 2024 Pew Biomedical Scholar

2024-06-18

LA JOLLA (June 18, 2024)—Salk Institute Assistant Professor Jesse Dixon has been named a 2024 Pew Biomedical Scholar by The Pew Charitable Trusts. This honor provides funding to early-career investigators who demonstrate outstanding promise in science toward advancing human health. Dixon and the other 21 awardees will each receive $300,000 over four years to support their research. “Through his development and use of leading-edge genetic tools, Jesse has already made a major impact on how we study diseases such ...

Pew supports 22 researchers leading scientific innovation

2024-06-18

PHILADELPHIA—The Pew Charitable Trusts today announced the 22 researchers who have been selected to join the Pew Scholars Program in the Biomedical Sciences. These early-career scientists will receive four years of funding to explore some of the most pressing questions in human health and medicine. “Pew believes that supporting promising early-career researchers is key to scientific innovation, and for nearly 40 years our scholars have helped change the world—creating lifesaving therapies and responding to emerging health crises around the globe,” ...

Discovery of ‘new rules of the immune system’ could improve treatment of inflammatory diseases, say scientists.

2024-06-18

Scientists at the University of Cambridge have discovered that a type of white blood cell - called a regulatory T cell - exists as a single large population of cells that constantly move throughout the body looking for, and repairing, damaged tissue. This overturns the traditional thinking that regulatory T cells exist as multiple specialist populations that are restricted to specific parts of the body. The finding has implications for the treatment of many different diseases – because almost all diseases and injuries trigger the body’s immune system. Current anti-inflammatory drugs treat the whole ...

5 Pew-Stewart Scholars chosen to advance innovative cancer research

2024-06-18

PHILADEPHIA—The Pew Charitable Trusts and the Alexander and Margaret Stewart Trust announced today the 2024 class of the Pew-Stewart Scholars for Cancer Research, five early-career scientists who will each receive four-year grants to explore new avenues in cancer development, diagnosis, and treatment. This is the 11th year the Alexander and Margaret Stewart Trust has partnered with Pew to cultivate a legacy of cutting-edge cancer research. “Despite decades of groundbreaking research and innovative breakthroughs, millions of Americans are still all too familiar with the devastation and uncertainty of a cancer diagnosis,” ...

Pew funds 10 Latin American scientists conducting biomedical research

2024-06-18

PHILADELPHIA—The Pew Charitable Trusts today announced the 2024 class of the Pew Latin American Fellows Program in the Biomedical Sciences. The 10 postdoctoral fellows from six Latin American countries—Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Mexico, and Peru—will receive two years of funding to conduct research in laboratories across the United States. They will work under the mentorship of prominent biomedical scientists, including alumni from the Latin American fellows program and the Pew Scholars Program in the Biomedical Sciences. “The grave threats to human health over the past few years—from COVID-19 to growing rates of cancer in younger adults—underscore ...

Accelerating drug discovery with the CCDC, AWS, and Intel

2024-06-18

Thanks to the combined computing power of Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Intel, the CCDC announces that a potentially significant advancement in drug discovery has been achieved. A curated data set of protein structures from the Protein Data Bank (PDB) with predicted hydrogen positions is now available for download. This project was supported by an Intel RISE Technology Initiative contribution. Historically, collaborations with the pharmaceutical industry have enabled the development of reliable methods for interpreting interactions within protein binding sites using proprietary information not publicly available. Repeating these studies ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

UW-led research links wildfire smoke exposure with increased dementia risk

Most U.S. adults surveyed trust store-bought turkey is free of contaminants, despite research finding fecal bacteria in ground turkey

Vanderbilt authors find evidence that the hunger hormone leptin can direct neural development in a leptin receptor–independent manner

Clinical trial finds that adding the chemotherapy pill temozolomide to radiation therapy improves survival in adult patients with a slow-growing type of brain tumor