In the News
CMS gives hospitals star ratings for overall care, expands bundled payments
The new Overall Hospital Quality Star Rating summarizes data from existing publicly reported quality measures into a single star rating for each hospital on the Hospital Compare website, while the proposed expansion of the bundled payment program includes new or changed bundles for cardiac care, hip surgery, and cardiac rehabilitation.
Five days of antibiotics for CAP worked as well as physician-directed therapy
A control group took antibiotics for a median of 10 days, compared to 5 in the intervention group. In an intention-to-treat analysis, clinical success rates were similar between groups at day 10 and day 30.
Higher-intensity care setting may not be associated with early survival in acute heart failure patients
Survival was higher at 1 year among those initially admitted to the ICU versus the wards, but no survival difference was seen between low-risk patients admitted to the wards versus discharged from the ED, a study found.
New score for predicting inpatient mortality after acute myocardial infarction
Factors independently associated with inpatient mortality after acute myocardial infarction included age, heart rate, systolic blood pressure, presentation after cardiac arrest, presentation in cardiogenic shock, presentation in heart failure, presentation with ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction, creatinine clearance, and troponin ratio.
New safety labels added to entire class of fluoroquinolones
Oral and injectable fluoroquinolones are associated with side effects involving tendons, muscles, joints, nerves, and the central nervous system, an FDA safety review found. These side effects may occur hours to weeks after use and can be permanent.
And the winner is …
ACP Hospitalist Weekly has tallied the voting from its latest cartoon contest, where readers are invited to match wits against their peers to provide the most original and amusing caption.