Enterococci are an increasingly common cause of urinary tract infections (UTI) and asymptomatic bacteriuria (ABU) in hospitalized patients. Despite the publication of guidelines for appropriate antibiotic use, many patients are inappropriately prescribed antimicrobials for ABU. In this month’s issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, Lin et al conducted a retrospective medical record review from two academic teaching hospitals. The authors sought to describe clinical outcomes when Enterococcus was found in the urine, and to investigate the incidence of inappropriate treatment for enterococcal ABU.
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With as little fanfare in its dissolution as it evoked during its ten-year existence, the Hospital Quality Alliance (HQA) in December wrapped up its efforts to advance public reporting for hospital care.  By informing patient and family decisions regarding the quality of their hospital care, the HQA was the nation’s first and foremost organization for developing and reporting “apples-to-apples” quality information. 
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The threshold at which postoperative red blood cell transfusion is warranted for patients with cardiac disease remains controversial. While the hazards associated with transfusions are well known to the modern-day intensivist, some have proposed that transfusions improve functional recovery for elderly surgical patients, and prevent cardiovascular events.  Jeffrey Carson, MD, and the Functional Outcomes in Cardiovascular Patients Undergoing Surgical Hip Repair (FOCUS) investigators conducted a randomized trial to test the hypothesis that morbidity and mortality rates would be reduced when high-risk surgical patients (elective hip surgery) were transfused to a hemoglobin level of 10 g/dL (liberal strategy group) versus 8 g/dL (restrictive strategy group).
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Venous thromboembolism (VTE) is one of the costliest and most common preventable causes of death in the intensive care unit (ICU). In this month’s issue of Chest, Kwok Ho and colleagues utilized data from 134 ICUs in Australia and New Zealand to assess the association between omission of early thromboprophylaxis (>24 hours) after ICU admission and mortality.
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New-onset atrial fibrillation (AF) is a recognized complication of severe sepsis and may be associated with adverse outcomes such as stroke or death. In this month’s issues of the Journal of the American Medical Association, Walkey et al investigated the association of severe sepsis and new-onset AF with the adverse outcomes of in-hospital mortality and in-hospital ischemic stroke.
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