1. While teaching hospitals have higher mortality rates than non-teaching hospitals, they also perform riskier procedures on patients who often have pre-existing conditions, according to a study in Spine.
2. Hospitals vary greatly in their use of surveillance, testing and infection control strategies for Clostridium difficile, according to a study in the American Journal of Infection Control.
3. There is wide variation in wound classification between surgeons, operating room nurses and National Surgical Quality Improvement Program reviewers, according to a study in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons.
4. Massachusetts hospitals that were publicly identified as having higher-than-expected mortality rates for certain heart patients may subsequently avoid high-risk patients, according to a study in Journal of the American College of Cardiology: Cardiovascular Interventions.
5. Hospitals with a higher teaching intensity showed higher readmission and lower mortality rates than hospitals at lower teaching intensities, according to a study in Medical Care.
6. Ventilator-associated pneumonia is more common in small community hospitals than in medium and large community hospitals, according to a study in Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology.
7. There are substantial state-to-state variations in the incidence of elective versus emergent bowel surgery, according to a study in the Journal of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery.
